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Garrett's Restaurant & Railroad Tavern
Rating Details »
Categories: Pubs, American (Traditional) [Edit]
Neighborhood: Georgetown3003 M St NW
(between N 30th St & N Thomas Jefferson St)
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1033
- Hours:
Mon-Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Fri. 11:30 a.m. - 3:00 a.m.
Sat. 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 a.m.
Sun. 6:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.
- Attire:
- Casual
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Music:
- Juke Box
- Best Nights:
- Thu, Fri, Sat
- Happy Hour:
- Yes
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Coat Check:
- Yes
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24 reviews for Garrett's Restaurant & Railroad Tavern
I've been to Garrett's a few times now and always have a pretty solid time here. The downstairs is small, but they do have Big Buck Hunter, which is nice. Staff is always friendly and generally attentive. I do have to say that the shot-n-beer specials are a great idea.
The real hidden gem is upstairs where it opens up and looks like a real bar. Spent a great hear sitting at the bar with a couple friends on a slow night and playing a little game where the bartender would pick a random drink recipe out of a box and made it for us. Had about 5 drinks and paid for 1, nothing to not like about that.
Recommended for a Thursday night, but you can do better on the weekends...
This place is pretty awful. Basically, it's all the things that make Georgetown awful rolled into one place. There was no DJ or dancing, which would be fine, except there was also limited seating and loud jukebox music. If you can't dance, you ought to be able to hang out and drink. Garrett's accomplishes the rare trick of making both of these impossible.
You know the frat house from your college that you went to one time for a party but it sucked so you never went back? That's Garrett's.
Garrett's has a cute dining room upstairs. They have a decent menu, the staff is friendly although not terribly attentive. The only thing remarkable about this place was the bread pudding. I know it isn't a difficult dessert to make, but this was some of the best bread pudding I've ever tasted.
The place was pretty much empty downstairs, but what can I expect? It's a Monday.
I'm very torn on some Georgetown bars. Some are way overcrowded, some lack charm, some are filled with douchebags, some are filled with puking college kids. Garrett's I wanted to like, and can definitely appreciate many aspects of it. It is a nice space with distinct rooms inside, to go along with multiple bars. Unfortunately the largest space is a large squarish room, maybe 30x30, that just fills up with people on weekends. So, due to the squarish shape of the room, you have 30 feet of people to push through every time you want to get to the bar staffed by 1 bartender. It's a lot of work. On the other hand, Garrett's is way down M towards Foggy Bottom and tends to attract a decent crowd of people.
When I do go into Georgetown and look for a bar, Garrett's is usually near the top of my list. Beware of the narrow staircase up to the main part of Garrett's, I've seen plenty of tipsy girls slip and slide down the stairs. I find it hilarious, but I'm not the one falling and embarassing myself.
As David K. pointed out before me, I want to like Garretts. I really, really do. I live in Dupont and have been searching for a decent local watering hole since I got here a year ago. Garrett's seemed like it fit the bill--dim, laid-back, not many standing crowds and a decent (if not terribly difficult) trivia night on Tuesdays.
And on Tuesdays, when it's got a decent crowd there for a shared purpose, I love the place. But on the weekends... unless you want to shove your way through the puking, sweating, popped-collar college crowd, steer clear.
Wow, this place is incredibly dead on Thursday nights. When I ducked in with two friends to get out of the rain, there were only 3 people at the bar, and the tables were empty. Service wasn't anything to call home about -- we kind of vaguely shambled around near the door, then hesitantly drifted over to one of the tables; meanwhile the bartender, who also turned out to be our server, stared blankly at us and didn't do anything helpful.
Luckily the food was much better than the service. I highly recommend the:
- Nachos -- Crisp moctec corn tortilla chips topped with melted jack & cheddar cheese, jalapenos, black olives, cilantro salsa and sour cream.
- Fresh Mozzarella & Tomato Appetizer -- Fresh mozzarella and ripe tomatoes topped with extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil.
- Black Olive & Avocado Quesadillas -- With onions and roast peppers.
Mmmmm. Who doesn't love appetizer foods? I'm such a sucker for a heaping plate of nachos with hearty chips and melted cheese (booo, queso!), and these really hit the spot. Crunchy chips, pools of melty cheese, delicious sour cream, tangy salsa. Could have used some good ol' guac, though. The fat slices of mozzarella in the other dish were fresh and flavorful, and with the tomatoes, provided a nice light balance to the heavier nachos. And, I usually hate olives, but the ones that came with the quesidillas were actually pretty inoffensive. And everything tastes better with avocados, right? I just wish the slices were a little bigger...Yum yum yum.
