Nov 21, 2025 - Food and Drink
Pour one out for pennies
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It's time to pour one out for pennies at D.C.'s one-and-only "penny bar" at Logan Circle's Lincoln.
Driving the news: The U.S. Mint struck the final circulating penny last week.
- Stores are running short, and the Fed has started rationing pennies to banks.
Yes, but: It's penny paradise at Alan Popovsky's presidential-themed restaurant, which has 185,000 pennies in the bartop — plus another 80,000 in the wall.
Zoom in: Bartenders created a mule-like "Copper's End" with rums, citrus, mint and Prosecco.
- Try it for $8 during happy hour, and BYOP — Lincoln is collecting pennies to donate to Martha's Table and N Street Village.
The intrigue: Popovsky removed nearly 1 million pennies from Lincoln's floor design years ago when the coins deteriorated.
- They may get a new life, says Popovsky, now that pennies' value "is getting a little shinier."