Beneath Washington,
Another Washington
District Still & Supply is a cellar speakeasy and small plates restaurant located beneath 918 F Street NW in Penn Quarter, Washington, D.C. Inspired by the ritual, discretion and cocktail culture of the Prohibition era, District Still reinterprets the speakeasy for modern Washington.
Some traditions never needed daylight.
A century ago this block belonged to the working city — printers, unions, newspapermen, the machinery of a capital that ran on conversations held out of earshot. The National Union Building has stood at 918 F Street since the 1890s. Its cellar has been many things. It is now a bar.
We did not restore a speakeasy. There was no original room to restore, and we will not claim one. What we took from that era is the way it behaved: a door you have to know about, a small room, a short list of drinks made properly, and an evening nobody is rushing you out of.
Public city. Private power.
Stone. Slate. Low light. The remnants of another Washington still visible around you — the brick arches, the tin ceilings upstairs, the iron stair down.
The cocktail list runs roughly three parts classic to one part invention: pre-Prohibition builds made the way they were made, and modern drinks with a line back to something older. The kitchen works the same way, moving between familiar rituals and unexpected places — a Filipino sisig, a Spanish gambas, a crudo, a board of cured meat.
Four spaces
on three levels
The Café and the Mezzanine at street level, The Library above with its arched windows and historic tin ceilings, the Cellar below. Any of them can be closed for the evening; together they hold a reception of 125.
