Over the last two weeks, a new bar in Washington, D.C., has been speedrunning the online outrage cycle at a breathless pace. Political Pattie’s, located on 9th and U streets, opened on September 20 with the stated goal of “putting the ‘lit’ back in politics.” Within one week, it had been the subject of an avalanche of derision on social media, become an “anti-woke” icon in the eyes of the Daily Mail and The Spectator, and earned segments on D.C.’s local NPR and Fox affiliates. By September 24, the bar had also painted over most of its signage, and the owners had posted a bruised 300-word statement on Instagram, decrying the “mean-spirited” online backlash. The assumption by many is that Political Pattie’s is doomed to have its lifespan measured in Scaramuccis.
So why did a bar that, to date, has had nearly as many media hits as customers, piss off so many people? Why did a bar dedicated to bipartisanship immediately become a partisan flash point? The answer provides a portal into this chronically stressed-out city, in the most stressful moment it’s had in a long, long time.
Let’s start with the concept: Political Pattie’s (there is no Pattie; the name comes from an autocorrect error to “Parties” that the owners found charming) is a theme bar from husband-and-wife owners Sydney Bradford and Andrew Benbow, two Black D.C. natives with political science degrees who emphasize that they themselves are a bipartisan couple. Bradford is a Democrat, while Benbow is an “incredibly moderate Republican” who says he’s voting for Kamala Harris. They envisioned the bar as a place for people of differing political ideologies to come together and “rub shoulders” over a drink. The goal, Benbow told Roll Call, was “not for people to come in and be inundated with these deep, heavy, political questions. It’s to look around and poke fun at politics.”
What, you might ask, is so wrong with that? Well, for one thing, that’s already every bar in D.C. This is a city where bars do morning Bloody Mary specials for high-voltage congressional testimony. We don’t need a theme bar any more than zoologists need to gather at Rainforest Cafe or farmers need to go to Cracker Barrel.
“The only thing I potentially like about this idea is that if it takes all the people who are interested in this concept and sequesters them in one bar, that could be a good thing for all the other bars.”
Worse, Benbow and Bradford called it a “sports bar for politics”—instantly demonstrating that they didn’t understand sports or politics. First of all, no one goes to a sports bar to stand next to someone cheering for the other team. But also, what offended so many D.C. residents is that we know better than anyone in the country that politics isn’t even about debate, it’s about the hard math of what you want, and what you can get. We of this city know that we are on the eve of either salvation or catastrophe, and anyone who has lived through the past eight years and still acts like it’s a game deserves nothing but contempt.
As Linda Holmes, host of NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour” podcast, put it on Bluesky: “The only thing I potentially like about this idea is that if it takes all the people who are interested in this concept and sequesters them in one bar, that could be a good thing for all the other bars.”
All of this made Political Pattie’s an easy target, and the jokes poured in. But as inevitably happens in our fraught political moment, after a few days of people attacking Political Pattie’s, people soon decided that Political Pattie’s was attacking them. It took over a space on U Street (once known as D.C.’s Black Broadway, now a haven for LGBTQ-friendly bars) that had been the home of Dirty Goose, a beloved queer bar that sat opposite D.C.’s most iconic gay bar, Nellie’s. The outrage stemmed from the bar’s new whitewashed façade, and its logo, which featured a small blue donkey and—this was the real sin—a red elephant. Some people alleged that any bar that welcomed Republicans made them feel “unsafe.”
The owners painted over the elephant (and the donkey) and put out a statement, and right-wing media outlets crowed that the soft libs of D.C. were triggered by a cute little elephant. As with most stupid online controversies, everyone overreacted, which may be the only true moment of bipartisanship Political Pattie’s ever inspires.
In true internet style, however, none of this criticism and vitriol came from anyone who’d had a chance to actually go to the bar. As of this writing, Political Pattie’s had existed for a week, but only been open four nights: Virtually no one has actually had a drink there.
So I gathered some friends and went. A part of me was hoping they had actually pulled it off. After all the online hate, I wanted to find something that I could point to and praise, some glimmer of quality to make up for the PR stumbles. Also, my friends and I are all fathers of small children. If nothing else, we were psyched to just… go to a damn bar.
“Because there’s no deeper thinking about politics at work here—just snarky quotes and generic photos—it all feels like ChatGPT’s version of a political theme bar. ”
Then we walked in, and that hope died like a bill in committee. It was the brightest bar I’ve ever set foot in; they set the lights at the level you use when you’re closing up and want everyone to go home. (When I bartended in a club, we called these the “3 a.m. ugly lights.”)
Inside, the décor seemed to have been scooped up from the gift shop at the Smithsonian—souvenir gavels on the tables, a yellowed facsimile Constitution on the wall. There were framed photos of Barack Obama, Shirley Chisholm, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. On the entryway wall was an obviously fake Mark Twain quote about politicians needing to be changed like diapers. The rest of the bar was plastered with quotes that, while at least real, were equally anodyne or irrelevant, like, “I have concepts of a plan” or “I did not have sex with that woman.”
The much-touted cocktail list was generic: the “Capitol Mule” was just a Moscow Mule; the “Electoral College Cosmo” was an ordinary Cosmo, poorly made. The $13 “Taxation Without Representation” mocktail tasted like orange juice spiked with lemon. The rooftop, at least, was perfectly lovely. Great view.
The sad thing is that there is a version of Political Pattie’s that works. A cleverer, subtler version in a different space, that actually celebrates the rare moments when politics still has the capacity to surprise us. But instead, because there’s no deeper thinking about politics at work here—just snarky quotes and generic photos—it all feels like ChatGPT’s version of a political theme bar.
Perhaps Political Pattie’s just needs time to grow. To learn to turn the lights down, measure cocktails properly, and for god’s sake, change the name. (I am [sic] to death of typing it.) Because it is refreshing that in a world of slick marketing and consumer research and consultants and corporate backing, Political Pattie’s is a bar run by two D.C. folks with a dream. Bradford and Benbow are putting their money behind their beliefs and trying something optimistic and incredibly difficult, and goddammit, that’s what America is supposed to be about.
In the entryway of Political Pattie’s, there are some leather chaises and a bookshelf, possibly the only one in the world where Hunter Biden’s memoir sits next to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer. The owners call it the “Read the Room” library. If only they had spent more time there themselves.