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This Hipster Washington DC Restaurant Is Hell On Earth

by Jan 06, 2017
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This Hipster Washington DC Restaurant Is Hell On Earth

One of my favorite Northern Michigan bars has a print of Ernest Hemingway above the bar. No, not because it’s a hipster haven where everyone sits around drinking Japanese whiskey while recounting their favorite Hemingway short stories. He did actually used to frequent the bar during his trips to the area which completely justifies the existence of that particular print.

But a Washington DC restaurant has taken this idea and gone too far with it. In my limited research of Farmers & Distillers, I already hate this place despite the fact that I would 100 percent overspend brunch there during a weekend in the nation’s capital.

I could start with the fucking name – Farmers & Distillers. You’re not a hipster restaurant if you don’t have a name that follows the “_______ & _______” format. Fig & Leaf. Spyglass & Dust. Vein & Lumber. I don’t even care. There’s even a generic hipster business name generator that will spit out a million other names just fucking like Farmers & Distillers.

But even food and drink that the restaurant boasts makes me want to punch their front door in the face. They make their vodka, gin, and rye whiskey on site which means I’d probably get looked down upon if I just wanted a couple fingers of Makers. “A blended whiskey?” they’d question me. “Your palate not mine.” They also boast 40 total cocktails and over 150 dishes you can order from so if you thought that reading a Cheesecake Factory menu was bad, imagine reading a menu with forty different drinks that probably take fifteen minutes each to make. They even have personalized juice cleanses and something called “microclimates,” which I’ll let The Washingtonian explain.

Different sections of the dining room have different decor and names. One area called the “barn wedding” is designed to look like “a charming outdoor wedding at Mount Vernon,” Simons says. Another area inspired by the gardens at Mount Vernon is called the “pleasure garden.” The flower-covered ceiling will soon include hummingbirds and fairies.

One Washington Post critic actually gave the restaurant a zero-star review and I couldn’t respect him more than I currently do for that. “There are lines I can fathom and lines I can’t,” he begins his article, explaining that you’re better off waiting in line at Shake Shack for a burger than for their “Land and Sea” dish which “goes down like a forced marriage between beef steak that’s never cooked the shade you ask and a crab cake whose seafood is masked by salt and heat.” This guy might be the only other person in the world who hates this place more than me.

It’s like their self-awareness went completely out the window when they decided to theme the restaurant after George Washington, which brings us to the most insufferable part of this entire place. Sit down and prepare yourself for what’s about to happen because this feels like a joke that’s gone much too far.

The restaurant’s owner commissioned a “coat of arms” of George Washington making him look like a complete dickhead. The painting of “George Washington” isn’t George Washington at all. It’s the asshole version of George Washington that you’d try to avoid making eye contact with should you both find each other sitting alone at the same bar. He’d ask you if you wanted to split the absinthe or if you knew anything about the farm where your Vermont cheddar came from.

Here, this is the painting he had commissioned.

Fuck. Are those Ray Bans? Is that a man bun? Do I want to slap that glass of artisinal in-house whiskey out of his hand and rub his face in it on the ground? Yes.

Co-owner Dan Simons said, “If George Washington was here today, if he was hipster, cool, and this was his place, and he was presiding over the dining room, what would he look like?” And this is what that asshole came up with. He even had his employees scouring to find photos of “handsome, cool, hipster dudes with a good vibe” in an effort to make the commissioned painting what it is. They should’ve just walked into a second-hand bookstore, sat down for two hours, and held a beauty pageant for the most insufferable hipster who they’d end up painting like Churchill in The Crown.

They also exploit George Washington’s slave history by putting this statement from the same co-owner: “When you look at the tortellini with black-eyed peas, ham hocks, corn bread, that’s a nod and respect to the enslaved people and the influence of the food that they were cooking for themselves.” Like, cool, man. I’m sure they’re so appreciative of your tribute to them.

But hey, if you want to eat here, it’s at 600 Massachusetts Avenue NW near The White House (author’s note: I have no fucking clue if this is near The White House). You’ll probably have to wait for two hours to overpay for some fucking eggs while surrounded with a bunch of people trying to surround themselves with a diverse audience despite the fact that they’re all the exact same. But at least you can geotag it in your Instagram.

[via The Washingtonian]

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