In the evening, the sidewalks around Union Market are shoulder-to-shoulder with couples and groups on their way to some of the city’s most acclaimed restaurants, like Minetta Tavern and St. Anselm. Park yourself at one of those bars, though, and you’ll find that ordering just one cocktail can set you back $16 to $20 — and that’s before tax and tip.
The good news? As its culinary reputation has grown, Union Market has also emerged as one of the area’s best clusters of happy hours, especially for martini lovers. Arrive before 6 or 7 p.m., and you can find classic gin martinis, souped-up espresso martinis or a refreshing spritz for $10 or less at some of those same pricey restaurants, and overlapping specials make the neighborhood an easy destination for an after-work bar crawl. Here’s a quick guide to finding some of our favorite discounted drinks.
Minetta Tavern
The deal: $10 martinis and classic cocktails, Sunday through Thursday from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
In late April, Minetta Tavern unveiled its Martini Hour — a happy hour menu of discounted drinks “exclusively available at the D.C. location.” Take that, New York City! In truth, it’s well worth the wait: Those without an expense account may have experienced the pleasure of scoring two seats at the French tavern’s charmingly cramped and clattery bar on a date night, enjoying two rounds of cocktails while people-watching and chatting, and then being shaken out of their reverie by a bill north of $100 once tax and tip are added.
The Martini Hour makes visiting Minetta more of an affordable luxury, which is why it’s often so crowded — the closer to 4:30 you can get there, the better. The bartenders at Minetta are pros, so even if you’re standing, you won’t have to wait that long for a drink. The attraction here is a wide range of drinks under the martini umbrella. There’s a classic martini, which can be served 50/50, with an equal ratio of gin to vermouth, or perfect, with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth, both of which are outstanding. There’s an excellent Martinez, the martini’s forebear, and a James Bond-approved Vesper. But then you’ve got the Pornstar Martini, a 2000s-era mix of vanilla vodka and passion-fruit liqueur that’s seeing a timely comeback, and the French Martini, bright with raspberry and pineapple, that also seems ripe for a resurgence.
A short food menu, with items from $9 to $19, includes lump crab deviled eggs; croquettes with Iberico ham; and, for $19, a pairing of a martini and a mini version of the tavern’s celebrated “Black Label” burger. The cocktails on the Martini Hour menu aren’t as playful or innovative as those on the regular dinner menu, and that’s fine — sometimes I’d rather have a drink and a snack for the price of a drink. It’s nice to finally have the option.
1287 Fourth St. NE. minettataverndc.com.
St. Anselm
The deal: $9 cocktails, $11-$13 glasses of wine and $6-$8 bar snacks, Monday through Thursday from 5 to 6 p.m., and Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.
Stephen Starr’s three Union Market restaurants have different vibes at happy hour: El Presidente is the lively, colorful destination with $10 frozen pineapple margaritas; Pastisis the classic French spot for seafood or steak tartare. But for a martini, you should find yourself a stool at the curving bar at St. Anselm.
“Cocktail hour” is literally an hour for most of the week, which can make it a crunch to get to the dimly lit steakhouse — even if your reward is an artfully made dirty martini, a classic Rittenhouse Rye Manhattan, or an alluringly balanced Cosmopolitan that features a citrus-infused vodka made in-house, all for $9. If you can make it work, going on Friday is the better option, when the 3 p.m. start time means you can linger over a drink and savor the stack of plump olives in your gin martini, and the deviled eggs topped with lumps of blue crab. (Fair warning: The reason the deviled eggs are $8 is because there are only two of them per order.)
1250 Fifth St. NE. stanselmdc.com.
Last Call Bar
The deal: $5 old-fashioneds, margaritas, house wine, sangria, half-smokes and hot dogs from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 to 7 p.m. Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $3 “Teeny Tiny Tini” Martini Hour from 5 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $4 hot dogs from midnight until last call daily.
A reimagined dive bar with cheap beers, Jell-O shots in plastic cups, cocktails on draft and hot dogs cooked behind the bar, Last Call draws Gen Z crowds on the weekends for no-frills fun at value prices. That spirit carries over to happy hour, where, for an hour every day, bartenders whip up $3 martinis. Gin or vodka? Dirty, dry or with a pickled blueberry? Done. The Teeny Tiny ‘Tini name is something of a joke — each pour is 3.5 ounces, says owner Gina Chersevani, which was the size of a serving back in the martini’s early 20th century heyday. But we’ve traded Nick and Nora for “Sex and the City,” and people expect a larger glass of booze these days. In that case, they’d be better served by a $5 margarita or the old-fashioned, which is made with Jim Beam and served from a tap. Fuel up with a half-smoke or hot dog, especially one topped with spray cheese and raw onions, and you’re set for another round.
1301-A Fourth St. NE. lastcallbardc.com.
