K Street's Second Shift
The Fabled Corridor Known For Lawyers And Lobbyists Is D.C.'s Hot New Nightspot

By Elissa Silverman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 2, 2008

Money for access. Influence peddling. Gucci. It's just another Monday on K Street.

Even at 1 a.m.

The men in black suits and headsets are out as usual on this street of power and prestige, but at this hour they're separating the VIPs from those who must wait in the cold. Red carpet and velvet ropes tart up the sidewalk, and the line of luxury cars waiting for valets looks like an auto show. The owner of the black Maybach sedan -- about $350,000 worth of cool comfort -- gets ushered in immediately.

In a few hours, Brooks Brothers and Cole Haan will replace Bebe and Coogi as lawyers and lobbyists return to their offices and resume the business that has made K Street so famous for greasing the wheels in Washington that HBO based a show on it.

But the nights belong to K Street's new cottage industry. A half-dozen late-night bars and lounges have opened within a block of 14th and K streets NW in the past few years, transforming the area into the District's trendy new nightspot.

The street's cachet as a nexus of power is part of its draw.

"It's more upscale, more career-oriented," said Arlington County resident Nickolena Sidler, a graphic designer who often commutes into K Street after dark.

"K Street evokes a tradition of power and deal-brokering unique to D.C.," said David S. Chung, a University of Virginia-trained lawyer who opened kstreet lounge in 2005 in a 12-story office tower where he worked as a summer law associate. "There was a demand for an upscale, luxury playground for a mature clientele. So why not place the venue in a similar locale?"

But the throngs lining the red carpets look a lot like traditional clubgoers. Weekends are the busiest, and Wednesday and Sunday nights target African Americans. The common denominator is the patrons' youth.

After all, K Street's second shift doesn't start until 10 p.m.

Monday, 1 a.m.

Temperatures hover in the 20s, but Marquesha Brown is wearing only black spandex pants and a white tuxedo blouse unbuttoned between her neck and navel as she smokes a cigarette outside kstreet lounge.

"K Street is cool," says Brown, 28, a licensed massage therapist who lives on Andrews Air Force Base. "The DJ is good. That's always a good party."

The club is on the ground floor of One Franklin Square, a prestigious address housing such corporate names as IBM and international law firms including Reed Smith. The interior is techno-modern verging on antiseptic: Colorful lights illuminate the high ceilings, and the white walls are mounted with flat-panel TVs. At this time of night, the open floor is packed, with most people shouting lyrics to such hip-hop favorites as Flo Rida's "Low."

Women are admitted free tonight, but there's no shortage of men paying the $20 cover. Brown discards her cigarette and flashes the wristband that indicates she's a big spender.

She joins six friends at one of the 25 sleek rectangular tables, where champagne and vodka are poured from bottles servers deliver in iced buckets. The good stuff comes flashing with sparklers.

Bottle service is the latest fad in club culture, and tonight it comes with a $700 minimum tab. Tab minimums fluctuate: On a busy weekend, they can be as much as $1,500.

Celebrity appearances elevate the clubs' profiles -- as well as the table prices -- and Sundays on K Street attract a particular type of high-profile player. Like Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, who popped in for an impromptu birthday bash at kstreet in early January.

"We were playing cards, and I decided to come," said Arenas, who pulled up in his black Maybach.

Soon after, Clinton Portis and other Washington Redskins arrived. Many are regulars.

"On Sundays, we attract a lot of ballers," said Dominique Moxey of Mad Power Unit, which promotes Sunday nights at kstreet.

Saturday, 11 p.m.

"I'm bullish on K Street," said Stephen Tedeschi, watching a crowd swell out to the curb at the newest addition to the strip, Josephine. Tedeschi, who co-owns 100 King, a steakhouse in Old Town Alexandria, said he is eyeing a spot in the K Street area to open a restaurant/lounge soon.

"It's the closest D.C. has right now to a New York scene," he says. "K Street is the equivalent to the meatpacking district."

