Last Call at Sugar Daddy Central

This morning I was saddened to hear that one of my all-time favorite DC watering holes - Nathan's - was going to close its doors. It's actually a very sad story - (which you can check out for yourself here: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2009/07/06/breaking-news-nathans-in-georgetown-is-closing/)

Back in the day, Nathan's was one THE great places in DC to smoke cigars. It was always crowded on the weekends, full of well-fed lobbyist types chasing either skirt or business with a cigar in one hand and a tumbler of top-shelf hootch in the other. The jukebox boasted everything from the Stones to Sinatra and if you came to the bar armed with cigars, the attentive waitstaff would immediately present you with a cigar ashtray. It wasn't just a bar, it was - in appropriate Sinatra-speak - a "saloon" (in the very best sense of the word).

I've brought friends to Nathan's. I spent some of the last minutes of the 20th century at Nathan's. I had my first date with my wife at Nathan's (where we worked our way through a handful of cigars and an armful of wine). So, yeah, I'm sentimental about the joint. It's tough to see a good neighborhood joint go down (and Nathan's goes back to the days when yes, Georgetown was a neighborhood and not a collection of chain stores). And what will replace it? An Olive Garden? An Appleby's? Some shi-shi spot with velvet ropes and overpriced bottle service?

Since the smoking ban, I've only been back once, maybe twice. So I can't help thinking that somehow, DC's smoking ban is to blame. Do people really spent the kind of time they did in bars, pre-smoking ban? I know I certainly don't. Gone are the nights where I'd hold up in a saloon armed with my debit card, a wine list, and a cigar cutter. And at the end of the day, Nathan's is closing because there wasn't enough people spending good money in the joint - me included.

The moral of the story? It's a damn shame when good bars have to die.