Over his two terms as president, Donald Trump hasn’t dined at a single restaurant in DC except the now-closed steakhouse in his former hotel. Yesterday, however, he floated the very real possibility of finally exploring the city’s dining scene.
“Will you visit a restaurant in DC?,” a reporter Trump asked during a meeting with the Polish president.
“I might. Sure.”
“You haven’t gone to one in either of your terms that wasn’t—”
“How do you know?,” Trump interrupted. “You want me to prove you wrong? I think it’s something we could consider doing. I’d love to do it. I love the White House food, but after a while, I can see going to a nice restaurant. It’s safe.”
The problem? Pretty much any DC restaurant that president might visit would immediately find itself in a losing situation.
In deep-blue DC, there are no shortage of restaurateurs who privately (and not-so-privately!) would not want to host Trump. Turning the President away, however, would ignite a firestorm of online hate, irate phone calls, Yelp bombing, and death threats. The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia became a national pariah when it refused to serve then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2018 during Trump’s first term. But that blowback would be nothing compared to spurning Trump himself, particularly since the political temperature is now hotter than a pizza oven.
Trump, though, isn’t likely to go somewhere he’d be turned away, especially given the advance work required by Secret Service. And most restaurants would serve him because that’s just what restaurants do. Still, they would undoubtedly face boycott threats from locals and an onslaught of online and real-life rage. When Trump was re-elected, Brookland pizzeria Menomale found itself in the center of a neighborhood firestorm simply for congratulating him on his victory.
It’s already been a rough year for DC restaurants, between increased food and labor costs and the economic ripple effects of a diminished federal workforce. And that was before the federalization of local police and arrival of National Guard troops. Many DC restaurateurs have since reported some of their slowest traffic of the year, not to mention staff who are afraid to show up to work amid increased immigration action. No one wants to become a political target on top of all that.
“If Trump was to come, I’d be a little anxious because I don’t know what that would create or cause, you know?,” says Martin’s Tavern owner Billy Martin. “But I’m not going to turn him away either… If he came to Martin’s, wow, that’s great. He picked Martin’s over any other restaurant he could have picked.”
The 93-year-old Georgetown restaurant has hosted every president from Harry Truman to George W. Bush (though not all while they were serving in the White House) before Barack Obama broke the streak. More recently, a number of top Trump administration officials have dined at Martin’s Tavern. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who lives in the neighborhood, has been in a few times. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have eaten there. And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just did an interview about “no tax on tips” at the restaurant. “[Bessent] mentioned that ‘Oh, one of Trump’s favorite dishes is the meatloaf, and I see a lot of people love your meatloaf,'” Martin says. “Is he going to run back and tell the president, ‘Oh, you got to go to Martin’s to eat meatloaf? I don’t think so.”
When Joe Biden was elected president, Martin was among a number of DC restaurateurs who told me he was working the backchannels to try to get a presidential visit: “Once we see who’s who and heading up key positions…then we will get more invitations than executive orders in front of the President to consider,” Martin said in 2021.
With Trump? It’s a stickier situation. “We’re not actively seeking him to come,” Martin says. “It is very precarious in the political state that our country’s in. It’s not easy. I don’t need him dining and leaving, and then people coming by later throwing rocks through the window going, ‘You hosted the president!’ Or people just barraging our social media going, ‘You’re a shitty place.'”
When Trump previously dined out at BLT Prime in the Trump hotel, he was typically greeted by a standing ovation. At just about any other restaurant in DC, he risks facing jeers and heckling from fellow diners. The one exception is Butterworth’s in Capitol Hill, which has become the city’s single most popular MAGA hangout.
“It would be cool. I would be happy to have him,” says Butterworth’s chef/partner Bart Hutchins. Still, Hutchins doesn’t anticipate a visit from Trump for logistical reasons: “We don’t have a back door and Secret Service has never been a huge fan of that particular situation. Even with the other principals that have come here, [their security] has been like, ‘Oooh, I don’t like this.'”
Protesters already show up regularly outside Butterworth’s with horns and signs “when people much further down the totem pole show up,” Hutchins says. “So it would be a scene. It would be a massive scene. I think it’d be pretty difficult logistically for restaurants to pull it off just because the nastiness and stuff that chases [the president] around.”
So where else might Trump go? RPM Italian is one possibility. Bill Rancic, winner of the first season of The Apprentice, is a partner in the Italian restaurant, and it’s a popular destination for Republican congressional fundraisers. There’s also the Pennsylvania Avenue location of the Capital Grille. We know Trump loves steak, and this steakhouse is the go-to spot for congressional Republicans. I’d also put money on Stephen Starr’s new revival of the Occidental—”where statesmen dine.” Not only is it a short jaunt from the White House, but it’s been frequented by members of Trump’s administration, including Bessent and Mehmet Oz.
A curve ball option? Trump could return to the former home of his DC hotel, now a Waldorf Astoria, and dine at the Bazaar by José Andrés, a vocal critic of Trump. Republican lobbyist Mark Smith previously told me he wouldn’t be surprised to find Trump there as both a nostalgia and power move: “He wants to create more history and be seen,” Smith says. Still, it’s hard to imagine Trump opting for dragonfruit ceviche with cherry-hibiscus air over, say, an old-fashioned cheeseburger.
So if all else fails? Hey, there’s always McDonald’s.
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.
