Clyde's of Georgetown

The original Clyde’s opened at 3236 M Street NW in 1963, and it has been there in some form since. Stuart Davidson founded it, and the restaurant became the foundation for what is now the Clyde’s Restaurant Group, which operates 1789, The Tombs, Old Ebbitt Grill, and several other Washington and Virginia properties. But the M Street address, which started everything, remains the headquarters of the concept: a full-service American restaurant and bar with the kind of physical presence on a Georgetown commercial block that takes sixty years to build.

The interior reflects its age in the best way. Stained glass, dark wood, and a bar with the proportions of a proper saloon. A model train runs near the ceiling of one of the dining rooms, an addition that has been there long enough to be inseparable from what Clyde’s is. The rooms are large enough to absorb a full Friday dinner crowd and a full Sunday brunch wave without the space feeling cramped. Generations of Georgetown students, residents, and visitors have passed through, and the room shows that history in its worn surfaces and its comfortable confidence.

The food is American tavern cooking executed competently and honestly. The chili is famous enough to have been on the menu for most of Clyde’s existence. Oysters, clams, and a seafood bar offer the raw bar option. The burger is a reliable version of what a restaurant burger should be. Crab cakes, salads, and seasonal specials fill out the menu with the range that a restaurant serving this much of the population has to carry. Nothing on the menu is trying to surprise you. That is the correct approach for what Clyde’s is.

Sunday brunch is the institution that most Georgetown residents organize their Sunday morning around at some point in their time in the neighborhood. Eggs Benedict, French toast, bloody marys, and the chili do most of the work. The room fills by 10am and stays full through early afternoon. The wait on a sunny spring Sunday can reach an hour, and it is considered acceptable by people who know the alternative is waiting at home.

The bar operates until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and closes at 11pm on weeknights. The brunch service begins at 10am Saturday and 9am Sunday. Reservations are accepted but the bar is first-come on weeknights for the walk-in crowd. Parking on M Street and the surrounding blocks is competitive at all hours; the M Street garages are the most reliable option. The model train that runs near the ceiling of the dining room is one of those details that becomes so associated with a place that removing it is unthinkable. It was added as a decoration decades ago and has remained because, at a certain point, things that long enough a part of a room become the room. The bar program at Clyde’s is grounded in classic American cocktails and a draft beer selection that runs longer than most Georgetown bars. The chili, which is made from a recipe that predates most of the staff, is available as both a starter and a side, and it is the item most referenced by people who have been coming to the M Street address since the 1980s.