Martin's Tavern. If these booths could talk, half of Washington would lawyer up.
This is the oldest family-owned restaurant in Washington, D.C. The Martin family — from Galway, Ireland — has run this place since nineteen thirty-three. Four generations. Ninety-plus years.
The original Billy Martin was one of the best athletes in the city. Three-sport star at Georgetown Prep and Georgetown University. He played professional baseball for the nineteen fourteen Miracle Braves — and alongside Jim Thorpe on the New York Giants. Inducted into Georgetown's Hall of Fame.
Then he opened a bar.
On the night Prohibition ended — December fifth, nineteen thirty-three — Billy poured a legal whiskey, set it on the bar, and said — "Same whiskey. Better hours."
His son was the next generation. Before deciding to tend bar, William Martin served in the Navy during World War Two. Attended Georgetown Medical School. Became a Golden Gloves boxer. Played Pro-Am golf. Then he chose bartending. I respect th
e priorities.
Now — the booths. They're numbered. And several have bronze plaques. If you sit in the wrong one, you're sitting in somebody's history.
Booth Three. On June twenty-fourth, nineteen fifty-three, a young senator named John Kennedy proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier right here. A man named Marion Smoak was sitting at the bar drinking a martini when it happened. He later became Ambassador
