Madam's Organ Blues Bar is a restaurant and

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

located at 2461 18th Street NW in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Adams Morgan Adams Morgan (abbreviated as AdMo) is a Neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in the city’s Northwest (Washington, D.C.), Northwest quadrant. Adams Morgan is noted as a historic hub for Counterculture of ...

neighborhood. A local landmark, the bar is popular for its nightly live music, especially

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and bluegrass. Regular performers include Bobby Parker, Ben Andrews, Catfish Hodge, and Bob Perilla & Big Hillbilly Bluegrass. The bar offers

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . Cue sports, a category of stic ...

, has a rooftop deck and serves

soul food Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans. Originating in the Southern United States, American South from the cuisines of Slavery in the United States, enslaved Africans transported from Africa through the Atlantic slave trade, sou ...

. Notable regular patrons have included

Euan Blair Euan Anthony Blair (born 19 January 1984) is a British businessman who is the co-founder and chief executive of the apprenticeships company Multiverse. He is the eldest son of the former British prime minister Tony Blair and lawyer Cherie Blair ...

, son of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

, and the late Soviet dissident artist Alexandr Zhdanov. Hungarian Ambassador

András Simonyi András Simonyi (born 16 May 1952) is a former Hungarian ambassador, transportation economist, author. He is an independent consultant living in the U.S. He is a senior fellow at the Global Energy Center Atlantic Council of the United States. He ...

was not only a regular patron but also performed with his band "Coalition of the Willing" for his Washington Diplomatic farewell party attended by a Washington A-list including European diplomats,

United States Secretary of Homeland Security The United States secretary of homeland security is the head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the federal department tasked with ensuring public safety in the United States. The secretary is a member of the Cabinet of the ...

Michael Chertoff Michael Chertoff (born November 28, 1953) is an American attorney who was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security to serve under President George W. Bush. Chertoff also served for one additional day under President Barack Obama. ...

, and

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Ferenc Gyurcsány Ferenc Gyurcsány (; born 4 June 1961) is a Hungarian entrepreneur and retired politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 2004 to 2009. Prior to that, he held the position of Government of Hungary, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sp ...

. Barbara and

Jenna Bush Jenna Welch Bush Hager (née Bush; born November 25, 1981) is an American news personality, author, and journalist. She is the host of '' Today with Jenna & Friends'', the fourth hour of NBC's morning news program, ''Today.'' Hager and her frater ...

have also been spotted there. Madam's Organ was described as a favored hangout by

Playboy ''Playboy'' (stylized in all caps) is an American men's Lifestyle journalism, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, available both online and in print. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $ ...

and

Stuff Stuff, stuffed, and stuffing may refer to: *Physical matter *General, unspecific things, or entities Arts, media, and entertainment Books *''Stuff'' (1997), a novel by Joseph Connolly *''Stuff'' (2005), a book by Jeremy Strong Fictional c ...

, and was featured on the

Wild On! ''Wild On!'' was a travel show that was produced from 1997 until 2003 by E!. Each episode followed a celebrity host as they experienced the food, culture, and nightlife of a certain region. Overview Sometimes referred to as ''Wild on E!'' The ...

travel series on E!.

History

In 1992, it opened as a

and bluegrass bar. Madam's Organ moved to its present location in 1997, after a temporary closure. This location once housed the original Children's Supermart store, which was opened by

Charles Lazarus Charles Philip Lazarus (October 4, 1923 – March 22, 2018) was an American entrepreneur, executive, and pioneer within the retail toy industry. Lazarus founded the Toys "R" Us retail chain, which evolved from a children's furniture store he orig ...

in 1948 and later became the

Toys "R" Us Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids (doing business as Tru Kids Brands) and various others. The company was founded in 1948 in Washington, D.C.; its first store was built in April 1948, with i ...

retail chain.

Controversy

Madam's Organ features a large outdoor

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

, which depicts "The Madam", the bar's

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

mascot. The bar's owner, Bill Duggan, says he commissioned the mural as an artwork, but the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs ruled it an advertisement because it includes the name of the establishment. In court, the owner refused to remove the wording from the breasts, claiming that to do so would only further expose 9' by 13' breasts. Since Madam's Organ did not have a permit for the mural, the bar owner was fined. The case remains in the Court of Appeals.

References

External links

Madam's Organ official site
{{Restaurants in Washington, D.C. Music venues in Washington, D.C. Madam's Organ Adams Morgan Restaurants in Washington, D.C.