Nightlife in Rockville

Baltimore Comedy Factory has nonviolently busted guts with nationally sourced joke-slingers for nearly three decades. Several nights a week, the club schedules sets by stars pulled onto the stage fresh from appearances in blockbuster comedies and hit TV shows. Tucked within the Power Plant Live complex, the club’s expansive new location finds room for comfy table seating, a beach-themed bar pouring sodas and cocktails, and an ample supply of super-size prop sunglasses.

Named Best Comedy Club by the Baltimore City Paper and blueprinted as a comedy club from day one, Magooby's newly built stadium of standup attracts a high-profile flock of TV-tested jokesters to its 240-foot stage and state-of-the-art sound system. The fully stocked bar lines up a joke-themed stable of specialty drinks, such as the Blind Pirate, with bourbon and coconut rum, or the Bearded Ballerina, with bourbon and Bacardi limon. The menu fuels laughing fits and juggling one-upmanship with burgers, chicken tenders, and a caesar salad.

With the clink of glasses and fizz of champagne barely audible beneath the danceable beats of top-flight DJs, Mosaic Nightclub and Lounge sets an electrifying tempo for its chic clientele. Beers and cocktails emerge from the bar as bottles of top-shelf liquors alight upon tables reserved for VIPs such as former presidents and future presidents. An outdoor seating area allows groups to commune beneath the stars and cool down after frantic hokey-pokeying sessions.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, the streets of Ellicott City echo with the footsteps and laughter of revelers making their ways between the city’s pubs and breweries. Bar crawlers visit four local pubs; The Diamondback Tavern, Ellicott Mills Brewing Company, Judge's Bench Pub, and La Palapa Grill & Cantina. Revelers sip domestic beers, spirits, and wines as they tactfully ignore bar-trivia rivals inside the Diamondback Tavern's rustic interior, between the wooden trim and hanging amber-colored lamps of Ellicott Mills Brewing Company and the Judge's Bench Pub, or between the exposed brick walls and colored glass mosaics at La Palapa. To help stomachs soak up excess alcohol, some bar proprietors lay out snacks for touring groups. Participants on both earlier and later crawls walk away with a souvenir T-shirt, as well as a new layer of bar-crawling memories to replace lingering remembrances of high-school-trigonometry lessons.