Stetson’s Famous Bar & Grill

Used to be my go-​to place when I lived here. Bartender was too busy talking with another co-​worker who was off clock at the bar, and never interacted with customers. 40% of the taps were out. Poorly trained employees and bad bar management = crap. Too bad. Very disappointed.

Fun atmosphere, but waaayyyy overpriced for what you get and very slow and unfriendly service. There are better U St. options.

best. bar. in. DC.
Unpretentious, patio out back, darts and a few other games upstairs, decently priced beers.
sometimes it’s packed and sometimes it’s dead – equally fun either way.
the bartender upstairs will usually let you put your ipod on the speakers if it’s not too crowded.

Went to a friend’s birthday party here. Great back patio — that’s the main reason to come. Surprisingly thoughtful draft list BUT it’s EXTREMELY expensive (you only find out when you get the check — it’s not on the board). You know how much the rare imported drafts are at Pizzeria Paradiso? Regular American beer at Stetsons costs that much. I liked my 3 Stars Black and Tan, but it’s certainly not worth $ 9.50 for a 12oz glass of something brewed a few miles away. Birthday boy’s Lagunitas Pils was $ 8. Come on. You get GOOD $ 4 drafts at Glen’s Garden Market and a much better food selection just a few blocks west (and it has a spacious patio too). No wonder Stetsons was mostly empty on a Saturday night.

I went to their Tuesday trivia night with two friends. Overall, the trivia was super difficult, the food was bad and the service wasn’t great.
Definitely a dive bar — The space was small and filled up quickly. I had the longhorn burger, which was below average. The fries desperately needed salt and pepper — but none were on the table. A friend of mine asked for barbecue sauce that she got… after she was done eating. They had one girl working the whole place and she was slow and forgot several things we asked for.
The trivia was unbelievably difficult, so much so that we left early. There was an extra drink added to my tab that I had to ask be removed. I wouldn’t go back.

My friends and I love to do bar trivia and we were looking for a new «home» as our old one was getting a bit stale. Let me say – this will not be our new trivia joint.
General scene: It’s a very dive-​y, college-​feeling bar. They have an upstairs which we did not go look at. Small, dark bathroom. No AC that we could tell. Tiny, crammed-​together tables. Hipster crowd.
We were pounced on by the bartender when we walked in (that’s fine). We ordered beers and saw a sign about free popcorn during happy hour but none was offered (we didn’t ask for it either). We each got a happy hour drink and then a server took our food order.
Food: nothing to write home about. Mediocre burger, fries had no seasoning and no S & P on the table to ameliorate that situation. I ordered BBQ sauce when I ordered my burger and it didn’t come with, I politely reminded her when she asked if we needed anything else. She finally brought it when I was done with my burger, which, I get that you’re busy (trust me, I’ve waited tables for 8 years) but I tried to make it easy and order my sauce with my meal. She apologized off-​handedly when she brought it late so I guess kudos for that. We were also not asked how we wanted our meat cooked and I liked how it came out (medium-​rare I would say) so that was fortuitous.
Trivia: DIFFICULT! My friends and I consider ourselves to be smart, and we have a range of interests, but holy moly. It’s hard, guys. We’ve done both Trivia Kings and District Trivia formats and this is entirely different from those.
TL;DR — mediocre food, mediocre service, hard trivia, tiny bathroom, no AC.

I am happy to upgrade my rating at a later date, but super not impressed by a bar that heavily promotes its trivia night without any mention of a two drink minimum per person for said event. I’ve been to a ton of trivia nights and this is the only one that has a drink minimum, which honestly screams ‘strip club’ to me. Food doesn’t count towards the total which doesn’t make sense to me, since soda does and that’s way cheaper…
I will say that the sweet potato tater tots were awesome and something I’ve wanted all my life. I will be back for those and next time getting them with queso and chilli!

Paid $ 350. for a private birthday party for my daughter. Waste of money.
Not only did the doorman let any patrons come up, but we couldn’t play our slideshow on the tv as promised and our dj could not use their audio system to play the music he put together on his iPhone for our party.
Found out later The bartender didn’t know that the cables for both were in a drawer behind the bar AND that this surly, unhelpful woman was actually the general manager!!! AND, unbelievable, the one who decided whether or not we got a refund when I called the next day to complain to her assistant (and the person I planned the party with).
Wonder whose pockets it went into.
After many attempts to state my case: that there was nothing ‘private’ about this party and that I wanted only $ 250. refunded I was told the GM said no.
OH! and my daughter’s gifts and a guest’s Stetson hat (oh the irony) were stolen!
I’ve never in my 60 yrs experienced as incompetent and unprofessional a staff and
facility. Sad.

