Dan's Cafe

A very well-known DC bar. Dan's is at the bottom (south) end of the 18th Street strip.

Dan's tries as hard as it can to be a "dive". The workers are the same 5-ish black guys that have been running it for decades, the place is rarely cleaned, the furniture and jukebox haven't been updated in my lifetime, and the bathrooms are disgusting. (Side note: nasty bathrooms (and nasty bartenders) in try-hard "dive" bars are a pet peeve of mine. I fail to see how they make the place "authentic" or "old school"; bleach, replacement toilet seats and common courtesy all existed back in the day. Dan's bartenders are at least nice enough, if a bit brusque. But I digress.)

The crowd here skews young, male and conservative. The stereotypical Dan's customer is wearing an SEC polo because he just moved here for his first job as an LC for a House Republican. However, its still DC, so the crowd is always a nice mix.

People are generally pleasant, which is helpful because its usually packed to the gills and you bump into people a lot. That may be also a result of Dan's trademark drink: the ketchup bottles.

Their gimmick is booze in a ketchup bottle. Specifically, for $26, you get a ketchup bottle filled with ice, a half-pint of your liquor of choice and the rest filled with soda. You also get the can of soda and as many shot glasses as you want. You sit at a booth (or the communal center table) and rip watered-down shots. Given that a half-pint contains roughly 4 drinks worth of liquor, its not as great of a deal as it seems.

The music is good (a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd, see "stereotypical customer" above). The booze is really pretty cheap ($3.75 for Bud and Rolling Rock in bottles). Overall, a decent place to start a weekend night and bullshit with friends. But I'd rather do it at Bedrock.

Website:

Dan's does not have a website, as that would contradict the whole "shitty dive bar" image they try so hard to maintain