1414 9th St, NW Becoming Secret Lounge and Sports Bar

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by Prince Of Petworth July 19, 2012 at 11:30 am 47 Comments

1414 9th St, NW

Back in June we saw that 1414 9th St, NW was getting renovated and changing hands, again. It has seemingly changed names about a half dozen times since its run as Vegetate. I ran into the new manager and owner (pictured above) who told me the switch to Secret Lounge and Sports Bar will take place in a couple of weeks. The first floor will remain a sports bar with about 6-8 tvs:

And the second and third floors will be home to Secret Lounge:

2nd floor

2nd floor bar

3rd floor

Menu after the jump.

beerdude

I don’t think one can have that sort of decorating and call itself a sports bar. Just one guy’s opinion.
- mzindc
  
  +1
  - theheights
    
    My first though, too. Terrible concept, the hipster “sports bar.”
    - theheights
      
      Thought
    - tinywings
      
      As in sports bars in general are “hipster” or this decor is “hipster” for a sports bar? Either way: what??
      - theheights
        
        I’m not sure how you get “All sports bars are hipster” from that, but let’s let the crew of the Millenium Falcon settle it:
        
        OWK: “That’s no sports bar… It’s a hipster lounge.”
        
        HS: “It’s too big to be a hipster lounge.”
        
        LS: “I’ve got a very bad feeling about this (as he reads the misspelling-laden menu).
    - ekb
      
      I am really beginning to question whether anyone even knows what a hipster is these days. There’s nothing even remotely “hipster” about the pictures of this place.
      - Rhody
        
        Hipster (n) – shorthand for any city dweller appearing similar in age and demographic yet wearing different styles than the person using the term.
        
        Hipster (adj) – misuse of noun
- fritz
  
  Help me out here. I’ve never been to a sports bar so what sort of decorating should it have?
Josh

Menu looks great, though. I haven’t had a good tenderlion, sandwish, or combiantion in a long time.
- mzindc
  
  don’t forget the cantlope – haven’t smoked that flavor in a minute!
- AP
  
  Yeah…that and the linch/dinner. I think this place has failed before it’s even opened.
- petwurf
  
  while the tenderlion is certainly tempting, I give this place about 8 months.
  - Anonymous
    
    Generous – considering other recent ventures here have only gone about 2-3 months.
Anonymous

Linch/Dinner.

Good luck with that.
17St

No prices?? That’s worrisome.
Anonymous

linch?
goaldigger

This sort of reminds me of the old Momo’s on U St. but with Ethiopian menu options.
kalamazoooooo

this looks like its already off to a rough start
ET

I am not “cool” enough to go to a sports bar that serves Ethiopian food, has fancy cocktails, menus with no prices, and such “hip” furniture.

I do hope that the menu shown is just a working draft because misspelling so obviously and not having prices just seems amateurish.
Anonymous

looks awful
Anonymous

Sometimes capitalism confuses me. How does this place get funded?
lamore312

Huh… Interesting. I’ll be curious to see if this place lasts. It’s in my ‘hood, but I doubt that I’ll frequent it.

It seems that they’ve done extensive “interior decorating” – if you can call it that!, which makes the exterior appear even more hideous. Are they really going to keep that front window with glass that is too small, so they fixed it with a piece of painted plywood?!? (At least it’s finally painted. It looked even worse before!) And then… there’s the scrolling LED signage! Are you kidding me? They’re using it as the sign for the establishment, when in reality, it looks like it belongs in the gas station across the street to advertise the price of cigarettes! Oy.
Anonymous

It’s almost as if they decided the concept by picking ideas out of a hat and choosing the first four. In this case, they went with sports bar, Ethiopian restaurant, hookah bar, and tacky lounge.

