At noon on Saturday, the Elite is full of handsome, hale young
men eating take-out pizza and drinking beer or their less-caloric
drink of choice. At the behest of the bartender, they’re wearing soccer
jerseys and shorts, rather than just one or the other: They’ve
all come from a Rain City Soccer Club “exhibition” game in which one
team played topless and the other bottomless. Bottomless, it is
revealed, did not mean entirely without lower-body coverage or with
only athletic support. Due to concerns about the law—the Capitol
Hill police station is one block away from the playing field—the
bottomless team played in briefs (boxer shorts are entirely
out).
Everyone seems satisfied nonetheless, and there’s much discussion of
bouncing junk, especially large packages, and underwear options.
(The virtues of aussieBum brand briefs are discussed at length in one
corner of the bar: These are said to be the undergarment of choice of
Ewan McGregor, as well as the male equivalent of the push-up
brassiere.) Action shots and postgame team photos are perused on an
iPhone that’s passed around until the screen breaks. Most admired: one
man’s highly defined abs, and the fashion-
forwardness of another
who rejected topless or bottomless in favor of a
red-and-white-striped shirt and a pink tutu. The referee reports:
“It was good. I took my pants off for the second half.” Another player:
“I went both ways. I’m versatile!”
The bartender—the only other woman on the
premises—recommends a Land Shark Lager, the official beer of
Jimmy Buffett, manufactured by Anheuser-Busch. It looks like a Corona
and tastes like a Budweiser, and a surfboard bearing its logo is
adhered to the wall above the bar. In its present incarnation (and with
all the boys in shorts), the Elite feels like spring break. It’s huge
and high-ceilinged, with peach-colored walls, a purple ceiling, lime
trim, and a tasteful rainbow flag. An auxiliary room has a pool
table and a loft for darts.
At the Elite’s previous location, at the north end of Broadway, the
windows were covered; inside, the mirrors and patrons were dimmed by
years’ worth of cigarette smoke. Opinions among current customers about
the old Elite vary, though all are affectionate: “crusty guys smoking
Marlboro 100s,” “off the grid in a kind of great, trashylicious way,”
“the most ironically named establishment in the city.” One man recalls
“running the gauntlet of grab-ass” in the narrow former space,
possibly a little wistfully. (No one will admit to remembering the very
first Elite, located somewhere else on the Hill even before that.)
The new Elite has a new transparency, with huge windows onto Olive
Way. It’s completely wholesome and totally fun, a bunch of nice boys
having a beer after the game. “It’s the everyone bar,” one guy
explains.
The Elite, 1520 E Olive Way, 860-0999.