ChurchKey — Restaurant in Washington

Walking up to the chalkboard signage propped directly infront of this black and brick fortress, I was prepared to be greeted by your run of the mill, New-American watering hole. What I came to find once I walked up those hallowed steps was a dimly lit leather sanctuary that would quickly become one of my favorite beer and bourbon bars I've ever had the pleasure of visiting.

The ambiance alone is enough to keep you coming back - you can tell they put a lot of effort into finding just the right lighting with just the right accents to fine tune your brain for booze consumption. Let me stop dancing around the main point here - ChurchKey's beer list rivals the best I've ever seen. This may sound hyperbolic, and maybe it is, but having been exposed to world class beer bars across the States I feel my barometer is calibrated to appreciate what this place is trying to accomplish. Anytime you have fresh IPAs from Fidens/Monkish/Other Half in the same vicinity as Side Project white labels and rare Cantillon lambics, you know you've fallen into a honey hole.

The bourbon list, though not as extensive as their beer offerings, is perfectly curated with many top tier choices. Anywhere from a Weller Antique 107 to a Michter's 20 - they truly have an incredible lineup of brown water.

I can't really comment on the food as my trip was all business (alcohol only), but from what I could tell they're no slouches on the grub they serve up here.

If you are a lover of beer or bourbon or even just want a nice pint of your go-to sauce, you need to...

We have been here around a dozen times, but have not been back in several years due to not being near DC. TLDR the server was one of the worst servers I have ever had.

After arriving it took 20 mins for our server to show up. We placed our beer orders and around this time the table beside us called over the manager and all I could tell was that they were unhappy with the server, but nothing else. After waiting another 20 mins for our beers to arrive we flagged down another server to ask if they had seen our server. She took our order again as it had not been placed into their system and after a short wait of 10-15mins she came back with our server and helped them with our order.

After another 30 mins or so the server finally came back to take our food order. We placed that and another beer order together in hopes of being able to get the beers before we had to leave.

The food arrived and at this point it was near the 2 hour point. We ate and had to wait another 30 minutes for our server after finishing our beers and food. At this point we had to flag down someone else again due to our server being no where to be found.

This is not my experience with ChuchKey any other time and I hope that this is just a one...

I love churchkey but the service here needs improvement. I’ve been twice since they reopened with the latest being a Saturday night around 11:30. Busy but not crazy. Was able to find a seat at the bar. After I sat down it took at least 5 minutes just to get a bartender to acknowledge me. Was handed food and drink menus. After that probably another 5 minutes to get my order in. I thought it was weird that the bartender didn’t provide water when I sat down. I feel that it’s customary to do so at a bar as so not to make people drunk quickly. After I ordered my second drink I placed an order for food as well and was told the kitchen closed at midnight. That would have been helpful to know as I got there at almost quarter til so that was annoying. Shortly before I left there was also a guy at the bar who was passed out and one of the bartenders slammed a bottle really hard on the counter to wake him up and I thought that was kind of unnecessary. All in all, definitely a craft beer Mecca but just keep in mind service can be kinda spotty. (P.S.- they made the place brighter after they reopened so you can actually see going up that long flight of stairs and the menu once...