You feel a little bad to make fun of people taking a risk like opening a restaurant, but who seriously thinks this is a good idea.
Anonymous

Wish them teh best of lucky, but this is a cursed location. Most everything that has gone into this space has been boomed to an abysmal failure.
Gallery of Peanuts

It would be helpful if the menu had prices.
Anonymous

Sectrets is coming to that space? Is Zigfields coming too?
- Anonymous
  
  *Secrets
- anon
  
  haha that was my first thought too. i hope a few confused patrons of secret lounge end up at secrets :)
ShawShank

What a horrible waste of money. The only reason I would ever come here is if the prices were insanely cheap. Smoothies are “hot beverages” and you can have sandwishes? Poor guys…doomed, just doomed.
Anonymous

Def. split personality but it looks like a good place to have a private event if the A/C is good enough.
Ronald

Mmmm…”sandwishes.” They’d better “wish” their booze distributor gets their bar better stocked.
Anonymous

was going to say horrible bar menu but since I have kids I do value chicken tenders. However, where are the hash browns or at least home fries? Breakfast fail.
Jeff

They do not have pretty menus. That’s the only thing about this that says “sports bar.”

The typos, lack of prices, and confusing food selection screams “half-assed.”
BC

OK, so English isn’t there first language…it might be so bad it’s good…or alternatively, it might just be bad. I’m going to check it out for linch when it opens if the ham sandwish and cognac aren’t too pricey…
- BC
  
  their, not there…see, it can happen to anybody…
Anonymous

What wrong with this space and using already existing names of places – first “Cafe Eagle” was here, not to be confused with the DC Eagle a few blocks away. Now Secret, not to be confused with Secrets on Half Street SW (google it). There will be some confused patrons.
andy2

I want to go just to take a menu home.
Should have saved some money on the fiber-optic decorations and electronic sign and spent it on a restaurant consultant – or a few nights out to successful bars around town.
Bloomingdude

I find this thread painful. I really admire people trying to start a business, and I hope they succeed. That said, the odd mix of sports bar with chi-chi loung concept aside, I find it frustrating — for them — that they would put out a menu with so many typos. Sweet Jesus, people! C’mon! Mix-Fruite? Freanch Toast? If English isn’t their first language, why wouldn’t they spell check it or have someone proof read it? Why put in so much time and money to do a half-assed job?
ShawGuy

Well, on the plus side, this place should close down in time for a great new place to gut the inside, re-work it into a viable concept, and open in time for the grand opening of the City Market project.

The spelling errors and lack of pricing in the menu does scream amateur hour, but that doesn’t even really matter. The bigger problems are, in order of significance: the name of the place – there’s already a gay strip club named Secrets. It sounds like the type of place something seedy happens at. Change the name. Doesn’t event matter what you change it to. Hell, even Granville Moore’s turned out to be a good name – just make it neutral so hipsters will come.

Second, get a real sign and take that scrolling LED thing down. Those belong… well, in the 80s. With most of the furniture in that place. But take it down, seriously. People might not notice the furniture if it’s dark, but they WILL see that god awful tacky sign.

Third, fix the facade. The painted plywood isn’t cutting it. Put in glass or put in something that matches the rest of it. But fix it. Quickly. This is important.

As to if the place never even takes off because of overpriced food or spelling errors, I’ll leave that to those who actually go there to decide. But in the meantime, those three things above are keeping people from even going in.
- lamore312
  
  AMEN.
Anonymous

90’s martini lounge meets sports? Anyways still pissed Vegettate and Dredd got screwed.Of course in washingtonian and yelp nellie’s is voted best sports bar in DC? lmao really..Criminy every bar in DC has 20 TV’s now so don’t see how it matters.
Q-Street

At least they removed the plywood.
- lamore312
  
  They didn’t remove the plywood. They just painted it black. UGH.
Anonymous

Spell Check:

Linch menu??
Cantlope??
Mary

Menu look good, How did you come up with the Name Secret Lounge?
secret lounge

so we have not even grand opened it we steel serving but as soon as we do we invite all to see the change! the grand oping well be in 2 weeks!

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