Sign of the Whale

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1825 M St NW (at Between 18th Street NW and 19th Street NW)
Washington, DC 20036

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(202) 785-1110
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Sign of the Whale - Washington, DC
Sign of the Whale - Washington, DC
Reviews
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Best

This place is great afterwork for a few happy hour drinks and appetizers and it's also a lot of fun on the weekends. Bar tenders are always friendly although service can be slow o...

Worst

Having been to the Whale a handful of times with larger groups and for rather brief periods of time left me eager to come back and truly experience the Whale as a bar and not as a...

Great happy hours; fun for large groups 7/16/2010

This place is great afterwork for a few happy hour drinks and appetizers and it's also a lot of fun on the weekends. Bar tenders are always friendly although service can be slow on a Friday or Saturday night. One perk of Sign of the Whale is that they are constantly doing giveaways for prizes or free happy hours - definitely worth signing up for! Pros: Decent happy hour prices and giveaways Cons: Can get too crowded on the weekends more

Great potential squandered by awful service 6/4/2010

Having been to the Whale a handful of times with larger groups and for rather brief periods of time left me eager to come back and truly experience the Whale as a bar and not as a mere pit stop on a night on the streets of DuPont. Everything was going swimmingly with our first bartender... he was conversational if not down right kind and had a heavy pour. Myself and my drinking comrade were feeling great and living high off the fat of the land until the unfortunate timing of a shift change came and with it a bar keep that pushed the boundaries of douchiness (even by DC standards) and defied the laws of service. Within 25 minutes we found ourselves shanghi'd out of $25. When our first bar tender left we had a bar tab of $23 and when Skippy our buzzed headed bar keep stepped in we magically had a tab of $54... funnny how that happened. We asked for a print out of our tab and he handed us a print out and said that since we had a gift card we were unable to receive happy hour pricing yet when we walked in and presented our first bar tender (a manager) with the card he has said ""perfect time to cash this bad boy in we have happy hour until 9... good bang for your buck."" This all being said I can't be mad as this was all free money, however, with dozens of amazing bars in DC and mountains of untested drinking holes in the city I will not being coming back to the Whale anytime soon. Sorry great bar tender but your pals that came in for the night shift have left a bad taste in my mouth that shall not be removed anytime soon. Goodbye and good riddance. Pros: decent happy hour prices Cons: awful buzzed head bar tender more

The Scene 12/31/2006

A fixture on M Street since 1971, the Sign of the Whale is a comfortable (if shabby) watering hole that's served a generation of lawyers, lobbyists, interns and downtown professionals. Once one of the city's top singles bars, it's no longer the meat market of old, but you'll still find plenty of guys on the prowl here, especially on weekends. The Whale was almost harpooned in the summer of 2006 when radio personality Mike O'Meara announced he was buying the place and turning it into an Irish pub, but the plans fell through, and the Whale was purchased by Britt Swan, who owns Georgetown nightspots Rhino Bar and Modern. By cleaning it up and going back to basics, though, he's breathed new life into a flagging bar. Heavily weathered brick walls, worn wooden floors, a fire roaring in a stone hearth, a huge bay window and a mile-long wooden bar make the rowhouse saloon feel more like a traditional British pub than some of those Elephant-and-Firkin chains that have proliferated in recent years. A few large TVs for sports -- including a huge projection set mounted high on the wall -- and a large restaurant space upstairs make this a classic neighborhood hangout. In Your Glass : The house Whale Ale is cheap and hoppy, and the basic gin-and-tonics and vodka tonics are strong. There's nothing here that you can't find anywhere else, but the rotating happy hour specials -- say, $1 off all drafts -- are a good reason to sneak out of the office early. On Your Plate : The hefty burgers here are legendary, thanks to house combinations like the Starbuck (American and Jack cheeses and some crispy bacon), the Captain Ahab (bleu cheese, gravy and bacon) and the Cajun (blackened spices, jalapeno cheese and more bacon). Go on Monday nights for half-price specials and you'll pay less than $5 for a very filling meal of a burger and fries. Nice to Know : The Whale draws a packed house heavy on the 30s-and-up crowd on Friday and Saturday nights, when pop songs from the '70s, '80s and '90s are cranked up. You'll hear people singing along to George Michael without irony. Price Points : Most draft beers are around $4; burgers are $9. -- Fritz Hahn (January 2007) more
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Menu for Sign of the Whale


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Editorial
  • This casual M Street restaurant and bar serves classic American fare such as burgers, nachos and sandwiches, but it's the bar scene that really stands out--12 high definition TVs are a draw for...

  • 3/17/2010 Provided by Citysearch
Additional information
  • Hours: Fri-Sat 11:30 pm-3 am Sun-Thu 11:30 pm-2 am
  • Payments: Discover, Visa, American Express, Master Card
  • Neighborhoods: Connecticut Ave/ K Street, Northwest, Northwest Washington
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