How do you get into Harold Black?
We have not confirmed it. Harold Black is in the directory because it calls itself a speakeasy, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
The drinks at Harold Black
The current drinks list is published on the venue’s own site — see the menu.
Beyond what the venue publishes we have not verified a list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Bronx, Monkey Gland, and Hanky Panky are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — Harold Black occupies the Eastern Market, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 71000998. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 71000998 · NPS nomination document
Where Harold Black sits
Harold Black is in Washington, District of Columbia, in District of Columbia, in the Mid-Atlantic of the United States. The city sits inside the DC, Maryland and Virginia metropolitan area.
Our directory currently lists thirteen speakeasies and hidden bars in Washington. The full list is on our guide to hidden bars in Washington.
Measured from the map pins, the closest of those to Harold Black are Tkyo Speaks Bar, about 550 m away, Denson, about 2.4 km away, and Shelly’s Back Room, about 3.3 km away.
District of Columbia holds thirteen listed venues in this directory. See them all on our District of Columbia speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in District of Columbia
District of Columbia came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in District of Columbia.
What the newspapers recorded in Washington
Searching the Library of Congress run of District of Columbia newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from Washington:
- The Washington daily news, June 24, 1930 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Washington daily news, March 14, 1929 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Washington daily news, December 26, 1931 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Washington daily news, January 14, 1931 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
Hours published by the venue:
- saturday 5pm – 12:30am
- thursday 5pm – 12am
Hours as published on the venue’s own site, retrieved 9 October 2026.
You can reach Harold Black by phone on (202) 540-0459, through its own website, and on Instagram and Facebook.
The address is 212 7th St SE, Washington, DC 20003. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Harold Black we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, opening hours, a published drinks list, an online booking link, and a listed-building record, which is an unusually complete record for this category.
It is in the directory because the description in the source data describes it as a speakeasy.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.