Food was low to medium priced and taste pub food. Not terrible. Not great. Service in the bottom floor was poor. Go upstairs. Would go somewhere else next time.
Garrett's is one of my favorite bars in Georgetown. I used to come a lot during college, but I still enjoy going to Garrett's every once in a while. It seems kind of small, but is actually quite large, with a small downstairs bar that has TVs and such, and two different bar areas upstairs. The room on the left can be reserved for private parties for free!
Bartenders are typically great - happy to dole out the shots and beers. Drinks are reasonably priced for DC (which of course means unreasonably priced anywhere outside of DC). I've never tried the food, but they do have a cute little dining room upstairs.
I like it best on Thursday nights, when it's pretty quiet (I hate crowds). Thursday nights you can just kind of chill with the bartenders and chat with your friends, but you can still get up and dance to the jukebox if you want. Overall, it's a great place to hang out.
I used to come to Garrett's all the time during college--everyone does, you can't escape it. Just recently, however, I've started going back, and have rediscovered the just how great a bar Garrett's truly is.
On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, expect a college scene: drunken coeds dressed in Georgetown attire stumbling through Garrett's many large rooms. On any other night of the week, however, enjoy a semi-crowded atmosphere with friendly bartenders and regulars, great drink specials, and yummy bar food. Plus, they have a Big Buck Hunter tournament on Wednesdays, Trivia Night on Tuesdays, and Erotic Photo Hunt---which is clearly the greatest bar game in the world.
Pluses aside, Garretts IS still your average Georgetown bar---complete with preppies looking for a fight if you dis their striped shirts. A friend just started bartending here and indirectly caused two brawls on her second night of training; one because a male friend tried to stop a group of yuppies who kept making statements about her anatomy, and two, because she didn't serve a group of guys well after last call. Very mature indeed.
Garretts is still one of my favorite Georgetown haunts, despite its flaws. You're always guaranteed to have a great time with a group of friends; just don't throw your beer at your bartender. You'll end up in a headlock from one of the many bouncers---and your striped shirt will be ripped. Don't say I didn't warn you!
I can't think about Garrett's without thinking about The ****ing Guards.
All it does is make M Street nightlife worse.
Usually I don't give any bars in Gtown anything above 3 stars but this time it's different and I'll tell you why. Will I ever go there again? Probably not but it still gets 4 stars and I'll tell you why. It has a bit of a sentimentality to it. My sister and brother-in-law got married at this famous Catholic church in Gtown, can't remember the name but it was the church that JFK went to when he was president. My brother-in-law is Irish, real Irish, not the American guys that say they're Irish because in some way it's cool to be Irish. My brother-in-law calls those guys "plastic" Irish. My brother-in-law is 1 of 8 children so he had a nice big group of family from back home that came to the wedding and everybody stayed in a hotel in Gtown so naturally as Irish people do they need to find their watering hole so they chose the closest place which was Garretts.
Is there anything spectacular about Garretts? Absolutely not. Did all the Irish people pick Garretts because it reminded them of home? Absolutely not. Did they pick Garretts because it was the closest bar that to their hotel? Absolutely.
So that weekend my sister got married all the Irish folk (which was about 20-30 of them) spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at Garretts drinking away and basically taking over the whole bar. As the host to all these Irish people and now my family I had to be the good host and hang with them (meaning drinking with them and trying to keep up) at Garretts. Let's just say I saw my one other brother-in-law Sean chug away 25-30 pints of beer in one night at Garretts. This is true Irish drinking my friend. And since I was now part of their family I was encouraged (or better yet forced) to try and keep up. For some reason drinking with so many Irish people you can't help but start talking with an Irish accent or maybe it's just my dumb ass!! Let's just say I was either completely shit-faced or severely hung over for 3 days straight.
So this is why Garretts gets 4 stars. Because I basically celebrated my sister's wedding at Garretts with my new Irish family.
I've been to this bar a few times on random weekends, and recently for St. Pats. They had the green beer flowing, but alas, no green beads were tossed :(.
Generally, Garretts is a good casual-pub option because there's no cover (incidentally, I'm baffled by the cover charges imposed by some of these M Street dive bars). The place is nothing special as bars go, but if you're just hanging out with friends, this is just fine. It has a narrow space on the first floor and two (three?) separate rooms on the second floor, and each can get pretty crowded. The bartenders are nice, but the service can be slow, so be prepared to order multiple drinks to save yourself the trouble of having to go back and wait. The crowd is, not surprisingly, very Georgetown - it's a gathering of (maybe under-age) college kids, Hill Staffers, and an assortment of strange middle-aged local residents.
