Dew Drop Inn

Washington, DC

Field Note

The highest compliment that can be paid to a dive bar opened anytime after roughly 1990 is that it creates an authentic ambiance that feels much older than its true age. Such is the case for Washington DC’s Dew Drop Inn, opened in 2015 by the purveyors of the nearby and similarly well-appointed Wonderland Ballroom. Thanks to a unique building and a Brookland neighborhood location, Dew Drop Inn fits in seamlessly with the city’s other time-tested dives.

Matthew McGovern, who co-owns Wonderland Ballroom with wife Donna, once served as bartender for yet another Washington-area dive, Madam’s Organ, where he met Donna. The deep dive bar pedigree possessed by McGovern can be seen in the decorations, drink specials and attitude embodied by first Wonderland Ballroom and now Dew Drop Inn.

The structure, once occupied by craft beermakers Chocolate City Brewery, is a slender, triangular building that borders active CSX train tracks. Multiple businesses and bars have taken a shot at this easily-recognizable Brookland site, including a bar named The Underground Railroad during a much rougher period in neighborhood safety during the 1990s. These days, any such concerns generally do not apply to Dew Drop Inn and its surrounding area filled with low-key residences.

Dew Drop Inn cuts a commanding presence, looming as a standalone structure covered in stone, signage and painted murals over the boarded-up areas of former exterior windows. A sticker-covered door usually hangs open at one end of the bar, leading to a twisting staircase similarly covered in stockers, graffiti and other bits of dive bar wisdom. When weather allows, this outdoor area feels more like a divey beer garden, covered picnic tables circled around the base of Dew Drop Inn.

Either because of or inspired by Drew Drop’s Inn uncommon layout, the floorplan twists and turns through two floors, multiple staircases and both elevated & surface-level outdoor drinking areas. The main room, if such a distinction is even fair for Dew Drop’s Inn menagerie of spaces, is commanded by a long, salvaged bar flanked by classic wooden chairs and low tables. In addition to the outdoor seating at street level, a rear door off of this second story main room opens up to an elevated porch.

Despite only opening in 2015, a fair amount of pleasant dive bar clutter has amassed throughout the bar, particularly behind the bar counter itself where faded photos and string lights mix with bits of taxidermy and mannequins wearing Dew Drop Inn-themed apparel. Maybe most enticingly, changing the vibe at Dew Drop Inn is as simple as swapping rooms, the outdoor areas sometimes distinctly different from this often more densely populated main bar room.

Dew Drop Inn boasts both an everyday happy hour as well as a limited but well-reviewed set of food options that includes sandwiches, hot dogs, nachos and chili. Theme nights dot the Dew Drop Inn calendar, including a weekly trivia night, weekend DJ sets and even a mystical Witchy Wednesday event that features on-site astrological readings.