Ivy and Coney is a narrow Shaw sports bar built for Chicago and Detroit expats, a second-floor room on 7th Street NW where the beer is cheap, the dogs are regional and the televisions stay locked on whichever Midwest team is playing.
It is made for people who miss a Midwestern corner bar and want a Cubs, Bears, Tigers or Lions game with a cheap can in hand. It is the wrong room for anyone after table service or a craft-cocktail menu, because the whole pitch is volume, value and sport.
The space is small and deliberately plain: a long bar, a few high tops, team flags and a back patio that opens in warm months. The format is the joke and the appeal, a Chicago-and-Detroit theme bar run with a straight face, as Urban Daddy and MidCity DC News have both written.
Order a cheap domestic and a Chicago-style hot dog or a Lafayette-style Coney dog, then take the dare on a shot of Malort, the famously bitter Chicago liqueur the bar keeps stocked. Italian beef and Detroit-style pizza round out a menu priced to keep tabs low.
Crowds track the sports calendar. Game days bring fans in team colours and the room gets loud, while quieter weeknights run like a neighbourhood dive. Yelp reviews updated in June 2026 confirm it is open, and the kitchen and bar keep late hours, to 3am on Friday and Saturday.
Best time to go is during a Chicago or Detroit fixture, when the crowd makes the place; off-peak, it is an easy cheap drink before a show nearby on the corridor. Bring cash, keep it casual and do not expect a quiet conversation when the game is close.
The theme runs deeper than the menu. The bar splits its loyalties cleanly between Chicago and Detroit, and the décor, the teams on screen and the regional food all play to expats from both cities. Foursquare and DIRECTV's sports-bar finder both file it as a dive and a sports bar at once, which is the honest read: cheap, loud and specific.
The back patio changes the room in warm months, opening up an otherwise tight second-floor space. Reviews flag the Malort dare, the cheap cans and the Coney dogs as the reasons people return, and warn that a big game means a full house. Off a sports night, it settles into a quiet neighbourhood bar a short walk from the Shaw metro.
Practical notes keep it easy. The bar sits on the second floor, runs cash-friendly, and takes no reservations, so a busy game night means arriving early or waiting. Hours stretch late on weekends, to 3am on Friday and Saturday, and the back patio is the move in warm weather. The menu is the regional draw, Chicago dogs, Italian beef, Detroit-style pizza and Lafayette Coney dogs, and the bar keeps Malort on hand for the dare. The nearest stop is Shaw-Howard University on the Green and Yellow lines, a few minutes on foot. For a first visit, line it up with a Chicago or Detroit fixture, because the crowd is the whole point. The room is compact, so a group is better served by claiming space early than by hoping for a table mid-game.
It is one of the city's most specific sports rooms. See it with the rest of our sports bars in Washington DC guide, browse the wider Washington DC bar guide, and compare it with the best sports bars worldwide.
Sources: Ivy and Coney official site; Urban Daddy — Ivy & Coney; MidCity DC News; Yelp (Ivy & Coney, updated June 2026).
