21st Amendment Bar & Grill

This place is located inside the Holiday Inn on Capitol Hill. I recently stayed at the hotel for three nights, and ate here each night, so I feel like I have a good slate of experiences to draw from.
The good thing about this place is that it’s ridiculously convenient, especially if you’re staying in the hotel. It’s a definite improvement over your typical hotel restaurant. The atmosphere is good – they had solid live music on two of the three nights I was there. The drinks are pretty decent. I had their sangria, both red and white, and thought they were both delicious.
What’s not so good about this place is the food. I had the bison burger one night, and that wasn’t bad. I actually liked it. But the next night, I had a chicken pesto dish where the chicken pieces all had a spongy texture, like they’d been cooked improperly. And the next night, I had a turkey panini where the bread felt like a soggy piece of cardboard – slathered in butter, thin and chewy while at the same time being hard to chew *through*. I was really underwhelmed with those two dishes, but I’m too polite to send things back.
Servers all seemed friendly. No complaints there.
If you’re meeting a friend and want a convenient place to grab a drink, this is easily your best choice. But if you want anything more than that, I would probably look elsewhere.

Blue Cheese burger was dry. They ran out of beers so I had to switch from Sam Adams to Purple Haze after my first beer. The beer they had was warm and expensive.
I like to stick with one beer type once I start.

Everyone at 21^st Amendment is awesome! The food is delicious and the service is amazing. We found it by accident and what a great find!!!

Nachos were great .we should have stopped there. There burgers are frozen watery patties not freshly prepped. and dry as fart because they didn’t put the dressings on it. not to mention the tomato slice i received on said burger still had the stem on it still .if your in the area walk outside and go half a block to the McDonald’s you will get a better burger for sure

Just don’t go here. In L’Enfant Plaza, your options are limited. I end up here occasionally because it’s near my office, but I always end up regretting it. Never once have I had a meal here that wasn’t mediocre at best, or totally awful. Everything is low-​quality bar food with expensive prices. Other than the hostess who is a sweetheart, the service is excruciatingly slow and inattentive. Make sure you bring your patience with you.

Service was not good. Long wait for the server, Etenesh, to come with drinks. Appetizer was the cheese fries– I wouldn’t call what tasted like melted cheese whiz a «chef’s blend» as described in the menu plus it was missing the bacon on top. Steak/​pork belly sandwich was juicy and flavorful but again served sans bacon. The kids hamburger was dry. The grilled chicken sandwich was like sliced chicken deli meat. The flat iron steak salad was great although the steak itself was overcooked. The blue cheese on the salad was delicious. Overall, an easy one to pass up.

I stopped by for an after work happy hour when I was visiting DC and am still trying to figure out why my coworkers picked this place!
It’s in the Holiday Inn (which should have been a red flag) and the service was really bad. There were several older, grumpy ladies serving us on the patio and it took about 20 minutes to get a beer. I eventually gave up and went to the bar to get another beer.
Speaking of beer, their selection was really bad and the prices were high.
There was a live band playing inside, but the sitting area was really cramped and we couldn’t hear the music from the patio.
With so many restaurants and bars to choose from in DC, I have no idea why anyone would hang out here.

Excellent food and beer on tap, nice people. Live music inside but I enjoyed my meal outside, ignoring the occasional train. Two blocks from Air and Space museum.

