Are you Sam? Diane? Maybe Cliff, Frasier, Carla or Norm? Stretch it, and say you’re Lilith or Woody. Where do you hang out? No, it’s not in a Boston subterranean cave, but right here on Connecticut Avenue, NW, The Chartwell Grill at The Churchill Hotel. 
(1914 Connecticut Avenue, NW). Some of our followers have asked, “So, where do you go, you know, when you just want to chill and drink?” It’s our “local”, the place where everybody really DOES know our names, where even our wheel-bound mates can feel at home (although through a circuitous jaunt bisecting the kitchen), and where the drinks are solid and appropriately priced.
Every local needs a good bartender…here it’s Omari, the arbiter and magician of all special requests and good cheer. Like any good bartender, he’s got a smile for you on those days when you’re feeling gruff and in that space where you could easily could morph to rude.
A couple of HH drinks served in this well-appointed and newly renovated hotel lounge/bar will get you back on track. A glance to the Modigliani and Botero reprints on the wall affirm that your life really is high-brow and divorced from the current insanity that can easily grip a Washington DC watering hole. (To keep up with the latest, the at-bar seats do provide the requisite plug in to cable news.)
How can you go wrong with a wide array of HH drinks, offered at $4 each? Sodas and juice go even lower at $2. The domestic beers include Miller Lite, MGD, Budweiser, Bud Light, and Michelob Ultra. Imports are Corona, Heineken and Stella Artois. The white wines are a CK Mondavi Chardonnay and a Woodbridge Sauvignon Blanc. The reds include either a CK Mondavi Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon. The rail liquors are also above average with, for example, Early Times bourbon, Smirnoff vodka, Seagram’s gin, and others.
Happy Hour food choices are the Achilles heel here, but with promise of a very near future upgrade from management: all food items on Happy Hour menue are $4, so complaining seems petty and at least one of our sleuths declares the chicken wings best in town!
Other fare – the chicken quesadilla, hummus three ways, a spicy BLT – do serve the bill for “you gotta eat when you drink” mantra. Additionally, the three burger sliders (with fries), offered on the regular menu for $12, are quite the bargain and a tasty choice..
Did we mention Omari? Let’s circle back to that golden trifecta of location, an affable bartender, and good pricing to cement the perfect relationship with a “local”. We, the Happy Hour Sleuths, are devoted to scouting out neighborhoods in DC to advise on where you might find your Cheers!
Hours:
Everyday: 4:30 – 6 p.m.
Bathrooms: Back through hotel lobby; always clean and tidy.
Transportation: Metro, Dupont (north exit; Red Line); Metro bus: 42, L2, H1.
Accessibility: Any one in wheeled conveyance really does need to curl around back of hotel lobby and come through kitchen to bar/lounge area. The staff is very accommodating and helpful.
DC Happy Hour Sleuths 
Eh mates. We visited the only distillery that makes Bombay gin yesterday. Sniffed all the botanical that make up the secret recipe and then served a drink concocted for our preferred botanicals. Bringing home a little drinks handbook with the distillery’s version of special drinks that we will add to your repertoire. Lovely. Brilliant. And the lot.
Sent from my iPhone
Stephen Crable
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