Bar Betsie
The deal: $10 cocktail of the day, $8 select wine, $6 Old Time Lager and half-price shooters from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Bar Betsie’s retro vibes are immaculate, from the cozy booths to the draperies on the wall to the cartoony menu boards. The neon outline of a tent in the back, on the path to the bathrooms and kitchen, adds an whimsical touch. It is, quite simply, the best place for an upscale cocktail or two around Union Market, and I’d say that even if they didn’t give me (and everyone else) free cheeseballs.
Happy hour here is something of a wild card: The $10 cocktail of the day might be a classic daiquiri or a well-made Negroni, and you don’t know until you’re already at your seat. (Specials are offered to customers in booths or on the patio, as well as at the bar.) Another way to spend that $10: A pint of the DC Brau-made Old Time Lager and one of the bar’s clever shooters. Get fancy with the H&M (Hypnotiq, mezcal, pineapple juice), a Midori sour or, the personal favorite, Baltimore Bang, which is apricot backed up by overproof Wild Turkey 101. Spend enough time at Bar Betsie, a sister bar to 14th Street’s Jane Jane, and you’ll see that, yes, the bartenders can make you classic Trader Vic tiki drinks or wow with original concoctions featuring house-smoked spirits and syrups, but it’s a neighborhood hangout at heart. A gorgeous one, but a place you’re happy to come back to.
1328 Fourth St. NE. barbetsiedc.com.
Cordelia Fishbar
The deal: $9 martinis, select wines and cocktails, $5 Miller High Life and half-price oysters Tuesday through Friday from 4 to 6 p.m. and Tuesday through Sunday from 9 p.m. until last call.
Half-price oysters right after work, and again late at night — this is the happy hour formula that Clyde’s has been using to draw customers for decades, so it makes sense to transfer the idea to sister restaurant Cordelia, with its focus on seafood and an impressive raw bar. A half-dozen briny, perfectly shucked oysters from Massachusetts were the ideal way to settle in at a recent happy hour, along with martinis. The house special is the ‘Cini ‘Tini, a dry gin or vodka martini that’s punched up with a special banana pepper brine. Spice lovers may enjoy it, but I felt it was a little overwhelming. The Cordelia 50/50, with gin, aromatic white vermouth and nutty sherry, is a fine companion for oysters, or you could just go for the classic gin or vodka, with a choice of dry, dirty or extra dry.
Hungry? Seafood towers, ranging from the $16 Nessie (6 oysters, three jumbo shrimp cocktail) to the $87.50 Gilded Sea (two dozen oysters, a dozen shrimp, jumbo lump crab dijonnaise and chilled lobster) are also available for half-price. Although six oysters for $11.50 felt like a good deal, I do regret not spending the extra $4.50 for those shrimp.
550 Morse St. NE. cordeliadc.com.
Elegencia
The deal: $10 martinis, house highballs, wine, beer-and-a-shot combos and bar snacks from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.
In February, actor Wilmer Valderrama (Fez on “That ’70s Show”) and Colada Shop co-founder Daniella Senior unveiled Elegencia, a cocktail bar at the heart of the Latin marketplace La Cosecha. The curvaceous bar hasn’t changed much since it was Serenata, though we enjoyed the greenery suspended overhead, and quality remains high during the weekday Martini Hour. It’s home to the neighborhood’s most distinctive espresso martini. As you might guess from the name, the Espresso de Olla Martini draws on Mexico’s café de olla — a traditional coffee drink with cinnamon and cane sugar — for spice, and mezcal for depth of flavor, under a generous head of foam. The Mango Martini is closer to an actual martini than a lot of fruity “martinis” — there’s fino sherry and dry vermouth in there to balance out the mango cordial — and it’s sweetly pleasing.
The “classic” martini is dry and picture-perfect, and martinis pack the most punch on this menu, opposed to a highball — a choice of rum, tequila, bourbon, gin or vodka with a mixer — for the same price. If you’re feeling peckish, go for the bar snack trio, which includes bowls of warm, sticky nuts dusted with panela, warm olives and crispy citrus plantain chips. You can choose which one is closest to perfect with your martini.
1280 Fourth St. NE. eleganciadc.com.
Karravaan
The deal: $10 cocktails, $8 wine, $7 beer and discounted snacks from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 9 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 to 11 p.m. on Friday.
Karravaan’s conceit is that the cooking embraces flavors and techniques “from the diverse cultures along the ancient Silk Road.” The creative cocktails cast a wide net for their ingredients. The Lavender Spritzer, a refreshing and breezy summer drink, blends South American pisco, a floral Italian aperitivo, honey and lavender, and gets its bubbles from a sparkling Lebanese natural wine. The Dhuaan, which means “smoky” in Hindi, mixes rye whiskey with an appropriately smoky single-malt Scotch, adds vanilla and tamarind for sweetness and depth, and the bitter, spicy botanicals of Fernet, which come through in the finish.
Snacks include chunky fries dusted with za’atar and served with garlic labneh and harissa ketchup for dipping, and lamb sliders topped with tamarind chutney and slaw. A nice touch: Happy hour is available on the covered, shaded patio as well as at the bar.
325 Morse St. NE. karravaan.com.
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