I went here the other day with my mom for her birthday to eat and see the live band perform. I read a few reviews before we went but I kept a open mind to ensure my review wasn’t bias. The venue itself is pretty nice to be honest. I liked the stylish décor along with the lighting, it gave of a trendy lounge vibe even though its a bar and grill. I saw a few reviews speaking on how terrible the service was but we didn’t have any issues with our waitress; she was decent and checked on us from time to time, so I had no true complaint. The menu is very basic and doesn’t give you many food options which really turned me off. It consisted of three pages; one was appetizers and salads, the second page was a small selection of entrees/​sandwiches, and the last page was dessert. If your coming to just drink you have nothing to worry about there a plenty of options to choose from.
The food in my opinion was low end bar food with a high end restaurant prices which is not a good combination in my bookl. My mom got the Shrimp cobb salad, which she said she enjoyed so that was a plus with it being her birthday. I had the bison burger;it wasn’t terrible but for the price, it wasn’t anything special either. It was disappointing to see un-​melted shredded cheese on top of my burger and the flavor was very sub-​par, I would actually choose a Friday’s or Ruby Tuesday’s burger over one from 21^st amendment. My girlfriend didnt see anything on the menu that caught her eye, so she just got the bacon cheese fries which were also a let down! Now with me being a home cook I find it offensive when a restaurant doesn’t make their own cheese sauce its so simple! The cheese sauce tasted like nacho cheese from the movie theater, the bacon had NO flavor at all, and the fries tasted like frozen french fries. I hate to say it but the food was something I would expect from a bowling alley not a bar and grill.
On another note, the band that plays live every Thursday evening is great! I would recommend eating before for you come and just stop through for a few drinks while listening some good music. I would say stay away if your coming expecting great bar food and not a lot of noise.

Very good food! Service was great! Food came quickly and refills were abundant. Very loud music and thus atmosphere. Outside dining was simple but great! Filled me up and I didn’t realize it!

Not a bad place, close to all the museums and attraction of the area. came here to have a nice cold beer and enjoy the weather, however on a nice slow day I sat for about 10 minutes with an empty glass without any attention. of course I was sitting outside which is unusual, most people want to sit inside in the air conditioning but I enjoy the weather and a cold beer you can’t go wrong. My only complaint is for a slow as they were I should’ve had an empty glass.

We were hungry and tired from visiting the Air & Space Museum and stumbled upon this place. We needed a light snack and ordered a plate of nachos. Nothing special, but it was good and gave us energy to head back to where we staying at in DC. Service was good. The nearby restrooms were out of order, we I had to walk all the way to FEMA (in the same building) to make pee.
This place is attached to or part of the Hilton Inn which is convenient if you’re staying there. It wasn’t crowded and there were enough seats outside to enjoy the lovely weather. Good convenient location for lazy or hungry tourists like myself.

Food: very good, ribs, nachos and bison burger were good! (Ribs portion is somewhat small)
Drinks are expensive (cocktails over $ 13)
Environment: very nice awesome service
Location is very convenient for tourists!

Fantastic food and bar menus. Great service and attentive bar tender who fixed me a hot toddy — cured my cold!!! After a day of touring the city, this restaurant/​bar was a welcome sight and go to for ordering take out.

I read all the reviews and was skeptical, but there are limited food options around here that aren’t food trucks, so we gave it a shot. I might be the anomaly, but our experience was good. Drinks took mere moments & food took a very reasonable 15 minutes. Decent alcohol selection and DELICIOUS fries that are different than any I’ve ever had. His turkey panini was delicious. My burger was good — not cooked exactly how I asked, but there was a slight language barrier with our server so I’m choosing not to blame the cook. Overall, we would come back again if we were in the area again and hungry for drinks and bar food.

Being a local, I have stopped by here after work on occasion to snag some of their yummy french fries and/​or have a drink or two during happy hour.
Food is good, staff is friendly, but when it gets busy (especially during their live music nights). don’t be afraid to make your presence known since the bartender and servers are racing around fulfilling orders.

Well apparently if there is a conference at the hotel there is nowhere to sit here. Oh, this bar is connected to a hotel (Holiday Inn) if that wasn’t obvious at first… I didn’t know until I showed up. So it was super crowded when I got there and I ended up waiting outside for about 20 minutes until a seat opened up. I was meeting friends there later, so I didn’t have a choice but to hang around.
I finally sat down around 6:15pm and noticed the HH menu say 4−7pm, but 4−6pm if there is live music. Well there wasn’t a band or anything soI assumed they were still on HH, wrong! I was told that since there was a DJ there (1 guy with a laptop and 1 speaker) that HH was over… bummer! I got a beer that was fine and ordered a Salmon BLT and fries. The food was mediocre at best. The salmon was overcooked and the fries were kind of seasoned wedges, but clearly frozen and not made from fresh potatoes.
I wouldn’t come back here unless I was staying in the hotel and was too lazy to walk anywhere else.

