Where: Various locations around M Street in Northwest D.C.
Getting in: carded twice
Cover: $7
Food: sushi
Dress: It’s Halloween so go figure
Specials: $2.25 Bud and Bud lights at participating bars
Belle Rating: 2.5 belles
After a brief foray on the Web (it’s not just for porn, ya know), the Bar Belle is back, although still recovering from her Halloween weekend trifecta. Halloween has always been a temperate holiday for me. Sure, it was fun as a kid to dress up for a day and get lots of candy, but my trick-or-treating adventures were never quite what I wanted them to be.
I though things would change in college. And now at the ripe old age of 21, Halloween is once again a holiday with high, unfulfilled expectations. I opted for the Nightmare on M Street bar crawl over Zanzibar because it was a warm October evening and it was cheaper. Looking back, though, I shouldn’t have even bothered with the $7 registration fee. The wristband was supposed to gain you access to eight bars and drink specials. But everywhere I went had the same $2.25 Bud and Bud Lights, wristband or no wristband.
Participating bars on the crawl were nothing spectacular either. It was a been-there-done-that list including Front Page, Sign of the Whale, Madhatter, Tequila Grill and others.
Since it was Halloween and a Friday night, so the large crowds were expected, as were an assortment of costumes. There were plenty of trends this year, both old and new. As usual, many women were dressed as Catholic schoolgirls, although Girl Scout costumes ran a close second. Female pop culture icons were popular, too. I saw quite a few Wonder Women in red capes and gold tiaras and Sydney Bristows in various disguises (I wonder if any of them caused the Capitol gun scare). Men also dressed as movie and TV characters, going as Maverick from “Top Gun” (flight suit and aviator sunglasses included) or Darth Maul from the “Star Wars” prequels. Dressing up as a “Star Wars” character is cool and all, But I would have loved it if someone went as Lando Calrissian, because Billy Dee Williams rocks.
It was still a fun Halloween, though, and I thought my costume was good even if some of my friends didn’t know that my costume was a punk rocker.
