The Arsenal At Bluejacket

My boyfriend and I came here on a Saturday night for dinner. We made reservations via their website that afternoon and had no problems getting a table, but the restaurant quickly filled up while we were there and we saw multiple walk-​in parties get turned away or quoted a 1 – 2 hour wait – so make a reservation before you go!
The atmosphere on Saturday night was relaxed and casual. The bar area was crowded with people watching basketball, while the restaurant area was a little calmer, with couples, families, and small groups of friends just hanging out. The interior has a cool industrial-​steampunk vibe, lots of glass and iron and a warehouse-​y feel, but it does get pretty loud inside and it can be hard to hear people sitting across from you. Maybe not the best place for a super intimate date.
Our meal was great – our server was incredibly friendly and made great recommendations on what beers we should try based on our preferences. I had the small pours of the Mexican Radio (cask) which was really good – sweet, creamy, low-​carbonation; very easy to drink – and the Lotus-​Eaters, which was an interesting lemon/​persimmon gose – it had a really sweet, citrus-​y perfume-​y taste with a wheat-​y aftertaste that was really interesting. My boyfriend had small pours of Lost Weekend (hoppy, grapefruit-​y IPA), Blue Monday (coffee stout, 12% abv, yummy!), and Killing Moon (double IPA, hoppy).
For food, we had the smothered french fries to start with, which were SO GOOD. They use a cheese that’s cheddar, but with something else that just gives it a really good sharp zing. The ham on top was pretty generous as well.
He had the wurst sandwich and I had the burger – both were excellent! We were both pretty hungry to start with, but between the beer, fries, and the burger/​sandwich, we were stuffed. He barely managed to finish his sandwich and I left half my burger (delicious as it was!).
With five small pours, fries, and two entrees, our total came to ~$ 70.

I’ve been here for a quick lunch a few times, and it was always good, but I recently organized an event for my office where we reserved the mezzanine level. Throughout the afternoon, the staff, the service and the food was outstanding. For a very reasonable price, we had a tasting table with three beers, in addition to the beer options on the menu, plenty of hors d’oeuvres, and a dedicated (awesome!) server. Definitely recommend for either a pre– or post-​game happy hour or a group event for 20 – 30 people.

Tried this place for the first time this week. Server seemed to be in the weeds most of the night to the point of annoying and long waits for food and beverage. We had a long discussion with the server about my husband’s poultry allergy. We ordered two appetisers and no mention of chicken. Appetizers arrived having been cooked in chicken stock! Why didn’t she mention this??? He couldn’t eat any of it.
The server never apologized or acknowledged this blunder. It’s a good thing we asked before we began eating.
Won’t be going again.

The duck confit pot pie was excellent. Really enjoyed Kelsey and Greg’s wedding ale. It’s an excellent beer. Cheers.

Atmosphere is meh; good food well prepared, but the portions are very modest. All in all, not a good value. Excellent for beer snobs, but the service is terrible.
Look elsewhere, there are allot of good choices in the neighborhood.

Would highly recommend to anyone wanting to explore their beer palate. Great vibe in this place with a great selection of beers and unique food choices. The whole place is built into the brewery which gives it an amazing and unique look. Lots of outside tables are available for those cool fall DC nights to enjoy with friends. Plus some really comfortable outdoor furniture to lounge on. Would recommend and will definitely be taking my friends!

great beer menu
loaded fries were good, but got soggy quickly (to be expected)
burgers were juicy and the cheese was great on it

When I go to Komi I get small bites of delicious things in cute, small dishes. Appetizers here are just as small, but in a large bowl — big enough to make you wonder where the food is. Certainly not enough to share, which is the fun of appetizers. Panzanella can be a wonderful summer salad. Here it was a joke. Should be deliciously fresh tomatoes, day-​old toasted bread, some herbs and some olive oil all tossed together to marry all the wonderful flavors. Here is was grape tomatoes (too much skin, too little flesh), and four ½ inch croutons around the edge as a garnish. Not enough bread — it’s bread salad, for heaven’s sake — and not even mixed in with the juices of the salad. I sent it back. My husband offered me half of his burger, as he wasn’t as hungry as he thought he was. I couldn’t eat it either. The meat was so overworked that it was tough like a high school cafeteria meatloaf. And $ 14!
Should I find something nice to say? It is a very lovely room, if way too dimly lit.

I think the Arsenal is great. Great beer, food, and décor. What’s not to love? Yes, the menu is a bit pricey, and, yes, the place gets swamped when the Nats are in town, but there’s nothing else like it in the Capitol Riverfront/​Navy Yard area.
Roughly 20 unique beers on tap and cask at any given time, and the options rotate on a weekly basis. Not everyone is a hit, but the tasters are very cheap, so it’s easy to sift through the options to find something that’s right for you.
I’ve been here a number of times and have always found the staff to be courteous and well-​trained, and the food to be consistently well made.

