Six weeks in, The Commodore leans into its role as Old Town's neighborhood bar

Steve Kim wants to be clear about something. When The Commodore calls itself a "five-star dive bar," he isn't promising grunge.

"It's not like super grungy as you might expect most dive bars to be," Kim, the co-owner and executive chef, said in an interview Saturday at the pub's Old Town location. The label, he said, is a posture, not a description: a bar that takes the food and drinks seriously, hands you a shot-and-a-beer combo without irony, and aims to feel familiar from the first visit.

The team has fielded some pushback on social media that the place doesn't feel divey enough — one Instagram commenter wrote that they "felt too safe in there to be a dive bar." Kim's response was deadpan: "I want you to feel safe in my bar."

What he's going for is a place off King Street's busier stretches where neighbors can drop in for a beer and a slice without much production. "We want to be that local neighborhood spot for you," Kim said.

The "dive" half of the slogan is also literal. The Commodore's name and nautical theme trace back to one of the bar's earliest owners, a Navy diver, and a vintage Mark V diving helmet sits behind the back bar at 220 N. Lee St., where Kim and co-owner Rob Van de Graaff opened the company's second location on March 12.

The building seats 114 indoors and 32 on the street-facing patio, with a main bar and dining room, a second bar, a game room outfitted with a pool table and three dart boards, a private event space, and a family-friendly room with free arcade games.

Six weeks in, Kim said the response has run ahead of expectations. "The neighborhood really showed up for us," he said. "It's been a whirlwind."

Brunch is on, live music is next

The biggest addition since opening is weekend brunch, which launched three weeks ago and runs Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The menu includes ube French toast, Nashville chicken and waffles, a "dirty south fried rice" Kim said was inspired by a dish he ate in Nashville, and a $25 "Big Boy Platter" named for Van de Graaff. The Chicago tavern-style pizzas that anchor the dinner menu — thin, cracker-crust pies cut into squares, with options priced $22 to $26 — are also available at brunch.

Brunch cocktails include the Commodore Spritz, a Navy Grog built on the bar's house rum blend, and an espresso martini. The bar's Bloody Mary, called Jake's #1, was named best in D.C. by Washington City Paper.

Friday-night live music is in development. Kim said sound engineers were on site earlier this week working with the building's older audio system, and the team is in talks with solo acoustic acts to play a 9 p.m. to midnight slot in the coming weeks. "We don't have the same late-night crowd as D.C.," he said. "We're hoping the live music will bring in a later crowd."

Weekly programming

Tuesday trivia, a holdover from the Dupont Circle location's decade-long run, takes place 7 to 9 p.m. and is free to play. Teams of up to six compete in four rounds for a $40 first-place gift card and a $20 second-place card; the third-place team picks a category for the following week. Kim said the team is also developing a $500 cash prize that would run between the Old Town and Dupont Circle locations.

Wine Down Wednesdays offer half-price bottles of wine. Kim said both nights are aimed at giving the neighborhood reasons to come in midweek.

Saturdays bring a different kind of crowd: the Old Town Run Club uses The Commodore as its Saturday meet-up, gathering at 11:30 a.m. before group runs and returning for brunch.

The Old Town location has hosted five or six private events in its first six weeks, including a 50-person gathering this past Tuesday and a 60-person event scheduled for two weeks out. The pub's general manager is Ryan Colbert, and the team recently hired a bar manager in D.C., but Kim and Van de Graaff are still splitting their time between the two locations as owner-operators.

Backstory

Kim graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and worked in Michelin-starred kitchens in San Francisco and New York before moving into bar-focused dining in D.C. Van de Graaff oversees the cocktail program.

The Commodore opened in 2016 in D.C.'s Logan Circle neighborhood and drew a loyal following before closing its original location in 2019. It returned in 2021 at 1636 17th Street NW in Dupont Circle, where it celebrates its five-year anniversary next month. Kim and Van de Graaff took over as owners in 2023.

Kim said one of the bigger surprises of the first six weeks has been Virginia's liquor and branding rules, which differ from D.C.'s in ways the team is still working through. Beer distributors in D.C. can legally provide promotional items like apparel and signage to bars; in Virginia, those items must be purchased. Some restrictions are set to ease on July 1, when changes to the state's food-and-alcohol ratio rules take effect.