Solid veggie burger (and loved that there are half price burgers on Monday nights, as well as free popcorn). Better quality bread would take this burger to the next level. It was $ 2 extra for sweet potato tater tots, which were just okay.
Great beer selection and the staff was very accommodating of the increasing size of our group over the course of the night.

Spent a great Friday night at Stetson’s. While described as divey, this place is just a laid back and chill place to grab relatively inexpensive drinks. The crowd is is unpretentious, the music was on point, and the bartenders made sure you were more than taken care of (strong drinks). Stetson’s was far less crowded than many of the other U-​Street bars and was a nice alternative to some of the trendier spots.

I only come here so I’m on TV when John Taffer from Bar Rescue walks in to introduce himself.

We came to their Tuesday trivia night with a group of six, with one person joining us later. We’d heard that their trivia night was good while the food was lousy, and as trivia fans decided to try it out for ourselves.
There was a chronic chair shortage the whole night. We had a seventh person who was coming late, but he wasn’t there by the end of the first trivia round and the waitress took away the chair we’d saved for someone at another table who was standing. This is fair (I don’t like chair hoarders either), but the waitress was rude about it. And the fact that there was such a chair shortage in the first place (about 6 people were standing around tables the whole time) is inexcusable. Can’t you keep some folding chairs in the back just in case? Based on another comment she made when we came in, it didn’t sound like it was more packed than usual for trivia.
One of our group of six left part of the way into trivia, and our seventh friend arrived about five minutes later. During that span of five minutes, the waitress swept away our vacant chair without asking or making eye contact. We took turns standing for the rest of the night.
As we learned from the (still somewhat rude) waitress, there is a 2-​drink minimum during trivia night. This isn’t written anywhere on the menu. Nor was she okay with an average of 2 drinks per person — everyone had to have their own 2 drinks. Apparently this is to «keep trivia free». We’ve explored about six other trivia nights in the District and nowhere else was there any sign of a minimum or the implication that somehow trivia was costing the bar and the customers had to make up for it.
The service wasn’t great, either — items were forgotten and missing (after pressuring me into ordering a second drink, the waitress forgot to bring it to me), an extra drink was added to our tab at the end of the night. This is not a welcoming bar — we were made to feel like we were imposing. The experience was decidedly one-​star.
Why the second star? After all the Unilocal reviews about their lousy food, the vegetarian burger I had was fantastic. (The fries and charging extra for cheese, not so much.)

I came here with some friends on a Saturday night. It’s a dive bar so I wasn’t expecting much.
They get docked one star each for the three beers I ordered that they were out of.
They get docked another star for not enforcing the Smoking Ban and allowing people to smoke inside the bars (yes, inside… not on the patio).
The only reason I didn’t give this place 1 star is because they gave me a free beer to make up for the fact that they were out of the first 3.
But seriously, for a bar to be out of 3 different beers on a Saturday at 7pm?

We came with a relatively large group to watch the March Madness games on a Saturday afternoon. The bar was relatively empty and finding seats at the bar for the 8 of us was very easy. They have a pretty good beer selection and they match the glass with the beer you want from the tap, at least for the beers we ordered lol. It was a nice European touch.
The food was generic bar food, like burgers and fried food. Also, if you are not sitting directly at the bar, the tables are not set up to view the TV’s. It was a great place to watch the games as it wasn’t super crowded, but it would be so much better if you could see the TV’s from any seat in the bar.

Back during my first tour of duty in Washington, DC (2006 – 2009), Stetson’s was something of a rough’n’tumble bar – about as close to a dive as you could find in this part of the city. It was a great place to get a pitcher and watch the patrons cycle in and out as they alternated between cheap beers cigarettes.
It has since been renovated, or at least given a head-​to-​tail cleaning. The result looks more like Ruby Tuesdays with the predictable crowd to match. Never mind that they’ve replaced all the cheap lagers with $ 10 IPA’s and Imperial Stouts.

