The Interns' Guide: Happy Hour Favorites

Welcome to Washington: You've found a new suit for work, figured out how to get to the office on Metro, and formed a general idea of where your desk is. Now it's time for the important work: figuring out where to go for happy hour.

Happy hour is more than something to do before going home. It provides a chance to get to know your coworkers, an opportunity to meet other newcomers and do a little networking, and, most importantly, a way to have fun while stretching your budget with cheap food and drinks.

When someone tells you that Thursday is the new Friday, you should believe it -- it's the best night of the week for deals.

Over the last few years, the Front Page's Thursday night happy hour has become a primary destination for Washington's young and hungry. The formula is simple: cheap bottles of beer and a free taco bar. Starting at 5, twentysomethings fill the narrow aisles and doorways. With all the meeting and greeting going on around the bar, consider this the intern version of the networking cocktail hour. Plan on sticking around for a while -- the dance floor gets going after 7.

A few blocks away, Lucky Bar is also teeming on Thursdays. In the '90s, Lucky created a huge market with its Dollar Bud Night; and even though prices have risen to $2 per bottle, all three floors are full of bike messengers, office workers and groups of friends drinking St. Louis's finest -- even on the makeshift dance floor.

The regular happy hour specials at Capitol Hill's Pour House aren't much to shout about ($2.50 Pour House Amber drafts and $3 rail drinks), but crowds descend on Thursday to try and beat the clock during the Bud and Bud Light countdown: Bottles are $1 from 4 to 8, $2 from 8 to midnight, and $3 from midnight until close.

It's not easy to make a splash on the Hill's crowded happy hour scene, but Barracks Row's Tapatinis has found a way to do it. Already offering deep discounts from 5 to 8 Monday through Friday with $4 Absolut drinks on Monday, $5 top-shelf cocktails on Thursday and $2 wine for women on Wednesday, the bar added free drinks on Thursday. After 9 p.m., the big-name liquor distributor of the week gives away its product while supplies last. There's no catch -- ask your bartender for your free drink and you may be rewarded with Belvedere vodka, Jack Daniels or Remy Martin cognac. Just remember to tip well.

Competing for a captive audience, bars on Capitol Hill entice interns with some of the best food and drink deals to be found, no matter what day of the week it is. The Capitol Lounge, a haven for staffers of all ages, offers food specials three nights a week, including Tuesday's crowded 10-cent wing night and mini sloppy Joes on Wednesday. (Discounted drinks are available Monday through Friday.) Around the corner at Tortilla Coast, 50-cent beef tacos are served up on Tuesday nights, and margarita and beer specials are welcomed by full houses throughout the week. Grateful office workers flock to the Hawk and Dove for $1.50 Coors Light beers (4-close), $2.25 Yuengling drafts (6 to 10) and free snacks, offered every weekday from 4 to 7, as well as a $3.50 "pint of the night" special from 4 till close.

When the weather's nice, the best place to be is on the Senate side, where the Union Pub's large covered patio is the perfect place to hunker down for one of the myriad specials: Wednesday has $1.50 drafts, Thursday brings discounts on frozen margaritas, and from 5 to 7 on Tuesdays, women receive free beers and rail drinks.

It's not just the Hill that's crawling with happy hour spots. Recessions has made its mark on busy L Street with one of the biggest happy hours in town. Weekdays from 5 to 8, specials at the windowless basement bar include jumbo 28-ounce draft beers for $2.75, or, for mere mortals, $2 domestic bottles; $2.50 rail drinks and a selection of $2.50 appetizers. Next door, Mackey's Public House offers $2.25 drafts, a convivial atmosphere and (more importantly) outdoor seating.

Both the Exchange and the Bottom Line draw more than twentysomethings seeking cheap drinks, though the specials are certainly an attraction. The Bottom Line welcomes the weekend with $1 beers on Friday, which go well with $3 baskets of wings (offered $4 to close) in the clubby bar. The Exchange has rotating beer and appetizer specials (including 60-cent tavern burgers), but the best part is the extra-wide sidewalk patio that has room for dozens of just-out-of-work groups, many still wearing badges from the nearby government offices.

In Foggy Bottom, two very different bars offer very different happy hours. McFadden's -- popular with baseball-capped college students and women wearing tight, sparkly shirts -- has thrifty specials like half-priced drafts on Wednesdays, $2 Coronas on Thursdays and $2 Budweiser bottles on Friday. The 51st State Tavern, which aspires to be an Irish-influenced neighborhood tavern, has $2.50 beers until 7 every day, plus several night-long specials, including $3 Yuenglings all night on Thursday. (The 10-cent wings on Tuesdays are worth repeat visits.)

What goes great with $3 beers and glasses of sangria? How about free pizza? Every day from 5 to 7, Ella's Wood Fired Pizza puts complimentary mini pies out on a counter near the bar, where professional-looking crowds descend like birds of prey. While more pizza arrives every 15 to 20 minutes, you won't fill up -- but you'll appreciate the snacks.

Adams Mill Bar and Grill and Tom Tom have become favorites of kickball teams as well as the general population, and it's easy to see why: Adams Mill has $1 beers every weekday from 4 to 7, plus a patio filled with chairs and picnic tables, while Tom Tom's $3 beer or rail drink deals extend until 9, and pitchers are frequently marked down (look for the chalkboard out front).

While it's on a weekend, the Miller High Life Countdown at Asylum is one event we can't leave out. Beginning at 5, pints of the champagne of beers are just a quarter, and the price rises 50 cents every hour. (Note: You still have to tip your bartender, and don't be cheap.)

Outside of Washington, you'll find just as many specials competing for your happy hour dollar. Young professionals flock to the enormous rooftop deck at the Clarendon Ballroom on Wednesdays for $1 Miller Lites and Yuenglings as well as the views -- of potential dates, not the Metro station. Dollar beers are also the draw at the perpetually crowded Rock Bottom Brewery's Wednesday "Night of the Pint"; all house-made beers are $1 from noon to 9, and there's live music toward the end of the night.

Bethesda isn't exactly a happy hour haven, but Rock Bottom Brewery sells its handcrafted beers for $1.50 on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday's "happy hour and a half," which runs from 5:30 to 7. Silver Spring's Austin Grill is notable for the length of its happy hours: $2.50 beers and cut-price margaritas from 2 to 7 and again from 10 to close. That's a lot of discounted Dos Equis and chips and salsa.