E was for Eatonville

Eatonville is different from many DC establishments, and that's obvious from the moment you step in the door and take a peek at the menu. Colorful murals fill the wall space, chandeliers dripping with prisms dangle above, and during daytime hours, the space is drenched in bright sunshine filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling windows facing 14^th Street. Just two blocks from the U Street Metro, Eatonville is in the heart of the burgeoning neighborhood restaurant and bar scene, with new establishments seeming to pop up weekly.

Eatonville celebrates author Zora Neale Hurston and is named for her hometown in Florida, which was one of the first towns incorporated by African Americans after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. The DC namesake embodies the spirit of the town’s geography, with images the swampy Everglades splashed across the wall and a rocking chair nook resembling a rustic Southern front porch.

Eatonville is on the north side of V Street, directly across from its popular cousin, Busboys and Poets, which celebrates American poet Langston Hughes. Both establishments are owned by Andy Shallal, who envisioned the placement as a way to posthumously reunite two Harlem Renaissance writers who died with a rift. According to the Eatonville website, Hurston and Hughes “collaborated on a comedic play, Mule Bone, but the friendship turned sour when they fought over copyright privileges.”

Eatonville offers multi-sensory entertainment, with creative and tasty food and drink offerings, an aesthetically pleasing open layout, and live music on many evenings. The seasonal menu offers inspired Southern cuisine (try the mussels in cream sauce with the applewood-smoked tomatoes that taste like bacon). And the drink menu offers great cocktails (try the Southern Bell or the Muck) and a decent selection of beers, with a nice contingent of Abita beers (from Louisiana). Happy hour specials include $5 cocktails and half-price draughts. For non-alcoholic options, try the house-made ginger or lavender lemonades, served in Mason jar-style glasses. Eatonville is Southern to the last delicious drop. Stop by, and stay a while!