Larry's Lounge — Restaurant in Washington

I came to Larry’s tonight in a group of predominately folks of color, and we were immediately treated in a strangely antagonistic way by the white bartenders behind the bar. Both of the bartenders, white femme-presenting people, were clearly very drunk (both slurring their words, aggressive, and stumbling behind the bar). We truly came in to just have a casual drink after a long day of work and the bartenders (especially one, a blonde white woman) immediately behaved aggressively toward my friends, Black nonbinary and Latinx nonbinary friends, suggesting that they were drinking underage and threatening to call the police for entirely baseless “underaged” drinking (both of my friends are 25 years old with legal and scanned/verified government IDs). The behavior was completely confounding and out of nowhere—again, we had just arrived for a casual drink after a long day of work at what we thought would be a safe space as a gay bar (all members of our party are queer and/or gay). When I inquired as to the reasoning behind the bar staff’s aggressive treatment of our group, the bartender was incredibly defensive and suggested that DC was “not racist,” as compared to wherever we might be coming from (Los Angeles, lol). They refused to take any accountability for their unacceptable racist, unprofessional, inappropriate behavior and instead suggested that we were “assuming” that they were racist, which they couldn’t be because they “have Black friends.” The more drunk one of the bartenders just laughed and walked off from behind the bar to talk with their friends on the other side of the bar, pointing and looking at us as they did. My friends—again, QTPOC folks—had felt immediately unsafe, freaked out, and scared at why the bartenders were behaving aggressively toward them. They wanted to leave immediately, were scared, and even when I (the only white member of the group) tried to intervene with the slightly more sober bartender, the bartenders were defensive and blamed us for their own aggression.

I think it goes without saying that this is completely unacceptable behavior, ESPECIALLY at a supposedly queer-affirming establishment. It is laughable that the bartenders balked at the suggestion that race played a factor in what was a bar almost entirely populated that night (11/28) by white people. I hope management takes into serious consideration the gravity of this behavior and undertakes appropriate training and discipline to correct highly...

As someone in the food customer service industry of 30 years, I WISH I COULD GIVE 5 STARS! This place is Awesomesauce!!! The best drinks, atmosphere, patrons, music...etc. there was even the most beautiful little dog named Sparky. ❤️❤️ BEST bartender Ali. We thank n appreciate them for such amazing service and going out of ur way to serve my friends n I once to then politely & understandingly explained the bar has no table service. MOST WONDERFUL 🌙 IN GEORGETOWN EVER.... But beware gaslighting if u seek Amy!!! So after paying 15-18% tip automatically included all weekend in DC, n now maybe 1 too many drinks I'd given my card to my friend who provided it to the bar. When time came to pay, I stupidly signed while stating the aforementioned n sat back down only to have Amy come outside n thankfully point out if I wanted to tip. So I immediately apologized n went to pay the check with my card n tip cash. When I went inside to do so Amy very abruptly/rudely/ assumingly began to yell at me accusing ME of being rude bcuz I was "going to count money in front of her n that is sooo damn RUDE!" Thankfully Ali stepped in n I was able to explain that, though the cash covers the bill entirely I intend it as a tip for the wonderful service provided n to still charge my card. I hope Ali 🙏🏼 u get all the wonderful things u deserve n we should have more amazing n understanding workers like u in the service industry...

I normally love this bar, but I just had a very weird and unpleasant experience with Sarah who works there. She was extremely drunk and hanging around in the basement area, and did a number of things that were inappropriate, including: -referring to the owner of the bar as a “gay Jewish man who has been taken care of his whole life,” which I found offensive as a Jewish person -I was with two women, and she somehow thought that I was a danger to them, even tho I’m gay and married and they are two of my best friends. She came up to us while we were on line for the bathroom and interrogated me to make sure I wasn’t harassing them. Granted, I had spent the whole day with them and came with them. I found this very offensive. -when we realized that she was nasty and being too much, we decided to end our night short and wanted to go, and she PHYSICALLY prevented my friends from leaving the bar, despite them telling her numerous time that they wanted to leave. She literally grabbed my friends arm and would not let her go for almost ten minutes, and physically blocked my other friend from going up the stairs to leave. I’m usually tolerant of drunk and borderline inappropriate behavior at a bar, but this crossed the line. After the bigoted remarks that I was a danger to my friends, the slightly veiled antisemitic remarks, and the physical assault, we left feeling extremely uncomfortable and...