Adams Morgan 18th Street: New Bars and Old Stories, Fall 2026

"Maybe it's a Gen-X pipe dream, but it's fun looking back," Bill Thomas told Axios in September, describing Carla, the rooftop bar he and partner John Roberts opened at the corner of 18th Street and Florida Avenue. The bar is modeled on the Adams Morgan of the early 2000s, when Axios writer Anna Spiegel points out that $40 could cover drinks, food, music and maybe a cab home.

Thomas has a better claim than most to that era. A few blocks up 18th Street, the building where his nightlife career started has just reopened as something very different. Farther north, a beer hall that closed in Georgetown four years ago is getting ready to reopen in a former pizza restaurant. This fall the strip is rebuilding itself mostly out of its own history, so you get more out of a night here if you know who held each address before.

The Corner at 18th and Florida

Carla took over the old Imperial, the cocktail and raw bar Thomas spent years building. Imperial opened just before the pandemic, and Thomas split from it nearly two years ago. Carla is a much simpler idea. Axios sums it up as "No reservations. No $65 plateaus. Yes lychee martinis and throwback electronica."

The prices show how far back Thomas is reaching. According to Axios, the lychee martini costs $13, or $10 at happy hour. A Campari soda runs about $8, and Thomas designed the bar around a small spirits list in the hope of getting some drinks down to $5. Eater's September roundup lists $11 spritzes and $5 bites all day. The menu ranges from berbere-spiced chicken skewers to shrimp bao buns.

The building has several floors and two open-air roof decks. One of the decks is a lounge where you can drink whiskey, smoke a cigar and watch a game. The music mixes live sets, DJs and old vinyl, with throwback electronic and drum-and-bass when the mood strikes. Roberts helped build the 18th Street Lounge, so the nostalgia comes from two people who were there the first time. A members-only whiskey and spirits club is planned for downstairs next year. It will give Thomas a place to use custom barrels and what he calls the "cool, crazy old stuff" in his collection.

That whiskey collection comes from a career that started a few blocks north.

The Building Where It Started

Ghosts of DC published a history of 2321 18th Street NW in June, and it reads like a short history of Adams Morgan nightlife. Here is the timeline:

1. Late 1999. The Blue Room opens, co-owned by Frank Jolley and Bill Thomas. It never advertised and relied on word of mouth.
2. The early 2000s. The DJs play downtempo and experimental electronic music, never house. Silent indie films run on screens, and the bar stocks no Budweiser and no Jagermeister. Sunday is the signature night, a set called "Filler."
3. April 2006. Thomas closes the upstairs lounge so Bourbon, his first-floor whiskey bar, can expand through the building.
4. 2011. Thomas opens Jack Rose Dining Saloon a few blocks south on 18th Street.
5. October 25, 2018. Bourbon's later owner, James P. Woods, announces the bar is closing after 12 years. It briefly reopens a few weeks later.
6. Summer 2020. Darren Norris and Candice Wise open Shibuya Eatery in the basement in July, then Death Punch on the top floor in August.
7. Late April 2024. Shibuya Eatery closes. Death Punch stays open upstairs.
8. November 2025. PoPville reports that Death Punch has closed temporarily for renovation.
9. September 11, 2026. The Boogiedown launches, according to its own signage.

Bourbon, Ghosts of DC wrote, "did not replace the Blue Room so much as grow out of it." The building's 2026 tenant comes from a completely different line.

What the Boogiedown Does With the Space

Owner Chris DeFelice, a lifelong Jets fan, runs The Boogiedown as a New York sports bar by day and a dance club by night. Eater counts 10 TVs, 10 draft lines, beer towers and $40 mega-buckets of Bud Light. The Blue Room famously refused to stock Budweiser. About 27 years later, a Bud Light bucket is one of the main things on offer in the same building. The address has never kept one personality for long, and its owners have read the street differently each decade.

Eater also reports that Death Punch moved one floor down rather than leaving. The building's layers now include the current tenants as well as the history. The old Shibuya Eatery kitchen in the basement is getting a second life too. Starting in October, Eater says, the Boogiedown will turn it into a takeout window serving chicken biscuits well into the night. As of Eater's September 29 roundup, that window was still a plan rather than a confirmed launch.

So the man who co-founded the Blue Room is now three or so blocks south, rebuilding the cheap, music-first night out he helped invent, while the building he left serves sports, beer towers and late-night biscuits. Both bars take their cue from the strip's past. They just picked different decades of it.

The Berliner Brings a Name Over From Georgetown

The third revival comes from outside the neighborhood. The Popal Group is reviving The Berliner, its German beer hall that closed in Georgetown in 2022. Eater says the new version will keep the same sausages, pretzels and long rotating tap list. It is moving into 2436 18th Street NW, the former Mellow Mushroom. That puts it close to Lapis, Lapop and Maison Bar a Vins, other Popal Group restaurants in the same part of Northwest.

Eater's fall preview listed the opening as October. As of early October, the Berliner's own website still said "Coming this fall / To Adams Morgan" and gave no date. The safest assumption for now is "soon," not "this weekend."

The 2400 Block Is Still Sorting Itself Out

The Berliner's new address sits on the strip's busiest stretch for turnover. Within a few doors of 2436, the summer looked like this:

When Mola announced its closure, it told PoPville, "The reports are sadly true." BUL came back after a summer of what it called "inconsistent hours." PoPville greeted the reopening with the headline "Do You Believe in Miracles?!?!" One PoPville commenter thought King of Shawarma was open on August 1, but the post itself still said to stay tuned for an opening date, so treat that one as unconfirmed.

This block is where the revival idea gets tested. The Berliner is arriving with a name people already know. Its neighbors are small, independent places that open, close and occasionally come back. If the beer hall pulls the steady crowd its Georgetown run was known for, it could bring foot traffic to the whole north end of the strip.

Planning a Night on 18th Street This Month

Here's what is confirmed and what is still promised as of October 4:

• Carla, 2001 18th St NW. Open, walk-in only, with DJs and live bands on the roof.
• The Boogiedown, 2321 18th St NW. Open since September, sports by day and dancing at night. The late-night chicken-biscuit window is slated for October.
• BUL, 2431 18th St NW. Reopened as of October 1.
• The Berliner, 2436 18th St NW. Slated for October, with no confirmed date yet.
• King of Shawarma, 2438 18th St NW. Signage is up, but no opening has been confirmed.

If you walk the strip from south to north, you go from Thomas's newest bar at Florida Avenue, past the building where he started, to a Georgetown institution waiting to reopen in a former Mellow Mushroom. That one walk covers more than a quarter century of 18th Street.

Every address on 18th Street has a story behind it, and so does every rowhouse and condo building on the blocks around it. If you're thinking about what your Adams Morgan, Kalorama or Meridian Hill place is worth, or what it would take to buy on these streets, Gabriel Oran knows these blocks one address at a time. Schedule a free concierge consultation, and bring your questions about the building as well as the bar on the corner.