The region’s bar and restaurant scene continues to garner local and national acclaim for its quality and diversity, with two Montgomery County bars — Quarry House Tavern and VFW Post 350 “Hell’s Bottom” — recently ranked among The Washington Post’s list of the top 12 dive bars in the D.C. area.
In March, Post food critics Fritz Hahn and Tim Carman invited readers to nominate their favorite dive bars and explain why they considered those establishments dives. After receiving hundreds of responses, the critics tallied the nominations, narrowed them down to the top 12, and launched an online poll featuring these choices.
Readers were also given another chance to vote for their favorite dive bar in the area.
Hahn and Carman visited all twelve finalists in May and June and assessed the condition of the bathrooms, the service, the music, and the beer-and-a-shot combinations to determine the best dive bars.
Quarry House Tavern in downtown Silver Spring, with a history dating back to before World War I and having endured both a fire and a flood, ranked fourth on the list. The bar’s appeal to regulars is attributed to its unique character, as well as its offerings of burgers, tots, and an extensive drink menu featuring over 250 whiskeys:
It hasn’t been an easy few years for Silver Spring’s favorite basement hangout. In March 2015, a two-alarm fire at the Bombay Gaylord restaurant upstairs shuttered the building. In January 2016, a water main on a neighboring street broke twice, sending four feet of standing water into the Quarry House, which was gutted and closed for more than two years while it was restored down to the exact finish of the knotty pine paneling. Then came the pandemic, when it didn’t seem like a great idea to share a low-ceilinged, below-ground watering hole with complete strangers. “We used to joke, ‘What’s next, locusts?'” says Jackie Greenbaum, who bought the venerable bar in 2005. Its history goes back to before World War I, she says — the Quarry House’s liquor license is No. 30 in Montgomery County, issued in 1934.
But regulars don’t come here for a Disney-fied version of a dive bar. They come because the Quarry House has soul, the kind that sounds like Tom Waits on the free CD jukebox, or local punk and rockabilly bands playing in the back room, and regulars conversing over whiskeys at the bar, or under a framed beer sign from the 1960s. The menu is basic, but better than you might expect while walking down the 13 steps from the Georgia Avenue sidewalk, starring juicy burgers topped with smoky cheese and fresh jalapeños, and tater tots fried to a satisfying crunch. The multi-page drink menu includes around 250 whiskeys — you can spend anywhere from $4 to almost $400 on a sip — and an extensive craft beer list with a Maryland focus, but with beers starting for less than $4. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure kind of place — one you’ll want to explore again and again.
Quarry House Tavern is located in the basement at 8401 Georgia Ave. in downtown Silver Spring.
Much like the Cissel-Saxon American Legion Post 41 in downtown Silver Spring, you don’t need to be a veteran to visit the 11th-ranked VFW Post 350 “Hell’s Bottom” in Takoma Park; you just need an appreciation for classic rock and country bands and be comfortable sitting with fellow patrons who enjoy sharing stories:
You don’t have to be a veteran to spend an evening at the VFW Post in Takoma Park. You just have to love classic rock and country bands, and sitting next to folks who might want to bend your ear with a story or two. “Regulars debated whether anyone should nominate it for this article, lest hipsters descend upon it,” reader Gregory Gorman wrote, perhaps slightly tongue in cheek. “The consensus was that it wasn’t a threat, since the aforementioned crowd probably wouldn’t deign to travel that far to check it out, and would be turned off by the fact that it’s a real dive bar that only takes cash, serves Bud Light in those fake aluminum bottles, has a decibel meter and a Keno monitor, a TV with a sports game and a jukebox, all operating even when there’s a band on the stage.” Except that’s exactly why it’s worth a trek to Takoma Park.
Like many VFWs across the country, Takoma Park’s VFW faced declining membership in the 2010s, so it began hosting concerts and events and welcoming nonveteran residents of this tie-dyed town through the doors, past the antiaircraft gun in the parking lot. These days, live music is featured Tuesday through Saturday, plus the occasional Sunday, with customers warmly greeting bartender and VFW Post 350 Auxiliary secretary Kiki Oliver at the enormous, vaguely U-shaped bar, or having a cigarette out on the spacious backyard, where the mournful sound of a pedal steel guitar leaks out whenever someone opens the door.
VFW Post 350 “Hell’s Bottom” is located at 6420 Orchard Ave. in Takoma Park.
Photo: © Tracy King – stock.adobe.com