With Mr. Smith’s recent move to the waterfront, Georgetown Piano Bar has a grip on M Street. The bar, which formerly housed dance club Modern, opened Friday, Sept. 12. We had a chance to talk to owner and Renaissance man Bill Thoet before the bar opened.
Georgetowner: You work as a consultant for your day job. What was the appeal of owning a bar from that perspective?
Bill Thoet: I’ve traveled alone a lot as a consultant and I’m not the type to just sit in the hotel room, so I go out. There are a lot of different places to hit when you go out. If you want to go out and be lonely, you can just go out to a regular bar. If you want to go out and meet people, you go to a piano bar. People are engaged in the music, the player and with each other. I can walk in there and in a few minutes I’ll be talking to 20 people.
GT: Has music always been a draw for you?
BT: Music, especially singing, has been a big thing in my family. My great grandfather was a medical missionary in China and was named one of the best baritones in China. My parents sing, my sister sings and I sing. I was in musicals in high school and that sort of thing.
GT: If someone comes in here on a random night, will they hear you sing?
BT: Oh yeah, absolutely. Every night I’m here, I will sing a couple of songs. One of my favorite go-to artists is Frank Sinatra. Sometimes I’ll sing “Ol’ Man River” by Paul Robeson since I can really go deep.
GT: What are your favorite three piano songs?
BT: “Piano Man” by Billy Joel and “House of the Rising Son” by the Animals. “Sweet Caroline” is always a fun one too because it brings everyone in.
GT: Why pick Georgetown as the location for the bar?
BT: I always had Georgetown in mind. It’s hard to find a place where you get walk-in traffic and that’s great for something like this. A lot of visitors walk through Georgetown and that is something I wanted to bring to the bar from my personal experience. Tourists come from hotels and when they see the piano upstairs and come on down, they’ll be hooked.
GT: What was it like changing the space from Modern to the Georgetown Piano Bar?
BT: It has been a huge project. This used to be a 90s club, with a white bar with bottle service, a disco ball and kitschy booths. We had to redecorate to give it a new feel. We brought it down with wood tones and brought in the piano. Now we have this bright red piano, which I was initially surprised by. But I think it makes the piano the center of the room, which was the concept from the outset. We have a player piano too that plays on its own when you feed it an old song scroll. We’ll use that when pianists are sick (laughs).
GT: Are you coming at the bar with your consultant hat on?
BT: Yes, we are trying to get feedback and improve constantly. We may strike a deal with some local restaurants so that patrons can bring food in here since we don’t have a kitchen. We may also get dueling pianists going back and forth with one another. It’s a fun theme.
GT: What do you like to do outside of work?
BT: I became the Chairman of the Board for the National ALS Association in February 2014. The ice bucket challenge has been amazing. This kind of viral thing has never happened before for an organization like ours, and the challenge has brought in $110 million and counting. For the grand opening of Georgetown Piano Bar, we’re planning on shaking martinis in an ice bucket and donating all proceeds to the local chapter of the ALS Association.
