Bicentennial Bargains: Happy Hours for Lincoln's Birthday

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YOU MIGHT NOT have heard (since Abraham Lincoln isn't in vogue or anything), but Lincoln's 200th birthday is this week. To celebrate, you don't have to dress up in costume or emancipate anything. You can remember our 16th president through discount food at or around some of the Lincoln landmarks that dot our fair city.

The Surratt boarding house, where John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators planned the Lincoln assassination, is now a restaurant called Wok & Roll. We are not making that up. Anyway, there's no evidence that it's haunted by Lincoln's murderers, but it'll make for fun conversation over sushi. Plus, you can impress a date with your knowledge of history, before she finds out that history geeks make no money whatsoever.

Wok & Roll's happy hour (weekdays, 5 p.m.-8 p.m.) includes $2 beers and $1 nigiri sushi, which was probably a deal even in 1865.

Sadly, The House Where Lincoln Died at 516 10th St. NW (across from Ford's Theatre, where he was shot), has no food. But Bistro d'Oc next door has one of the cheapest, most delicious pre-theatre menus around: $22 per person for entree, soup, salad, dessert and a glass of wine. Even if you're not planning to partake of a play, you can take advantage of their menu during the hours before an 8 p.m. curtain. No, it's not where Lincoln ate his last meal. Sorry, that was at the White House, which does not have a happy hour.

Lincoln's cottage (his summer home, basically) still stands in Northwest D.C. — and it's undergone an extensive renovation. You can go tour it, or you can just wander up into the neighborhood and go to the nearby Looking Glass Lounge, whose happy hour lasts till 8 p.m. Don't miss the buffalo wings or the garlic fries here — this is bar food par excellence. Lincoln would have approved.

A side note for Lincoln buffs: expert Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of "Team of Rivals," will be giving a lecture about Abe's life on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 1:30 p.m. You can catch the broadcast online at history.com/lincoln.

» Wok & Roll, 604 H St. NW; 202-347-4656. (Gallery Place)
» Bistro d'Oc, 518 10th St. NW; 202-393-5444. (Metro Center)
» Looking Glass Lounge, 3634 Georgia Ave. NW; 202-722-7669. (Georgia Ave)

Photo by Mark Finkenstaedt/The Washington Post