Hospitality Is Part of the Soundtrack at Press Club

The idea of hospitality is often a threadbare concept. Restaurants, hotels and so forth preach it as part of a brand ethos or a tenant of a customer service pledge, but it can ring hollow, feeling like it’s checking a box without a commitment to following through. Spend enough time around the food and beverage industry, and you’ll hear “hospitality” trotted out in a manner that’s closer to industry jargon than something that’s an actionable process.

So I was surprised when I visited Press Club in late December and saw the idea of hospitality in action. Even in that nebulous void between year-end holidays when you anticipate the city to be slower, the subterranean Dupont Circle cocktail lounge was buzzing. There wasn’t a seat to be found, and yet that didn’t stop owner Will Patton from making space for someone at the very end of the bar, almost inching into the line of fire. “This is my friend,” Patton remarked to one of the bartenders, a coded bit of language stating she was a patron to be served. Here was a slammed bar that managed to find an opportunity to provide a guest with a quick refreshment. It was hospitality, not as a word used to appease corporate shareholders, but live and in action.

“We’re trying to create that intimate experience for someone where the emphasis is on creating a vibe that is based in making people feel good about themselves and good to be in the space,” Patton says to me on the phone a few weeks later. Patton and partner Devin Kennedy are well-versed in both the New York and D.C. bar scenes, and Press Club is part of Hive Hospitality (which includes Jônt, Bresca and a combined three Michelin stars). Needless to say, they know what it takes.

The best bars — ones that exist and thrive — cannot persist on atmosphere alone, but the vibes at Press Club are pretty immaculate. The bar is the latest listening lounge in the city, bringing with it an impressive vinyl setup that the bartenders themselves actively manage. When I walked in, the last bits of “Justify My Thug” were ringing out before Kennedy switched over to “Mysteries Of The World” from Philly supergroup MFSB. I look around the space and clock the white sound wave of Arctic Monkey’s AM sticking out from one of the shelves.

The quality of the audio combined with the wood detailing and cozy nature of the seating is very akin to stepping into a party at the coolest house on the block. While the music that night was perfectly executed, Kennedy says it’s taken a bit of trial and error to sort it out. “I haven’t listened to every record we have in our list — I think we’re at almost 200 now,” he says. “But I’ve gotten to most of them, so I have a mental note of what is perfect for the time period.”

The cocktails are technical but in a way that’s readily accessible to guests. “It’s a lot of trial and error,” Patton says. “But [also knowing how you want the flavors to be layered and how you want them all to come across [in] every cocktail so you taste all the ingredients.” To wit, the Devil in a New Dress is a play on a Manhattan with Cognac, rye, Amontillado sherry, cacao and strawberry. The result finishes super smooth with a robust but not overwhelming flavor from which you can pick out each component, not unlike listening to a well-mixed album where each instrument is layered enough to pick each disparate portion.

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For as strong as Press Club already is, there’s more to come. The bar has already hosted some of Patton and Kennedy’s actual friends in the space, with other bars coming in for pop-up-style events. It’s a notion that’s akin to a DJ dropping in to do a guest set but more intentional. “I think everyone does that,” Kennedy says. “What we do is create an experience of showcasing the story of these bars. We have a couple scheduled for February. We’re gonna take a brief intermission in March and then start picking back up in April.”

Hospitality, friends and experiences are all words often thrown around without realizing the full context of their power. Yet, at Press Club, all of those words ring true. Nothing feels manufactured or false, coming across as effortlessly easy. But speak to any craftsperson — whether it’s a trumpet player in a jazz ensemble or a bartender — and they’ll tell you there’s tremendous amounts of work in making sure you never notice the work. So when you come to Press Club, you’ll be introduced as a friend. And by the time you leave, you’ll really feel like it’s true.