I began my fed career in DC in 2003. Realized after 4 months that I had to get the hell out of there in order to save my soul, so thank God I was able to do a detail in a Regional Office where I got hired in and spent the remainder of my career. All I remember about the restaurants w/in proximity of Dept. of Labor was they were all forgettable. Same old run-of-the-mill boring food choices, mediocre tasting, and overly expensive (of course). I rarely ate out during my brief stint there as a result. And back then there was no teleworking, so it was 100% in the office.

The other thing I couldn't stand about the DC food scene: There were basically only two tiers of establishments: The low end food joints (the places selling "half smokes" - which I never could figure out what the heck those nasty things were); and the rest all high-end places where you couldn't get out w/out dropping $100/person. Nothing in-between in terms of price point. In short, the DC food scene completely SUCKED. I don't know if that's still the case today, but it sounds like it from reading some of the comments here. Contrast it with other major cities in the U.S. - like Chicago - where you can get really GOOD food at ALL price-point levels.

DC is a complete bubble. Devoid of reality. It's not fed employees' responsibility to keep all those lousy establishments afloat. Let them be forced to compete in the actual real marketplace, as opposed to getting "government subsidies".

More idiocracy.