Nearly an hour before the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Union Pub had already reached capacity, with a line down the block. Those who couldn’t get in packed the sidewalk to watch from TVs on the Capitol Hill bar’s patio. “Five, four, three, two, one . . .” the crowd chanted, counting down the start of the debate like it was New Year’s Eve. Harris-themed coconut drinks and Trump-inspired orange cocktails were scattered across tables, and the whole bar howled when Harris mentioned Project 2025—one of the buzzwords on the bar’s printed-out drinking game.
“I got here early, I got a seat. They told me I could sell this seat for a few hundred dollars later tonight,” joked Shawn Chittle, who works for NASA. Next to him was Liam Walsh, a politics student at Catholic University: “I used to work on the Hill for Chuck Schumer. I would come here every Friday, and this is the quintessential political place.”
Debate-watch parties have become distinctly DC social affairs at bars across the city, but nothing quite compares to Union Pub. Between its stumbling distance to Senate offices and its headline-inspired drink specials, it has established itself as the political-junkie bar in a town full of wonks.
Owner Matt Weiss first opened Red River Grill in 1995 and rebranded it as Union Pub, an American sports bar, a decade later. The divey watering hole has always attracted Hill staffers for its cheap beers and wing happy hours, but Weiss also remembers the bar filling with people to watch Bill Clinton admit to his affair with Monica Lewinsky on TV in 1998.
“One of our slogans for a long time was that we were the well-stocked living room of Capitol Hill,” Weiss says. “Just like you would be in your living room, the TV’s on, right? And if something important is on, we’re showing it.”
The Obama administration brought in a surge of young, politically minded bar-goers, and “our culture just changed into more politics-as-sports,” Weiss says. When former FBI director James Comey testified about Trump before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017, Union Pub opened at 9:30 am and promised free beer if the President tweeted during the hearing. He didn’t (they gave out drinks anyway), but the promotion landed Union Pub on Jimmy Fallon and in countless news stories. “I think that definitely helped put us on the map, as far as the political place to go,” says Sam Sanchez, a former Hill staffer who does the bar’s marketing and social media.
Now anytime there’s a major political event, Union Pub is one of the first bars to riff on it with a newsy drink special. The bar was ready with “Lemon Drop-Out Shots” shortly after Joe Biden exited the presidential race and “Orange Is the New Orange” screwdrivers for Trump’s felony conviction.
“The key for us is ‘Would SNL make fun of this?’ ” Sanchez says. “Even if it’s super corny and cheesy and eye-rolling, it’s worked for us.”
This article appears in the November 2024 issue of Washingtonian.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’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.
