OBSESSED WITH THE SMITHS

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the holiday party of my former employer, National Journal, at an allegedly haunted old mansion in Georgetown.

I caught up with old friends, ate plenty of free sushi and drank plenty of free wine — until about midnight or so, when the bar (and party) closed down. I departed with a grip of my former Hotliners for Tombs, a bar just up the street, for further intoxication and even dancing (for good or ill, I'm legendary).

But before long, one of my erstwhile colleagues suggested we decamp for another Georgetown party establishment: Smith Point. If you're not familiar with the establishment, I'll let Newsweek's Jonathan Darman set the scene:

Outside Smith Point, the line starts forming an hour or so before midnight. Preppy boys in polo shirts with upturned collars and preppy girls showing their pearls and cleavage want to see if "the girls," as the Bush twins are known, have shown up. Many nights they are not disappointed. In the spring of 2004, after graduating from Yale and the University of Texas, Barbara and Jenna moved to Washington to help their father's re-election campaign. They began going to Smith Point to unwind with friends after work.

The bar itself is a bit of a dive, a hangout for private-school Peter Pans who wish to relive those wild nights at the frat house. It succeeds in part by an old barkeeper's trick: keeping the wanna-bes lined up out on the street even when the place is mostly empty. The real regulars, who are on "The List," usually arrive late, sometimes after "pre-gaming" (downing a few shots at home). On this particular Saturday night, Barbara appears first, surrounded by burly boys, sipping a Bud Light as she heads for the bar. She is wearing a designer coat and her jeans are tucked into big, Jessica Simpson-style boots. Jenna arrives later, wearing a gold top with skinny straps, her head on the shoulder of her boyfriend. The dance floor after midnight is pretty raunchy, with couples grinding away, but the Bush girls steer clear. "The girls are probably more tame than a lot of people," says one Smith Point regular who worked in the Bush White House.

At length, I might have added.

But now you have an idea of what I'm talking about. A ritzy dive for slumming aristocrats, occasionally attended by genuine celebrities. If Paris Hilton knew what a Washington, DC was, she would come here. And while this may come as no real surprise, you know what?

It really sucked.

I suppose I should be grateful that they let us in for $5 a pop when we weren't on the actual list... but not too grateful.

Because I was somehow thinking ahead, I grabbed a few stills and even a couple videos. For example, here's a 3-D panorama of the place from near the back:


What's that? You can't tell what's going on? That's about what it's like. More nightclub than bar. Maybe it's a place where everybody knows your name (when you're on the list) but if they don't already know your name, good luck trying to shout it over the din.

Not that they could see your face to remember it by.

I really couldn't care less about how preppy or connected the regulars are; I can get by in almost any social milieu, so long as people are friendly. And the few people not of my group whom I interfaced with were polite enough. What I can say is that the place was too dark, too crowded, and too loud to be of any use whatsoever.

If you want to dance, you've pretty much got to dance in place. If you want to get a drink, you've got to jostle for a place in "line" ... although, that's true almost anywhere. But most of all, it didn't offer anything that dozens of other District bars can't boast.

I'll give Smith Point some credit for being pretty nifty, purely as a physical location. It's a modern grotto, down a staircase through an unlikely diagonal alley between two buildings, and into a cave-like basement room with an elevated alcove.

Maybe it's a better scene at other times of the evening (when it may be harder to gain access) but at the time we arrived, we wanted out almost immediately — and even before gaining entrance to the putatively exclusive club, we wished we'd closed out Tombs instead. (It's underground, too!)

And here is a video of myself and my inviting colleague (I think she'd prefer I leave her nameless in this post) trying to leave the joint on the way to an overpriced cab ride back into non-Georgetown Northwest:


So there you have it. I have now casually dissed — or maybe just nitpicked — the supposed hottest bar in town. Sue me, but if I want to fight with crowds just to get a refill on my vodka-Red Bull this weekend, I think I'll just walk up to Wonderland.

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posted by WWB at 10:11 PM |