At Nellie's, a Different Game Plan
D.C.'s First Gay Sports Bar Opens

By Fritz Hahn
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, September 21, 2007

Long on style and atmosphere, short on the dozens of TVs that fans have come to expect, the new Nellie's Sports Bar truly is a different kind of sports bar.

Football fans used to jumbo screens and cramped seats might wonder if they've stumbled into the wrong place when they enter. Large portraits hang over the bar, and the room's exposed brick walls, dark wood and converted fireplace are more reminiscent of a lounge than a place to watch the Redskins. Strangely, there's only one TV, tucked into a far corner.

Through a set of doors is the airy dining room, decorated with vintage tennis rackets, oars and old advertisements, where fans gather at high-topped tables to watch games on five medium-size flat-screen TVs. (A hidden projection screen has been installed but hasn't been used.) A few more high-definition televisions hang in a small upstairs room decorated to look like a English pub, with fixtures and decorative glass brought from England in the 1920s for use on a movie set.

Stick around on a Friday or Saturday night and the focus switches from the televisions to the crowds of gay men at the bar or on the expansive rooftop deck. There's no dance floor, so even though Justin Timberlake remixes and the Pet Shop Boys and Madonna play through the speakers, they're not at the ear-splitting levels heard on 17th Street.

Nellie's, which opened last month, is Washington's first gay sports bar, although owner Douglas Schantz says he wants to target all of the neighborhood's residents. Schantz says the groups including both sexes that come to Nellie's for happy hour as well as football and soccer games show that his plan is working. "I'm pitching it as a straight-friendly sports bar," he says. "It's turned out better than I ever thought."

Schantz has never owned a bar, but after 13 years in the District, including seven in nearby LeDroit Park, and years working in advertising in Chicago, New York and Washington, he says he thinks he has a pretty good handle on the business side. His biggest asset is the building. High ceilings and natural light hint at its former use as a studio for famed photographer Addison Scurlock, who took portraits of Booker T. Washington, Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. DuBois and other great African Americans.

The woman in the oversize photographs above the main bar is Schantz's great-great-grandmother Nellie, one of the namesakes of the bar; two of Schantz's great-great-grandmothers were also named Nellie, as was his great-grandmother. Of course, there's a certain level of irony: "Nelly" is also a slur referring to effeminate men. Schantz acknowledges that "the name has an underlying meaning, and people talk about that, but I really did name it after my great-great-grandmothers. I'm not making that up!"

Still, he's not playing down the word's other meaning: Visitors to the bar's Web site can take a "How Nellie Are You?" test to earn a coupon for a free draft beer. Sample multiple-choice question: Do you throw like a boy, a girl or Nathan Lane?

Schantz says he could have packed the room with TVs to make it more like a typical sports bar, but he wanted to offer customers a reason to come back when games aren't on. Hence the cubbies filled with checkers, chess and trivia games in the dining room and his plans to convert the rooftop into a beach-themed bar with surfboards. Still, you're never far from the sports theme: The sinks in the first-floor bathroom were once used by Washington Senators fans at Griffith Stadium.

Though Schantz's partner in Nellie's is Rocio Anzola, owner of the Silver Spring restaurant Cubano's, Schantz was convinced that he needed to offer sports bar staples (chicken fingers, wings, burgers). But when he took Anzola out to sample the offerings at rival establishments, she thought the food was "disgusting" and decided to put her own spin on the menu. For example, buffalo wings are large, meaty pieces of chicken smothered in a thick, smoky chipotle sauce and sprinkled with pepper flakes.

In the next few months, Schantz says he wants to "winterize" the rooftop and add more televisions, based on customer comments. But he's also happy to welcome the people who just wander in for happy hour ($3 Snow Queen vodka cocktails and $4 beers until 8) and couldn't care less about sports. His great-great-grandmothers, Schantz says, just loved to entertain.

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The Crystal City Sports Pub has always been one of the area's best places to watch college sports, but the bar's latest addition has taken it to a new level.

This summer, the pub unveiled its third floor, and the cramped bars downstairs don't prepare you for the soaring 27-foot ceilings, lengthy bar and vast seating area.

The expansive space means there's plenty of room for a 10-foot high-definition projection screen, flanked by two 100-inch projection screens. Surrounding them are a pair of 12-foot tickers, like those you might find on Wall Street, and two huge digital message boards, all of which quickly cycle through football and baseball scores from around the country, lists of daily food specials, the current odds on teams winning the World Series or Stanley Cup (for "entertainment purposes only," the ticker says) and even trivia: It apparently takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough footballs for a season.

Underneath this dizzying array of technology is a row of 10 42-inch flat-screen TVs, and every other wall has between six and nine TVs. When seven or eight games are showing at once, as is the case most weekends, it can be hard to concentrate on what you're watching.

"We made a decision five years ago that it was in our best interest to buy the property and build up," says John Finlay, one of the pub's four owners. After visiting about a dozen bars and restaurants in Las Vegas, the partners hatched a plan for a state-of-the art sports bar. Red tape and construction meant that it took almost four years to get the third floor open, but now it's packed with sports fans on weekends and country music fans on Wednesday nights, when the Wil Gravatt Band knocks out songs by the likes of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.

It's not just the new addition that looks fresh and clean: Data screens and new plasma TVs are spread throughout the other two floors and the sidewalk patio, and the second-story deck got a makeover. There are now nearly 100 TVs throughout the building.

Expansion made room for two major alumni groups calling the pub home this season: the University of Southern California, which moved from Bailey's in Ballston, and Texas A&M, formerly of the Grand Hyatt hotel's Grand Slam Sports Bar. There are usually eight to 12 game-watching parties organized by alumni groups every weekend, including Georgia, Auburn and Clemson universities, though hundreds of other football fans just wander in wearing Virginia, Michigan or Ohio State apparel and find like-minded fans. (Signs under every TV list what will be on that screen for the day.)

Nellie's Sports Bar 900 U St. NW, 202-332-6355;http://www.nelliessportsbar.com Vibe: A welcoming sports bar that has more style than TV screens and turns into a comfortable hangout once the games are over.