Top Shelf Now Penn Quarter Sports Tavern

The PQS guys, Mike, Sean and Matt are great. True, they are somewhat limited by their space (no taps upstairs), but they and their staff are some of the hardest-working, customer-oriented people I’ve met in a sports bar. Personally, it’s easy to overlook the occasional long wait for a beer or the check when the staff clearly cares about doing a good job (sadly, not the norm in the DC metro area).

Also, I have put a significant dent in the Chesapeake crab population over the decade I’ve lived in DC, and I can report that the PQS crab cake sandwich is the best I’ve had.

If you like watching sports this is the place to be. They’ve got multiple FLAT screens (not a bad seat in the house), different alumni groups, and the food is really good. BTW, they now have a huge variety of different drafts upstairs and downstairs, never ever will you be thirsty! The staff is nice, the customers are cool, you pretty much feel like you’re in a Cheers” of the 21st century! This truly is a real sports bar for an avid sports fan!!!!!!!!!!!

I prefer Bar Louie, it’s cleaner, has more flat screen TVs and a better alcohol selection.

Draft beer taps upstairs now Jackie? If that’s the case that is a big improvement. I’ll have to check it out this weekend.

I do much prefer PQ Sports Bar/Top Shelf to Bar Louie. Bar Louie feels like any other big, bland sports bar. But it’s in a complex attached to a Sports Arena, so it’s the perfect place to have something like Bar Louie; just as PQ Sports Bar is in the perfect spot for a smaller neighborhood bar. I almost always prefer to smaller spots to the huge sports bars, but I’m glad we’ve got them both.

Anybody know if Top Shelf plays the audio for the featured game being shown on the TVs?

My only gripe with Bar Louie is that they play cheesy 90′s music (i.e, Baby Got Back) instead of the play-by-play for any of the games being shown. I guess this is probably because they have so many games on at once they don’t want to discriminate amongst the fans/customers. On the flip side, Bar Louie has one of the best bar set-ups in DC. The bar is huge, all of the seats at the bar have great views of the TVs and there’s usually seats available.

PQ Sports Bar does play the audio for their featured games.

I’ve heard the audio at Bar Louie too, but only for Redskins games. After the Skins game, they put the music back on.

The Penn Quarter Sports Tavern is definitely the best “real” bar in the area. I’ve had the opportunity to try some hot new items on the menu that just came out, and the food is just fabulous. Chef Joe is a very talented individual and works hard to provide customers with delicious meals at reasonable prices. Mike, Sean and Matt are great guys and work extremely hard to make the PQSP an awesome place to unwind and have fun!