Tuesday's Take: 11 Local Shops DC Loves

This post 1st appeared in The DCist

Let's be real: There are quite a few chain stores in D.C. From the dozens of Starbucks to the downtown mammoths with big names, shopping local isn't always easy or even an option

As some little guys and institutions have been pushed out of D.C. in recent years, some notable exceptions still stand after decades. Here are 11 more classic Washington stores that DCist writers love.

POLITICS & PROSE: At the beginning of last year, married duo Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine were named by GQ magazine on their “50 Most Powerful People in Washington” list. Not because of Graham and Muscatine’s careers at the Washington Post, nor because Muscatine at one point wrote speeches for Hillary Clinton. Nay. They were on there because they now own a bookstore called Politics and Prose.

Way up Connecticut Avenue, almost in Maryland, P&P was founded in 1984 by Barbara Meade and Carla Cohen, who died of cancer in 2010. When Meade and Cohen’s husband put the store up for sale, it inspired this piece in theNew Yorker. 

P&P has a diverse and interesting shelf selection. Not just politics and prose, as the title suggests, but also travel, poetry, kid’s books in all shapes and sizes, etc.

But their real calling is as a promoter of writers in person: from the famous (like JK Rowling) to the local (like George Pelecanos, who OK is also famous). For the bigger names, like Malcolm Gladwell on Oct. 16, they use Sixth and I as a venue. But they've got something of interest every night of the week. — Alexis Hauk

Politics and Prose is located at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW.

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