Fountain Inn

Fountain Inn at 1659 Wisconsin Avenue NW is at the upper end of Georgetown’s Wisconsin Avenue commercial strip, in the section between the Dumbarton Street intersection and the Glover Park neighborhood boundary that has the character of a neighborhood commercial street rather than the tourist-facing lower Wisconsin and M Street corridors. The bar and restaurant format at this address serves the residential Georgetown and Glover Park communities that use the upper Wisconsin Avenue for their neighborhood dining and drinking.

The craft cocktail program at Fountain Inn reflects the category’s development over the past fifteen years in Washington, where the city’s cocktail bars have invested in the sourcing, preparation, and presentation quality that the national craft cocktail movement established. A craft cocktail program in this sense involves house-made syrups and bitters, fresh citrus squeezed to order, specific ice types and sizes, and the deliberate approach to each drink’s construction that differentiates the program from the speed-rail bar mixing that commercial bars rely on.

The American food menu provides the food dimension that a neighborhood bar and restaurant requires to function as a full evening destination rather than just a drinking venue. The kitchen at Fountain Inn serves the bar food categories in the format appropriate to the upper Wisconsin Avenue customer: the appetizer and shareable plate selection for the drinking customer, and the entree selection for the customer who wants a full dinner. The weekend brunch service on Saturday and Sunday extends the Fountain Inn schedule into the daytime hours that the upper Wisconsin neighborhood’s residential population uses for a leisure meal.

The upper Wisconsin Avenue stretch from the Dumbarton intersection to the Glover Park neighborhood has its own commercial character separate from the Georgetown tourist corridor, serving the residents of the surrounding blocks in the way that a neighborhood bar and restaurant should. Hours run Tuesday through Friday from 4pm, and Saturday and Sunday from noon. The Fountain Inn name references the history of Georgetown’s Wisconsin Avenue commercial district, which has had taverns and inns operating along the avenue since Georgetown was an independent port city before the District of Columbia incorporated it in 1871. The upper Wisconsin Avenue location at 1659 is in the section that transitions from the commercial Georgetown tourist zone into the Glover Park neighborhood above, which gives the bar a position between the two neighborhoods that both communities can use. The craft cocktail program and the American food menu serve both the Georgetown residential customer who treats the bar as a neighborhood regular spot and the Glover Park resident who walks down Wisconsin Avenue for an evening out. Hours run Tuesday through Friday from 4pm. The Fountain Inn at 1659 Wisconsin serves the transition zone between Georgetown and Glover Park that the upper Wisconsin Avenue commercial block occupies. The website at fountaininndc.com carries current hours and event information for the bar and dining program.