Came here for a pre conference get together. The beer selection was ok but at $ 5 for a can of Yuenling, I wasn’t expecting that.

This is our go-​to spot. Great staff, really friendly (and nerdy!) crowd, pretty large beer selection. Lot of TVs make it a perfect place to watch the game. And it has the best trivia night in town (gotta get there early!).
The food is generally, well, bad. The cook apparently only knows how to fry things, so there’s a really limited menu. Just greasy stuff. That’s fine. We ordered a salad one time and got a cereal bowl full of vegetables with lettuce. I think it was a surprise order for the cook. If they coughed up the cash to hire a half-​decent kitchen staff and made it more of a tavern, then I’d never leave this place.
So grab a bite somewhere else and then meet all of your friends at Stetsons to watch the game or for Tuesday trivia. You’ll have a good time.

Was at stetsons this weekend with a BIG birthday party (i.e. lots of drinkers!) Rude bartender downstairs charged me $ 5 for two club sodas. Ugh. That is all.

Don’t come here hungry that’s for sure. I came here for trivia night and the experience was so so.
Trivia was fun but food is disgusting and service was worse.
I ate the burger and wings, and both were gross. The waitress got my order wrong. I asked for the burger to be served on a bed of salad greens and it came with 1 lettuce and a slice of tomato, a pickle and fries. The Burger was dry and she didn’t bring any condiments nor ask me if I wanted anything. She brought 1 fork but no knife. She dropped off the stuff and left without asking if everything was okay. She didn’t check back either. I had to hunt down my own ketchup. There were no other condiments on the table either like salt or pepper.
I was still hungry after I ate my burger (since I don’t really eat fries). So I ordered the chicken wings with blue cheese dressing. The wings tasted weird and the blue cheese dressing didn’t have any blue cheese. Maybe she got it wrong and sent me ranch instead or maybe it’s poor quality blue cheese dressing that doesn’t taste like blue cheese. I wasn’t sure.
I know the food is low quality because my stomach immediately started acting up and it made me feel like shit. (Btw I still felt gross and bloated the next day)
I had club soda to drink and over 2 hours she didn’t refill it once. I gave up trying to find her. It was too much trouble.
Mind you, it wasn’t a crazy night. The bar was full in the sense that all the tables and chairs were taken but there was certainly room for people to move around.
Because it was trivia night she automatically gave herself a ~20% tip, which is not deserved in my opinion. We had a party of 7.
There are better bars for trivia. See this BYT list:

Every time I have went to Stetsons I have had a good experience. Their food is average and their drink prices are standard, but it has a very homey feel. I went there for a playoff football game awhile ago and it was good place to watch. Everyone was very into the game, but polite and for how packed the restaurant was the service was pretty good.
As a bar they always have $ 3 domestic beers if you pay cash. They also have a great outdoor patio and a foosball table upstairs (what more could you want).
I have heard absolutely terrific things about their Tuesday trivia. The only problem is apparently everyone has. I have gotten there with friends at 6:15 and all the tables have been full, so if you are going to check it out I suggest to get to Stetson’s as early as possible.

Stetsons is a dive bar, so don’t come here with expectations of luxury. It exists for people who want to put alcohol into their bodies. Everything else is secondary.
People tell me Stetsons has a back patio and a rooftop. I don’t know about that, I’ve never been there. I’ve only been to the party room and the downstairs bar.
Beer selection is good. Not cheap, but reasonably priced. They often have specials on pitchers of beer and various other promotions for each day of the week.
For $ 300 you can rent the party room upstairs and its good value if you are having a birthday party or a happy hour for work. The staff is laid back and they let you play your music, put up decorations, etc. They let me bring in a piñata.
The only reason Stetsons get docked a star is because their food only deserves one star. Every time I go there, I eat something and instantly regret it. They have unappetizing bar food that exists solely for drunk people trying to drop grease bombs into their guts. If you must do this, get the sweet potato tots.
The best reason to come to Stetsons is Trivia Tuesdays. Trivia starts at 7pm but come at 6pm to secure a table as seats are quickly claimed by regulars. The host is a very charming and suave man who smells like an awesome combination of many different colognes. His swarthy good looks will transport you to the exotic shores of the Caspian Sea and his soothing voice will make your workday tensions melt away. His trivia is so wondrous it is like a desert cave of treasures. If you are a trivia fan, do not miss out on Stetsons on Tuesday.