How do you get into Shelly’s Back Room?
We have not confirmed it. Shelly’s Back Room is in the directory because it period concealment name, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
The drinks at Shelly’s Back Room
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: French 75, Clover Club, and Aviation are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — Shelly’s Back Room occupies the Harris & Ewing Photographic Studio, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 94001407. 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 94001407 · NPS nomination document
Where Shelly’s Back Room sits
Shelly’s Back Room 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 Shelly’s Back Room are Sidecar, about 700 m away, Denson, about 950 m away, and Toastmasters – Speakeasy in Downtown D.C., about 1.3 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
You can reach Shelly’s Back Room by phone on (202) 737-3003, through its own website, and on Instagram, Facebook, and X.
The address is 1331 F Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20004-1107. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Shelly’s Back Room we hold street address, telephone number, official website, social accounts, a published drinks list, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold opening hours or an online booking link.
It is in the directory because its own name names a back room and calls it a room rather than a bar.
OpenStreetMap carries this venue, contributed by a mapper; Overture Maps has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a restaurant.