• Who: Sam, Matthew, Patty, Dano
• Where: 14th St
• What: Scrambled eggs, Salad greens, Bloody

Unfortunately, all great things must come to an end. Summer camp… weekends… unlimited froyo at your college cafeteria… and so to celebrate the end of two VERY great things—Miss Patty Amaro Pina’s graduation (with honors) from business school, and Mister Samuel J Becker’s completion of his 30th year of life—we decided to have a little brunch celebration at Sam’s local watering hole, Bar Pilar.    

As far as DC bars go, Bar Pilar is actually pretty local. I don’t think a lot of people have read about it in the food section of the Post or come from far and wide to sit at its 8 tables and if-you-dont-get-a-stool-you-might-as-well-not-even-bother-because-there-is-nowhere-to-stand-and-you’ll-just-be-in-the-way bar. But Bar Pilar does have a unique charm that is recognized by the few, the proud, the regulars who call Bar Pilar and all it’s little quirks, home. And for Sam Becker, now 31 years old, this is most certainly home. 

So when I say quirks, I don’t just mean Rusty the jovial bartender who always remembers your favorite drink (and who also happens to look suspiciously like Sam—maybe that’s why he likes it there so much!) or the hand-written brunch drink menu, which includes, among the Bacon Bloody Mary, Limey Bastard, Black Sunshine, Thee Jeeves, and Ginger Mimosa, the option of ordering Love (no price on that one—you have to make an offer), or even the collection of pics on the wall left behind in the old photobooth, which has been gone for years but used to sit tantalizingly by the bathrooms.  No, when I say quirks, I mean the fact that somehow, even though we sat down at 12:20, less than 90 minutes after they’d opened and presumably only the second round of people to eat that day, they were out of almost everything on the menu, including their one famous brunch specialty (aka the reason that we went). (Aside from the fact that Sam loves it there so of course we would have gone anyway). (Sorry, Sam).

How is it possible that a functioning restaurant, which gets presumably hundreds, if not thousands of customers over a weekend, is consistently out of menu items. I get the whole ‘we’re farm fresh’ ‘we only buy local so we don’t always have consistent supply’ ‘none of our food ever touches a freezer’ argument, but come on—you have ONE good thing on your menu and you’re out of it after 90 minutes? Haven’t you figured out that this is something people are going to want? Is this a surprise? And so let’s go back to the local ingredients thing—maybe it’s time to sit down, take a long hard look and say: Sure, we’d love to buy our stuff from the Aliki Farms Commune over in Multnomah County, BUT WE CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF OUR STUFF FROM THE FARMER’S MARKET. GIVE ME THE NUMBER FOR SYSCO!! I just don’t believe a successful small business owner wouldn’t do that. So all this forces me to draw a sad conclusion about Sam’s favorite bar, bringing me back to another unfortunate experience earlier this year—these aren’t just the cute quirks of Bar Pilar, this is part of the image. The mystique. The Vibe. Bar Pilar is soooo cool, that unless you get there at 11am sharp, there’s no way you’re getting the Hangover Cure. Because you know what? Sam was waiting outside when Rusty came to open and he already ate ALL of them.