Andrew: Don and Claire's

Service: 2.5/5

Atmosphere: 4/5

Price: 2/5

Food: 2/5

Drinks: 3/5 

Bathrooms: 3/5

Overall: 2.85/5

---

Ramsey picked a Falls Church classic, the beach-themed Clara and Donnie's. I'd been there once before but barely remembered the place. It's a stone's throw from Dogwood Tavern, so I assume I stumbled over to Clair's because Dogwood was booked. Probably with Ramsey.

I have no idea how long the place has been around, but it feels like the kind of place that has been in Falls Church forever. Probably a loyal following of older folks. A place for the 40-somethings to sneak a few drinks when FC was much more of a sleepy suburb.

I will say, they are built for COVID. A huge, covered outdoor space in addition to their regular outdoor sectioned--adorned with aged, generic nautical and beach-themed items with a small bar. We grabbed a seat right by the band, a reggae group that got significantly better the more I drank. 

And we did drink a lot. But first, the food: I won't waste my time or your here, dear reader. It's not very good. I got fish tacos which seemed like something they would want to knock out of the park given the ambiance. But no, they lacked really any flavor or spice. Some chips and guac ahead of that ended up being a better call. 

We had a hazy IPA to start (man, I've been drinking a ton of hazies recently...) but I switched quickly to crushes. For the uninitiated, a "crush," typically an "orange crush," is an iced cocktail of OJ, vodka, and sprite usually, I think. But you can use whatever fruit juice you want. I associate these with Ocean City, MD--they're so good in the summer. We had several of these bad boys and I have no complaints beyond 9 bucks being a bit steep in my opinion.

The service was alright. Our server was handling the majority of a large outdoor section and he did his best. I couldn't quite place his accent. 

And oh yeah! The band. They played the songs you would imagine they would play and gave it their best shot. I tipped them 20 bucks and asked them to play a Blink 182 song. Tim covered this in his post, but I did not get my blink. The singer was nice about it though---came over to dap me up and apologize.

We caught a nice buzz and the weather was good. Ramsey was good company, naturally. I don't know what we talked about.

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