Drunk Dracula in DC, A Cultural Outing
Oct. 27th, 2025 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickIn March, I made Laur and Trys come along with me to the Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy, an evening of Poe with drinks as a cultural outing. Like, the whole thing was that theater people would do a couple of live theater readings/performances of Poe favorites (tell-tale heart, the black cat, the raven, etc) and have themed drinks to go along with that and it'd be cultural-adjacent. It was in Harrisburg and we had a fine time with that. I thought I'd written a review, but turns out I only did that part in my mind. Oopsie. Ticket price included the drinks, there was a lotta scenery chewed (but also it's Poe, so you have to expect the scenery chewing) and we had a fantastic time plus went out for dinner afterwards (to sober up before the drive home) and the outing was a success.
So we went to Drunk Dracula in DC at the Sage, a matchbox sized theater. The gig here is that you have a small troupe of theater folks, they slam four shots into a principal cast member, and then they try to do a more or less (adapted for stage and comedy purposes) faithful retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula. There was a bar and there were drinks but they were not the knock you on your ass drinks we had at the EAP Speakeasy. Those drinks were literally not fucking around. These drinks... were gentler and also not included in the ticket price, so we just had one each.
The theater part was delightful, with audience participation and relevant humor and everybody had a good time. It was fun.
Afterward we walked to get dinner, which was not quite as fun.
We went to Stan's, at 1029 Vermont Ave NW, a location fairly close to the matchbox theater, and it was... meh.
We were seated near the door (so cold air every time the door opened) but more importantly, almost directly underneath a ceiling-level Glade Plug-In or Febreeze-Timed-Dispersal-Air-Perfumer thing that, every couple of minutes, showered us in aerosolized chemicals that were intended to "smell nice" only they didn't.
When I got home, I had to put all my clothes into the laundry because I could smell the "air freshener" still on them, three hours after exposure. As a result of our seating location, all the food tasted like air freshener shortly after it was served to us. It was one of the most unpleasant dining experiences I have ever had.
The complete and total tone-deafness required by the operator to have a ceiling mounted fucking plug-in air freshener spraying scented chemicals all over the food and patrons in an establishment FOR SERVING AND EATING FOOD boggles my mind. If you have to have a damn air freshener, put it at ankle level so that the particulate shit doesn't fall on the clientele and the fucking food, you asshats.
Trys and I ordered the house salad as the side for our sandwiches. The wait staff brought the house salads, which were fine until the aerosolized chemicals fell upon them, at which point they tasted like air freshener. The wait staff did not bring us silverware until about five minutes later. Trys and I started to finger-food our salads before we got the silverware because we were starving and problem-solving apes to boot.
I ordered a boneless rib sandwich. It arrived with bones, which was a nice surprise but by that time I had received silverware with which to de-bone it myself so, y'know, no biggie.
The drinks were legit beefy pours and they were good. Turns out that enough liquor can overpower air freshener. Good to know.
Anyway, I guess it's an OK place to eat if you don't mind that everything tastes like febreeze or glade plug in or whatever.
So we went to Drunk Dracula in DC at the Sage, a matchbox sized theater. The gig here is that you have a small troupe of theater folks, they slam four shots into a principal cast member, and then they try to do a more or less (adapted for stage and comedy purposes) faithful retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula. There was a bar and there were drinks but they were not the knock you on your ass drinks we had at the EAP Speakeasy. Those drinks were literally not fucking around. These drinks... were gentler and also not included in the ticket price, so we just had one each.
The theater part was delightful, with audience participation and relevant humor and everybody had a good time. It was fun.
Afterward we walked to get dinner, which was not quite as fun.
We went to Stan's, at 1029 Vermont Ave NW, a location fairly close to the matchbox theater, and it was... meh.
We were seated near the door (so cold air every time the door opened) but more importantly, almost directly underneath a ceiling-level Glade Plug-In or Febreeze-Timed-Dispersal-Air-Perfumer thing that, every couple of minutes, showered us in aerosolized chemicals that were intended to "smell nice" only they didn't.
When I got home, I had to put all my clothes into the laundry because I could smell the "air freshener" still on them, three hours after exposure. As a result of our seating location, all the food tasted like air freshener shortly after it was served to us. It was one of the most unpleasant dining experiences I have ever had.
The complete and total tone-deafness required by the operator to have a ceiling mounted fucking plug-in air freshener spraying scented chemicals all over the food and patrons in an establishment FOR SERVING AND EATING FOOD boggles my mind. If you have to have a damn air freshener, put it at ankle level so that the particulate shit doesn't fall on the clientele and the fucking food, you asshats.
Trys and I ordered the house salad as the side for our sandwiches. The wait staff brought the house salads, which were fine until the aerosolized chemicals fell upon them, at which point they tasted like air freshener. The wait staff did not bring us silverware until about five minutes later. Trys and I started to finger-food our salads before we got the silverware because we were starving and problem-solving apes to boot.
I ordered a boneless rib sandwich. It arrived with bones, which was a nice surprise but by that time I had received silverware with which to de-bone it myself so, y'know, no biggie.
The drinks were legit beefy pours and they were good. Turns out that enough liquor can overpower air freshener. Good to know.
Anyway, I guess it's an OK place to eat if you don't mind that everything tastes like febreeze or glade plug in or whatever.
