PX, one of Washington’s longest leading cocktail bars, is closing its doors after 14 years. Owner Todd Thrasher will mix the last Manhattans in the Old Town faux-speakeasy on Saturday, July 27. Eat Good Food Group partners chef Cathal and Meshelle Armstrong will also shutter adjoining fish and chip shop Eamonn’s on the same date.
“Currently, we are looking for new areas/properties to create something new for the times,” says Meshelle Armstrong, reached by email.
Thrasher will not be renewing the Old Town building’s lease and is “busy concentrating on his newest concepts,” according to a press release. Late last year, he opened the Wharf’s ambitious rum distillery and three-story bar, Potomac Distilling Company and Tiki TNT. Thrasher could not immediately be reached for further comment.
Thrasher debuted PX at the forefront of the faux-speakeasy movement, winning national accolades for an intimate cocktail haunt that required reservations, jackets for men, and advertised a list of house rules (i.e “no standing at the bar”). Many copycats followed, but times have since changed—evidenced in part by Thrasher’s new ventures where standing—in flip-flops and shorts—is welcome, and patrons drink frozen rum-and-Cokes from cans.
“Bartenders take ourselves way too seriously,” Thrasher told Washingtonian at the tiki bar’s opening. “I don’t want to be serious.”
PX’s closure also marks the near end for The Eat Good Food Group concepts in Alexandria. It once encompassed Restaurant Eve and Society Fair (both closed) as well as Virtue Feed & Grain, which operates under new ownership. The group currently has Hummingbird in Alexandria in addition the the Wharf concepts.
“Restaurants run their course,” said Cathal Armstrong in a previous interview with Washingtonian. “The population in Old Town also isn’t very transient. You have a certain number of years before you have to rethink it.”
This story has been updated from an earlier version to include Eamonn’s closing.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