For many civic leaders, K Street at night is the fulfillment of a decades-old dream to create a downtown that doesn't shut down at dusk. "Our downtown looks nothing like it looked a decade ago," said Neil O. Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development. "The office crowd is no longer just heading back to the suburbs at the end of the day."

It's "more hip and trendy than it was when I moved here seven years ago," said Lisa Klein, 35, a physical therapist whose office is a few blocks away.

Klein is on K Street with three friends who have very inside-the-Beltway lifestyles: Two work on Capitol Hill and one works for a federal agency.

The women usually spend nights out in the Connecticut Avenue corridor, Klein said. In search of a little sophistication -- and a critical mass of good-looking, 30-something men -- they have come to K Street.

Klein and her entourage start at the Park at Fourteenth, a four-level club co-owned by local nightclub veteran Marc Barnes, who also owns Love. The four are doing "recon," Klein explains, in which one woman takes the lead in scouting the crowd.

The women quickly move through the first floor, designed with dark wood and upholstered chairs, and head up the stairs toward the club's most distinctive feature: chandeliers that look like the head of Medusa, with red, yellow and white glass snaking out in different directions.

The interior impresses Klein more than the men. "He's going for sophisticated, but he's getting a young crowd," she says of Barnes.

And even in Armani, much of the District's club crowd bears more than a slight resemblance to former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

After one loop through the club, they move on.

A few minutes later, the women pack into Tattoo Bar, where a motorcycle seems to roar out of the wall above the bar and black leather lines the booths. Eighties rock -- think Joan Jett -- blares, and on a busy night the space feels like a packed galley kitchen at a house party.

The upscale biker bar leaves the women feeling claustrophobic, so they cross the street to Lotus Lounge. The Asian-themed club -- waterfall, sushi bar, Buddhas -- shares the same owner as Tattoo: Michael Romeo, another D.C. nightclub veteran. The aesthetics differ, but the IDs shown at the door usually have a birth date from the Reagan administration.

On their way, the women pass Lima, which, with its Latin fusion cuisine and couches that click together to create an al fresco lounge on the sidewalk, draws a crowd likely to be bilingual.

Derya Sepin, a student at Northern Virginia Community College, and her brother, Koray Sepin, said they come to Lima for the "high-quality" international crowd.

"Too international," one of Klein's friends says.

The group then tries Josephine, which just opened on Vermont Avenue. The underground club is catacomb-like, with large chandeliers and two metal stripper-style poles on a central dance floor.

The house music, the elegant but racy atmosphere and the men with business cards impress Klein and Co.

"Very New York," one friend says.

A gray-haired man wearing a flannel shirt wraps his hands around one of the shiny poles as the crowd claps.

"We complained about the 20-year-olds in the last place," Klein says. "Now they're 60."

Thursday, 11 p.m.

Masoud Aboughaddareh, a co-owner of Lima, cited the area's central location as its biggest asset.

"Wherever you're going, you cross K and 14th," he said.

K Street has other advantages, such as easy access to Metro and on-street parking that frees up after rush hour.

Still, drivers are prohibited from making certain right turns and parking in some spots between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. The measures were put in place to discourage prostitution in the area.

"You walked down the street at midnight and there used to be women in high heels and bathing suits," D.C. police Lt. Gary Durand said.

K Street club owners like to contrast their growing scene with the District's more established nightspots, such as Adams Morgan and Georgetown.

"This isn't where you get your 25-cent beer or drink-until-you-drown atmosphere. This is corporate America," Barnes said.

"We're not looking for the person that comes in, gets two beers and calls it a day," Chung said.

Drink in hand at the Park at Fourteenth, Ajay Pathak, 48, says he and his friends used to frequent such upscale Georgetown nightspots as Cafe Milano, "but it was too far, and the parking was a headache."

Now when the intellectual property lawyer goes out, he just changes into a black shirt in his office and walks a few blocks.

"It's getting to be nicer at this end of town than that end of town," Pathak says.

He then heads home to Springfield. He has a busy day at the office tomorrow.