May 6, 2005
Are we talking about the same 1223?
From a previously unknown bar guide site linked by Kelly Ann Collins, we have perhaps the most wildly incorrect bar review ever:
"Known as Twelve Twenty Three and ideally located in the heart of the Dupont district, DC's 'Premier Champagne and Caviar Club' is not easy to get into. Drop names or dress in Dolce and you might make it past the velvet rope. Once you do though you're in a classy inner sanctum that's well worth the wait. The dimly-lit bar has large cream couches that must be reserved in advance if you want to sit, but why not head for the VIP lounge which can be accessed with a few well-chosen words. There's a packed dance floor out back where DJs spin hip-hop, house and trance, while at various bar stations every cocktail known to man is being boldly built. Sure, it's a plastic-flashing designer-wearing kind of place, but regulars are fun, friendly and surprisingly unpretentious. Hey, our barman even asked for our names!"
Holy complete misrepresentation, Batman! I have been to 1223 (screw the roman numerals) on several occasions, and it's always been drunk 20-something corporates, Eurotrash or knock-off-label wannabe thugs. The music is unoriginal generic electronica or chart-whore rap, the bartenders are inattentive and the people are all obnoxious drunks -- by midnight, the women are loud and sloppy, the men are aggressive. Aside from peak hours when they make you wait until a few people leave to free up some room inside, I've never had to wait to get in and I certainly never had to drop any names. The fact that 1223 is the "premier" anything stuns me, since champagne, caviar, attitude and exclusivity can be found in greater quantities and of higher quality elsewhere.
But maybe this review is in some ways accurate. It correctly gauges what people who go to 1223 really think of themselves. If you've just started your first job and are living in your first non-college apartment, you want to ditch the beer pong and t-shirt phase of your life in exchange for drinks in actual glasses and threads that are a little more, well, striped. Or perhaps you're a "consultant" of some sort, (illegally) yapping into your $500 smartphone while driving up Connecticut Avenue in the BMW roadster you've gone into unwise levels of debt to lease. Either way, you think you're the bees knees and any bar/club you frequent is, just like you, the height of coolness.
And when you're on the right side of the velvet rope, it's all good at the 'Premier Champagne and Caviar Club' of your own mind.
Posted by rj3 at May 6, 2005 11:44 AM
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Comments
amen, brother.
Posted by: cdb at May 6, 2005 12:19 PM
The one and only time I went to 1223 was for dinner before my senior prom. It was early and therefore tolerably quiet, the food was edible and they gave us free melonballs after dinner, which resulted in much hilarity when they asked where we were on our way to (we made sure to finish the shots before we told them). That said, there was a ragin' Holton party upstairs involving many drunken high-school hoochies and white-hats, and some girl adjusted her skirt while ascending the stairs thereby giving all of us a view that we never needed to see.
The point? I'm pretty sure the people that go there now are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE. They always look so pathetic and Euroey, and there are always at least five guys wearing that same A/X skull cap. Give me some Ben's cheese fries and a corner of the dilapidated black leather sofa at the Black Cat over that any day. Yech.
Posted by: b. at May 6, 2005 2:39 PM
i havent lived in dc for quite sometime but even then 1223 sucked and if i'm not mistaken there are nights where the let anyone in who's 18+.
is there really any bar in dc, that's exclusive? when you get down to it, people in washington just arent that cool. (most of the frat boys and the wannabe hipsters think that they are cool, but they really need to spend a weekend in LA or NY to get those delusions out their heads)
Posted by: nes at May 6, 2005 4:55 PM
That's hilarious. Somehow I can't see 1223 actually being exclusive, although I can certainly believe they think they're exclusive. We used to go on Thursday or Friday nights for the all-you-can-drink for $15 specials, and there was definitely no "rope" we had to pass....
Posted by: amg at May 7, 2005 12:58 AM
that review makes me wanna hurl. actually, just thinking about 1223 makes me shiver. i could smell the rank while reading this.
spot on with regard to the demographic, though. hilarious!
Posted by: Hector at May 9, 2005 3:52 PM
use bardc.com to get DC bar reviews and post your reviews
Posted by: yoyo at May 10, 2005 2:56 PM
Yeah -- no caviar there. Where the heck is that link? I am so sick and tired of Spank.
Posted by: Kelly Ann Collins at May 16, 2005 3:58 PM
Spank used to me the only place celebs would go when they were in town ... but that is not true now.
Posted by: Kelly Ann Collins at May 16, 2005 3:58 PM