Trusty's holds down the corner at 1420 Pennsylvania Avenue SE in Capitol Hill, a neighborhood tavern that has served Hill East since 2005 and works equally well as a board-game bar, a Skee-Ball room and a place to catch the game.
The Capitol Hill BID lists Trusty's as one of the area's favorite local taverns, and the appeal is the lack of pretense: a dim, friendly room stocked with board games, a Skee-Ball lane and screens for the game, a block southeast of the Potomac Avenue Metro on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines. This is the corner bar the neighbourhood actually uses, not a destination cocktail room.
Order off the draft list and the comfort-food kitchen rather than chasing a cocktail program, since the strength here is the long, cheap, easy night rather than a single signature drink. Tots and burgers anchor the menu, the beer runs the mid-range a neighbourhood bar should, and the games are free to play while the round lands. The value is the point: a full evening here costs less than two cocktails uptown.
The crowd is Hill East and Capitol Hill regulars, a board-game set on weeknights and a fuller sports crowd when a Washington team is on. The room shifts from a quiet after-work pint to a packed bar on game nights, and the weekend brunch service pulls a daytime crowd from 11am. Tripadvisor and Yelp reviewers return to the same notes: cheap, friendly, and the kind of place that remembers a regular.
Best time to go is a weeknight for the games and a quiet pint, or a Washington game night for the full sports crowd. Trusty's opens at 4pm midweek, 2pm on Friday and 11am on weekends, running late into the night. For more of the city, see the best bars in Washington DC and the full list of sports bars in Washington DC, or browse the national sports bars pillar. For a bigger sports crowd, Nellie's Sports Bar in Washington DC runs a U Street rooftop.
Who it suits: a board-game night, a Hill local watching the game, or a budget evening with friends. Who it does not: a cocktail crowd, a quiet date, or anyone after a polished room.
