Hawk N Dove Capitol Hill DC — Restaurant in Washington

Where to start.

I never visited the old Hawk n' Dove that is frequently mentioned in the reviews here but I feel that I didn't miss much except some greasy spoon style food and sticky floors. Since I have nothing to compare it to, I will say the decoration and ambiance is actually very nice. It kind of reminds me of a hunting lodge. Lots of dark wood and a very hunting lodge feel. Ron Swanson would feel right at home upstairs.

Unfortunately once you get past the surface that is where things really start to fall apart. Mentioned quite frequently in the reviews below are terrible service and sub-par food and regrettably I have to agree with those reviews.

We made reservations via Open Table and the front door staff was actually very friendly and helpful once we arrived. We needed to add one more to our table and they were happy to do so and find another table for us. Originally we were going to be downstairs but they moved us upstairs to the bar area. Maybe things would have been different if we had been downstairs where we had a dedicated server but it kind of seemed like we had service by committee upstairs.

We sat down and it took about 10 minutes to get greeted by the bartender who was one of several people that "served" us throughout the meal. He brought us water and was nice enough. He took our drink order and promptly returned.

After a few more minutes a different bartender/server approached us and took our order. From this point on we didn't have another person stop by the table until our food was up about 30 minutes later. 30 minutes seemed a little long considering all of us ordered relatively simple breakfast/brunch meals. The place was steady but not busy. They were not even on a wait, which is pretty unusual on a Sunday in DC, so I am not sure why it was so long but reading the reviews prior to going, I kind of knew what to expect.

During this absence of service my friend had to get up twice to walk over to the bar to get water refilled and get a straw. Again if they had been slammed it could have been a little more understandable but the bartender/servers were just leaning against the railing behind the bar chatting it up. Another server had time to spend about 10 minutes sitting with a group of ladies at another table upstairs. Completely unprofessional to sit with a group of customers while ignoring us.

And then there was the food.

I will only review what I had because I don't want to try and review what everybody else thought about their meal. I had a meal that included homemade hash, poached eggs and skillet potatoes. I don't remember the name of it but I would avoid it at all costs if you happen to be there on a Sunday or any other day they serve it. The hash was dry and chewy to the point of being uneatable, the poached eggs were nothing more then wet looking hard boiled eggs. The yolk was completely cooked and the potatoes were so hard that I think they just diced them up and put them in the bowl. The biscuits and gravy portion were just ok and sadly the best part of the meal.

To add insult to injury, they naturally added 20% gratuity to the meal. I am not sure if when they see 6 people at a table they just don't care about the service because they know they are getting the obligatory 20% so they think they can just ignore a customer, but that is certainly what it felt like. We spoke to a manager and they removed the gratuity and apologized and claimed the kitchen was backed up which again is something I expected because I read the reviews.

Maybe your experience will be better then ours and if you decide to check it out, I certainly hope it is. This place is beautiful and has great potential but until they can get service and food to a reasonable level for the price they are charging, I...

Had a strange experience here on Monday. I was traveling to DC for the weekend (from Boston) and wanted to find a restaurant/bar with a decent menu and some happy hour deals (it being a Monday afternoon). I came in around 4pm and it wasn’t too busy. Around 3-4 tables occupied across the inside & patio, and the bar seats slightly over halfway full.

At first I ordered a blue moon because I saw it on both the menu and on the chalkboard behind the bar. The bartender said they didn’t have it. Fair enough. I figured they could at least take it off the chalkboard though. I decided to then order a cocktail off the menu that looked interesting. The bartender said “no, we don’t have that. It’s not on the menu.”

For context, I’m also a server & bartender. When I looked behind the bar, I could see every ingredient needed to make the cocktail, except for two (amaretto and frangelico). I could understand being out of frangelico, but it’s unusual for a full restaurant bar to not have any amaretto. If the bartender said “we’re out of x ingredient” I would have understood, having been in that situation myself, but the bartender seemed to have an annoyed attitude with me ordering something off the menu.

Very shortly after, he came back around to ask me what I wanted, with hand motions that indicated he wanted me to hurry up. I asked for him to hold on a second because they couldn’t do the first two things I ordered, and I wanted to figure out what to order. He then said “okay well I got a million other things to do right now!” Again, I know that bartenders have a constant flow of tasks to do, but the restaurant was not busy at all, and it’s unprofessional to rush anyone into ordering, unless you’re somewhere with very high volume & turnover.

I decided to hold off on ordering a drink, and ordered some chicken tenders. I also asked to double check if the happy hour menu was going on because now I was doubtful they were putting updated menus at the bar. He said “I don’t know, I don’t usually work Mondays.” I said “oh, I was just double checking to make sure because the menu says it’s all day on Mondays.” He just shrugged and walked away. I assumed he put in my food order, but the man two seats away from me ordered food slightly after me, and got his pizza before I got my food. It had been over 20 minutes since I put in my food order. At this point I was just going to get a modelo to drink, but the bartender never looked at me any time he walked by, so at this point I preferred to leave and go somewhere else instead of stopping him to put in another order.

Who knows, he might’ve been having a bad day, but at the very least it was awkward to be treated like that. Not sure when I’ll be back in DC, but I probably won’t come here when I do. I’m sure it’s an alright place otherwise, since there’s generally...

I would think twice if you are considering eating at Hawk n Dove. Very disappointing experience. I ordered a medium rare steak salad , and the steak came out raw, cold, and rubbery (I couldn’t even cut through it with the steak knife). I ate less than half and decided I couldn’t continue. I sent the meal back with the waitress (who by the way, was very sweet to us). I could see her explain to her manager about what happened. When it came time for the check, we noticed the meal was not taken off of the check, even though we had made a complaint and had clearly not enjoyed the food. The waitress came back and explained that her manager was not going to take care of the salad. So I asked to speak with her manager (a request that I usually never ever have). But when the manager came, she fought me tooth and nail over the matter, first saying that she was unwilling to take care of it because I “ate more than half”. Then she said she would discount but not take care of the meal. My boyfriend had to step in saying that the meal was inedible, and she finally acquiesced. I felt absolutely disrespected by management , and it’s clear that they don’t value the opinions or satisfaction of their customers. Accusing the customer of being in the wrong is a very poor way to run a business, especially in the hospitality industry. Best to honor your customer’s word and then they will be interested in returning. We live in the neighborhood and will not be visiting again because of this experience. I do want to emphasize again that our waitress did her very best to advocate for us and she was sweet. Unfortunate though that management/owners put their staff in the position to take blame and/or maybe even lose...