Press Club

Washington DC

No. 34 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026, regional honoree for Best U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2026 Spirited Awards, and Top 10 nominee for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2025 Spirited Awards.

A record bar meets cocktail lounge in a basement near Dupont Circle, Press Club blends the aesthetics of a 1970s listening room with a 1990s record shop and a thoroughly modern drinks program. Located on 19th Street NW, it offers vinyl-forward evenings where the playlist is as curated as the menu, guests can pull records from the shelves while sipping gin-and-tonic riffs and mezcal highballs. The space is warm, dimly lit, and deliberately analogue in an era of screens. Weeknight crowds skew industry; weekends pack the room to the door. A bar that understands atmosphere is not decoration, it is the entire proposition.