Have you ever seen someone walking down the street with just a little too much makeup, clothes and shoes and hair just a little overdone, silently screaming «I put a disproportionate amount of effort into my appearance in a failed effort to seem perfect?» That’s the menu at the Arsenal, Bluejacket’s conjoined restaurant.
The space is fairly attractive, a muted breed of industrial-​chic with minimal decoration, just enough to make it seem suitable for human occupancy. The service is usually friendly, if at times ever so slightly distant, a faint aroma of elitism that the Neighborhood Restaurant Group tries to cultivate. The bar on weekends is worse than the orange line at rush hour, but with a seated reservation or grabbing a table on the first-​come first-​served patio, that becomes a non-​issue.
I’ll save most of my critique of the Bluejacket beers for my review of the brewery proper, but suffice to say they have beer ADD, and need to settle down with a few solid choices. Sometimes it can feel difficult to choose the right one. Maybe if the menu suggested appropriate pairings?
The food itself, as I alluded to in my opening paragraph, just feels too busy, like it’s trying too hard to impress. Like a hipster trying to show off his knowledge of obscure bands, their dishes are trying to seem erudite by using obscure terms for ingredients that may or may not actually be interesting. Seriously, I looked up «dippy eggs» and it’s just sunny-​side up. Also, if you’re going to pull this stuff on me, at least make the food right. My eggs benedict at brunch were tasty, but the cornbread disintegrated instantly, so most mouthfuls ended up as poached egg and pancetta covered in cornbread crumbs. Fair’s fair, though: the crème fraîche biscuits deserve their own shoutout, I could have eaten twelve of them.
Overall, the Arsenal feels like a nervous, sweaty guy in a speed-​dating round, just trying too hard to charm my pants off right away and still come off as cool. Maybe it’s a cultural shift as DC gentrifies, or maybe the fact that I recently had brunch there for my 35^th birthday means that since I just aged out of the 18 – 34 white male demographic, I’m no longer being catered to by a society run by young whippersnappers. I still find the Arsenal has its appeal, so stop by the 4:30pm old folks dinner buffet sometime and let me and my future AARP buddies know all about it…

Very bad food.
The service is good, the beer is alright and the ambience is nice. Sadly, the food is just rough. Burgers were way overcooked and undersized, Brussels sprouts tasted like soggy diatomaceous earth, and mac n cheese made me wish I’d stuck with fries.
I guess they don’t have to have good food, being close to the ballpark and serving mainly beer. Still, you would think they’d put in a bit of effort to keep up the reputation of Birch and Barley and GBD. It’s a bummer to see people kicking down the door to spend $ 19 for a burger that you could get at Wendy’s for $ 2.

Awesome place to stop before the Nationals game for beer and snacks. Didn’t get to sample the food but did try a few different of their brews. Love that they have a sample size for their beers so that you can try multiple flavors!

Beer was good but the food for some reason not so much. Maybe it’s because of opening day where they changed the menu. My wife had a black avocado on her burger and and our burger patties were almost charred. The salad was almost wilted. Some of my favorite dishes had been omitted from the menu.

Five stars for beer, three stars for food and service. Bluejacket makes some fantastic beers (the kumquat gose was a fun surprise on this last visit, and Mexican Radio is probably my favorite beer brewed in DC) and the bar snacks like the tater tots and fried chickpeas are awesome. At a recent dinner in the Arsenal, appetizers (scallops, pork cheeks) were awesome. Entrees were just ok — the duck meatballs in the sweet potato gnocchi were little salt bombs, and the roast chicken was similarly oversalted. Service was relaxed and unhurried, which was fine at first, but started drifting toward «slightly indifferent» as the evening rolled on and some requests (another beer? The list of bottles to buy and take home?) had to be made twice. Overall, an excellent place for beer and snacks, just ok for dinner.

Hunger. It’s grips at you like a frozen hand on a metal pole in the winter.
Thirst. It seizes one like the travels of the Sahara in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Where to go?
Now, THAT’S the question!
And D.C. is full of up and coming places… jump in the car… blah, blah, blah H Streeeeeeet… blah, blah, blah… NO, I’m not standing in a 3 hr wait line in 20 degree temps!
Wait a minute… didn’t The Yards just add some pretty nice spots? Let’s head down there!
And head there we did… right into Bluejacket!
The ambiance? Rocks.
The food? Awesomeness ensued!
The price? Just right!
And all of this on a night when hunger and thirst was the theme.
I had the Bluejacket Double w/fries…enough to make you wanna swim in mayo but smack gramma at the burst of flavor! O, did I mention the good fries too? Yeah… those.
My wife had the Simple Salad w/​roasted chicken. Awesomeness!
But, the biggest surprise I had was the in-​house brewery they have. For ANYONE that is a beer «affecion“ado, thine must show up in need of spirits of the bubbly kind… seek and thou shalt find… in Bluejacket and brew by the name of …“Lux»…as in «luxurious’ hops and taste? Yowsa! I’m going back to get me some bottles of this for my stash.
The crowd was cool, everyone was there for a great time, and it showed.
One the way back, I started thinking: «Wow, I really found a winner with this place!»
Thanks to my Mini Cooper for sniffing this place out because I didn’t know WHERE I was going this night! And it paid off!
Recommend this place to anyone looking