Garrett's is a fine Georgetown watering hole. Sometimes the crowds are missing, in which case you're better off somewhere else on M Street. I echo the sentiments of David K. when he states that he "wanted to like the place." It definitely has that vibe to it. That said, I would rank it below Mr. Smiths, Saloun, Old Glory, and Guards.
Five stars only because they are the only bar in Georgetown (that I know of, at least) that has my favorite bar activity ever - EROTIC PHOTO HUNT!
Otherwise, a pretty normal bar, nothing too crazy.
Small quaint bar. Kind of out of the way when it comes to the heart of Georgetown, so good if you just want to get out of the hustle and bustle of the more popular bars. I wouldn't mind coming here to just C-H-I-L-L.
Came here after a wedding reception at the Four Seasons... black tie attire... and in slippers. LOL Needless to say our group stuck out like sore thumbs compared to the other patrons. This bar kind of reminded me of a dive bar you'd find in Boston. Nothing really fancy or exciting about it... but then again I only stayed for one beer and was already very very drunk by the time I arrived. For now I'll give it 3 stars, and should I return to it one day, I'll update my review.... but from what I experienced in my short time at Garretts... it wouldn't be in my top 10 of destinations to go to in DC.
It was that time of year: Homecoming again. This time around, the old class of '04 was converging on Garret's. I found myself upstairs, in one of the many rooms of Garret's, trying to orient myself...where is the bathroom? Which way to the exit? It felt like I was in the upstairs of my grandma's house, only there were a bunch of sad-looking drunk girls, wondering why no one was hitting on them. The place was cramped and crowded, and I started to wonder: how will I escape if a fire breaks out? I started to think: ESCAPE NOW.
Maybe on a regular night, the rooms wouldn't be so crowded, but as it was that night, Garretts felt stuffy and decrepit. Plus, a pint of Red Hook was seven dollars on tap.
garretts has a split personality.
1. as a daytime restaurant and happy hour hangout, it's the best deal in gtown. it has half-off food specials (you can get a $3 gigantic plate of nachos), along with $2-3 beer. it's pretty low key and you can actually talk to the people you came with.
2. sometime after 10pm, the place turns into a typical gtown haunt, filled with obnoxious kids wearing an unacceptable amount of madras.
in short: cheap happy hour with better than average food for poor 20-somethings. but late nights, be ready to pull out your douchebaggery card. i give it 5 stars b/c i don't think garretts is getting a fair shake here. it should really be split up into two entries: bar and restaurant.
On an average day, you wouldn't find me in a bar like this. It's one of those places that doesn't look very clean in the sunlight. As the situation presented itself, I was there for a couple's wedding shower. Garrett's provided wings, cheese/veggie plate, hummus/salsa/guacamole with chips and pita bread and of course strong drinks. We got the room upstairs for three hours (4-7) and played music from the jukebox; it was very chill and had adequate room for mingling. I had a good time and our bartender Nick provided us with enough buzz to head down to the waterfront afterwards.
Just your typical Georgetown crowded bar chalk full of dbags and dumb superficial rich girls. I enjoy this place as much as watching paint dry. If you're looking for a place to go and stand around with a bunch of pompous people who think they are better than you, then this is the place. It's like the Smithpoint crowd, only they're not at smithpoint, so they must really be tools.....
After reading the other reviews, I'm surprised that this was the same place that I had lunch. The downstairs bar was a little dark and creepy, but the upstairs restaurant was well lit, especially if you're placed in their glass enclosed atrium. The food was good, the burgers were perfect, the crusty bread was a good vehicle for their homemade garlic-chive butter, and the service was fantastic. Prices were average for your typical pub fare.
This bar was crowded, the patrons were anything but a diverse crowd, and the music choice wasn't too hot, either. The girls' bathroom was also really awkwardly situated. I don't recommend going here on a Friday night if you're not drunk yet. The only plus was that it was easy to get a drink. That was useless, though...we only stuck around for 20 minutes before deciding to move on. I'm not going back.
I don't like to be negative but this place should be torn down. Once you walk in you are greeted by drunk kids who push and head-butt you as they please. Then you have to wait about 1/2 hour just to get a drink and pay premium price for it. Security seems to not exist at this place as several fights have taken place, while I was there, and no one seemed to care. I do admit that the DJ is good, other than that I would not recommend this place to anyone.
friendly staff, garrett's handled our huge group well and the prices were fair.
