Georgetown University Guide: Where to Eat, Drink & Stay (2026)

Whether you're a Georgetown student figuring out which M Street places are worth the money, a parent in town for move-in or Commencement, an alum back for Reunion Weekend, or a prospective student walking through the front gates for the first time, this guide pulls together the restaurants, bars, hotels, and campus landmarks worth knowing around Georgetown University.

Georgetown sits on 104 acres above the Potomac in the oldest neighborhood in Washington, DC, with about 7,200 undergraduates and roughly 15,800 students in total. The campus is called the Hilltop for a reason: it's up on a bluff, and the walk back from M Street is a climb. The other thing to know before you plan anything is that Georgetown has no Metro station. Foggy Bottom is the nearest one, about a fifteen minute walk from the neighborhood, and the DC Circulator that used to run from Rosslyn shut down at the end of 2024. Plan on walking, driving, or a rideshare, and book hotels early, because mid-May puts Commencement and Reunion Weekend a fortnight apart.

Georgetown's food splits neatly by geography, and knowing the split saves you a lot of walking. O Street and Prospect Street, up near the front gates, are where students actually eat day to day. M Street and lower Wisconsin hold the institutions, the ones parents have heard of and alumni want to revisit. Down at Washington Harbour on the Potomac is where the waterfront tables are, and where the priciest dinners live. All of it is walkable if you're willing, but the return trip is uphill, so plan the big meal for a night you don't mind a cab.

Georgetown's drinking splits by altitude too. Up at the top of the hill on 36th Street, a door apart, are the two campus bars: one is the student institution, the other is where you take your parents. Everything else is down on Wisconsin and M, and it skews older and more serious than a typical college strip, which is what happens when a student neighborhood is also a diplomatic one. Nights out that start in Georgetown often end elsewhere in DC, since the neighborhood has no Metro station and closes down earlier than Dupont or U Street.

Georgetown has a real hotel supply, which is unusual for a campus neighborhood, but almost all of it sits at the luxury end and almost all of it is small. The Georgetown Inn is the closest to the front gates at about half a mile; Rosewood, The Graham, and the Ritz-Carlton follow within a few blocks of that. The Four Seasons anchors the eastern edge. Two more are outside Georgetown proper: The Watergate in Foggy Bottom and the Hyatt Place in the West End, and both are worth knowing precisely because they're bigger and more likely to have rooms when Commencement and Reunion Weekend take the neighborhood.

Georgetown's oldest and best parts sit together in one corner, which makes a first visit easy. Come in at the front gates at 37th and O, and Healy Hall, Old North, Dahlgren Chapel, and the John Carroll statue are all within a couple of minutes of each other around Healy Circle and Dahlgren Quad. Lauinger is right there too, and it's worth seeing even though nobody would call it pretty.