Through the years, I have frequented this establishment nearly every time I am in DC. This place is in the Holiday Inn, and the clientele are hotel guests, in combination with government workers. This isn’t a neighborhood-​type place.
The food is average. The people are friendly and very nice. The service is soooo slow.
I think it is a combination of unaware servers, slow bartender, and a slow kitchen. Think «Island Time» mentality, of hang loose man, no worries, you are here to relax and kick back. Oy. Since I’m here for work, I’m not in that mindset, and I have to check my attitude at the door before my blood pressure goes through the roof.
The décor has been updated and is very inviting. They have a nice selection of seating ranging from cozy chairs and couches to high-​hat tables with stools, and regular table seating. Would absolutely accommodate wheel chairs very easily. They also have outside dining on the sidewalk, which is very nice. There are several flat-​screen televisions throughout, so if you want to watch the Big Game/​Match/​Tournament, you will be in a good spot.
They offer live music a couple of nights a week, and the place is packed.
The food? It’s good too. Average everyday hotel/​bar fare. No real signature items, but a nice range, so there is something for everyone. They even have a kids menu.
Anyhow, don’t hesitate to come here, just pack your patience. Chill.

The first thing I do when I get to a restaurant that I haven’t been to before is 1, check in on Unilocal and 2, read the reviews. Hey, I’m already there right so there be no walking out. Funny thing was that right after I had read the review about how slow these people were I realized that they indeed were VERY slow. We ordered beer, and waited, waited … got the beer. ordered food … actually came out pretty quickly but the waitress for our table was waaay slow and it became a little bit annoying.
If I would have done it the other way around, meaning if I would have maybe read the reviews first then we could have saved ourselves the trip.

I met up with a friend from Northern Virginia at our metro halfway point, L’enfant Plaza. First of all, there are very few restaurant/​bar choices within a few blocks of that metro station. Next time, I’ll choose a different meeting point. 21^st Amendment was one of the few places around so we decided to try it.
It’s actually inside of a hotel but it was packed regardless. We went on a Friday around 6:00 so I’m guessing most of the people there worked in the area and stopped in for happy hour. The happy hour was good: it was advertised outside the bar and it actually had a daily happy hour, which is nice because I’ve found that a lot of restaurants don’t do happy hour on Friday. They offered $ 3 Michelobs and $ 4 house wine with a variety of choices (Merlot, Cab, Chardonnay, etc). They also had daily cocktail specials for $ 6 which looked pretty interesting. However, on the happy hour menu they also had listed a number of other beers which were not part of the deal, which was a little misleading. My friend ordered a Blue Moon thinking it was part of the happy hour deal and it ended up costing $ 8. We explained it to the waitress upon getting our check and she did nothing, not even apologize.
The service here was horrible. When we walked in, it was unclear whether we were supposed to seat ourselves or wait for a hostess because there was no sign to tell us what to do. There was no one at the hostess stand and it took 5 – 10 minutes for one of the waitresses to come by and tell us to seat ourselves. It was another 10 minutes after we sat down before anyone came back to take our order. Although we came in knowing exactly what drinks and food we wanted, we were there for over an hour.
One man sitting at the table next to us asked the waitress if happy hour was over and she said yes, it ends at 6. However, the sign and the menu said 7. We were able to get the happy hour deal from another waitress, but it’s unacceptable for the staff to not know their own deals.
My friend and I shared the nachos. They were alright, but nothing great and it took forever for them to come out of the kitchen after we ordered them. Everything here was very overpriced. For one beer, one glass of wine, and one appetizer nachos the bill came out to $ 25. When we asked to split the check, the waitress initially told us we couldn’t, but then changed her mind. Eventually she was able to inform us that she could not split the check if one of us was paying with a card and the other was paying with cash, but if we both paid with cards it was okay? Very confusing. I will not be back to 21^st Amendment.