About DC Restaurant Openings
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Franks Wild Years. 1345 S St., NW.
Let’s not get lost in the dive bar discourse. Let’s just say this: Franks Wild Years opens today in a former dry cleaner space off 14th Street, but feels like it might have been hidden there for decades. Drinks don’t cost more than $12. And there’s even a functional cigarette machine in the back.
“I know everyone hates a manufactured dive bar, and I do too,” says co-owner Kate Talbert. “But if you can make it feel comfortable and real, hopefully it feels like [a dive] one day.”
The neighborhood bar—that’s how they prefer to describe the place—comes from Talbert and fellow Snappy’s Small Bar owners Sean Ryan and Nick Bernel (also of the Pub & the People) along with the Blaguard owner Nik Makris. The name references a madcap Tom Waits song and “rags to rags” album, says Bernel, a longtime Waits fan.
“It’s kind of a break from the mundane of life,” Talbert adds. “Go on a weird adventure every once in a while. Hopefully, this place is that.”
The 30-seat, disco ball-lit bar has a Waits-esque sideshow theme made up of storied vintage pieces and weird knick-knacks scoured from Facebook Marketplace, antique stores, and the side of the road. The 1930s backbar comes from a long-gone distilling company in Chicago, while the bartop was sourced from a former diner in Gloucester City, New Jersey. (“Have you ever been?” Ryan asks. “Don’t go.”) Above the bar are vintage carousel pieces with hand-painted bulbs.
While there is no juke box—”they’re weirdly expensive,” Ryan says—there is a vintage cigarette machine “from the sketchiest convenience store we’ve ever been to.” The bar got a special license from DC to sell cigarettes.
Then there’s the “saints bathroom”—with a glowing Virgin Mary above the sink—which you enter through a cross-topped arch. “It was never used in a church,” Ryan assures. Next to it is a “sinners bathroom” with Jessica Rabbit and vintage Playgirl posters.
The bar will pour Miller High Life and Red Proper Big Tomorrow on draft, while the bottle and can list is made up of easy-drinking lagers like PBR and Lone Star alongside local brews. You’ll also find a handful of beer-and-shot combos and cocktails ($10 to $12), including a dirty martini, old-fashioned, and frozen coffee drink. Although not listed, the menu also notes “we’ve got some fancy bottles back here that’ll cost you a bit more.” The sparse small bites menu ($3 to $8) includes pigs in a blanket, toasted ravioli, hot nuts, and Vienna sausages. Get a dollar off if you pay in cash.
The menu itself has its own character, listing birthdays of friends and the distance to some of their favorite bars locally (Electric Cool-Aid—0.7 miles) and nationally (the Troubadour in West Hollywood—2,686 miles). Ryan says because the menus cost a lot to print, they’ve sold advertisements around them for $10 a month. “Do you think you are zoo heist material?,” reads one ad, next to other promotions for Ivy & Coney, Solly’s, and someone who made up their own sport called “binball.”
And while it may be too new to officially get “dive” status, the bar aims to cultivate some of that energy. “You dive in and you have a hard time getting out,” Talbert says of what makes a great dive. “It’s a good place that you want to stay. And drinks are cheap.”
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind DC’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
