About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Desert 5 Spot. 400 Morse St., NE.Â
Hill Country may be gone, but there’s a new country western bar and live music venue in town. Desert 5 Spot, which also has locations in New York and LA, opens in DC’s Union Market tonight, complete with a house band, mezcal-heavy cocktail menu, and the city’s first mechanical bull.
The two-story, 7,000-square-foot venue features a main stage on the first floor and an upstairs DJ booth built out of the back of a vintage Chevy truck. The team has assembled their own band that will set up a residency at Desert 5 Spot in addition to a rotating cast of outside performers. Also expect nights devoted to line-dancing and live band cowboy karaoke.
“We’re big fans of ’90s country, you know, the Alan Jacksons of the world, the Shania Twains. We like to play the hits,” says Dan Daley, managing partner in Ten Five Hospitality, which has hotel and restaurant ventures from coast to coast. At the same time, the DC location will be the first to have a bluegrass night: “DMV has a really awesome bluegrass scene, especially out in Virginia. A ton of festivals, a ton of really great musicians and performers,” Daley says.
The cinematic design embraces retro Americana with inspiration from Wyoming and Montana to Texas and Palm Springs. “We really thought if Willie Nelson and Ralph Lauren were to design a country bar, what would it look like? And that was very much inspiration for us,” says Daley.
Look for snakeskin wallpaper, chairs made from old Jack Daniels whiskey barrels, and horse saddles turned into bar seats. There’s also an outdoor “cactus garden” with cacti and prickly pears made out of scrap metal. “DC doesn’t exactly have the climate for real cactus,” Daley says. “Plus, we’ve had experiences in LA with people drinking a little too much and wanting to touch a cactus.”
And then there’s the mechanical bull: “I won’t tell you the amount of money that we spend on it, but we had it custom built, and it’s legit,” Daley says. The bar has a certified mechanical bull operator to oversee it, and if you want to try it, you’ll have to sign a waiver. At Desert 5 Spot’s other locations, they’ll sometimes offer shots for anyone who can stay on past the 20 or 30 second mark—though Daley is not yet committing to that in DC.
The American comfort food menu includes Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, wood-fired steak, smoked pork spareribs, and wedge and chopped salads. Expect plenty of tequila and mezcal, too, with cocktails like the “Jolene” with tequila, lime, watermelon, and strawberry or “Dropkick Me, Jesus” with mezcal, green Chartreuse, and chili. But the most popular drink across Desert 5 Spot’s locations? Miller High Life.
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.