LOVED Arsenal! I came here about a month ago with a couple of friends and I am SO glad they introduced me to this place. First of all, the interior is so cool. It’s this enormous old warehouse that’s been completely renovated with huge beer tanks on the upper levels that can be seen from the seating area. Very industrial chic. But, the restaurant area is incredibly intimate with great lighting. Love love love the aesthetic.
Our waiter was also phenomenal. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten his name at this point, but he was super patient and understanding as we waited for our perpetually late friends to show up. He was very willing to explain their (slightly overwhelming) beer list and offered suggestions which we took up.
I do wish their menu was a bit more extensive. I get that food isn’t their main angle, but the stuff that we had was so good, I just want to try more of it. For starters, we had the hot charcuterie plate, which was delicious. Then I had this delicious pasta dish with beef cheek ragu, I think? They’ve changed the menu since then, so I’m having a hard time remembering. We had the brussels sprouts and potatoes on the side, which were also fantastic.
For beers, I think I had the Mothra and the Swallowtail? I know I also tried one of their cask ales that isn’t on the current menu right now which was also fantastic. The general consensus from the table was that all of the food and beer was fantastic and there wasn’t a single aspect we would’ve changed.

Place is great nice crowd very laid back, and the design of the inside if the building is like your eating in the heart of a Brewery…
I enjoyed the Mexican Radio beet it’s very dark and has a very unique taste it’s kinda like an espresso but it’s really good. The Ragged Sailor was pretty good, and the food was amazing had the Blue jacket her get with SOME OF THE BEST TATER TO I’VE EVERYDAY HAD! also with a side of the Warm Beer Pretzels that was good I didn’t real like it the sauce but it was something different.. And I like establishments that are creative with food.
Overall this is a go to spot, it’s a hidden Secret

Checking out the well crafted lunch selections… Shared with the table an amazing sampling of delicious and unique items, starting with an avocado/​tomatillo soup and fatoush salad, then an assortment of unique «sandwiches» that were presented on slates with a flair, including a gorgeous curry chicken salad with white grapes, a corned beef with house made sauerkraut, (SO good) and a falafel that one NYC resident dining with us said was «the best» she had ever had! The Mumbo Chicken is a delicious, tender crispy sweet sour combination of textures and flavors that made me want to order more; there was a tender roasted pork belly take on a BLT that was heavenly… and an assortment of juicy sliders w/​house made pickles adorning it all. So, even though my belly was full my palette was begging for more. The dark beers we sampled were suggested to accompany the meal by a server well-​versed in the history of each dish and the details of each brew. A memorable spread… Followed by delicious desserts that were destined to travel. We were full. We thanked the inventive Chef, and left grinning. I will be back as soon as possible.

Blargh. Pretty decent place once you sit down, but otherwise, it’s hard to feel comfortable in this place. It’s like being at a nightclub for some reason. Must be that warehouse neighborhood effect. Food is mediocre-​to-​okay and quite expensive (most of us got some variation of burger as that was the cheapest thing on the menu.) Some of the beer is nice, but most of it is just way too heavy and not sessionable (i.e. pick the wrong one and the rest of your drinks for the night feel off /​excessive.)
If money’s no limit, you would have a great time here. But our group consisted mostly of people with student loans. :(

Great spot along the waterfront by Nationals Park and the Yards. They brew their own beer, specialize in seafood with the location near the water, and the place is brand new.
Arsenal at Bluejacket has got some serious potential in a developing area. The interior of the restaurant is impressive and modern. Service was on par, food was tasty, although very small portions, and the atmosphere was wonderful. The bar and dining areas are separated but not entirely so the noise level was superburb.
The restaurant is perfect to visit before or after a Nationals baseball game since you are so close to the ballpark. However now that we are entering the colder months, the Yards area really is not as popular. Its cold down by the waterfront. Id like to see some specials or events at the location to draw more people. Solid place to visit, just give me more reasons to return.

Great location to hit up after a Nationals game.
Try the Mexican Radio… great flavor. Soft and silky
Just make sure you pay attention to the time if you’re doing a mid week baseball game… could be an expensive cab ride home.
Plenty of TVs around the bar. Not a bad spot in the bar area. Décor is inviting

amazing space, great location near the National stadium and perfect for after game drinks… if only they weren’t jerks. Perhaps it was the inundation of fans… who knows. I realize they are new but they should cool it with the attitude. Patrons waiting to be seated or make a wait list at 5pm were told that they could «go get themselves a drink at the bar and wait» in a go f yourself and get a drink because we don’t want to seat you manner. And the patrons who had 4:45 reservations were told they wouldn’t be seated until 5 because that when they open for dining. A few too many kinks… and I didn’t have the patience. There’s a Nando’s next door that doesn’t have issues.
Not impressed. At least the bouncers checking ID’s were nice.