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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

The Bar Belle: Third Edition

IMDB describes the plot of the 1985 film “St. Elmo’s Fire”: “A group of friends, just out of college, struggle with adulthood. Their main problem is that they’re all self-centered and obnoxious.” It’s no surprise, then, that the film was set in Georgetown. Some of the scenes, in fact, were filmed at Wisconsin Avenue bar Third Edition. And if you ever show up there, they will never let you forget it.

A couple months ago, Third Edition was full of just such self-centered and obnoxious kids struggling with adulthood – and seeing straight – at one of GW’s Senior Nights. But when my friend and I stopped in to the bar early one Thursday evening, the place couldn’t have been more dead. We arrived to find the entire staff huddled around the long central bar, waiting for some more young, obnoxious clientele to take the Third Edition bait. All we were looking for was a place with beer. We fit the bill.

Despite its big-screen claim to fame, Third Edition is an exceedingly standard Georgetown bar. You know what the place will be like before you step inside – a few TV’s, copious wood paneling, scant lighting, some preps in polos and boat shoes, blah, blah, blah – they sell beer. But even though “St. Elmo’s Fire” came out before most Georgetown students were born, Third Edition continues to stab toward the small fame the movie gave it 22 years ago – starring the incomparable Rob Lowe, no less.

The second we walked in, a short, balding guy who looked like my high school Calculus teacher – but less of an asshole – jumped up to greet us and offer us the “Barbara Streisand Table.” We decided to forego Babs’ table – a small thing with a white tablecloth overlooking scenic Wisconsin Avenue – and settled into a dark booth in the back, where the guy chatted us up some.

After checking our IDs and making some stock derogatory joke about his ex-girlfriend, he went in for the kill. “Have you ever seen the movie ‘St. Elmo’s Fire?'” he asked. We hadn’t. “Demi Moore?” he tried. We shook our heads. “Emilio Estevez?”

“Wasn’t Rob Lowe in that movie?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “And Judd Nelson.”

Then, a guy with a tie painted like a No. 2 pencil swept in to take our orders – fish, chips, and a cheeseburger – and deliver our drinks. The food is good, and runs from $5 for soup to $22 for crab cakes or a New York strip. A hamburger will cost you $9. The beers that we had so self-centeredly and obnoxiously searched for – a Yuengling and a Miller Light – ran about 5 bucks each.

But drinking in the shadows of the washed-up Brat Packers? Uh, priceless.

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