A day and night drink spot on Cap Hill

Americans are fiercely proud of their automotive history, as evidenced by our refusal to purchase foreign-made cars -- except ones from Germany...and England, and Italy, and Sweden, and France, and Japan... For a bar showing off its automotive history right here at home, Auto Battery.

From the crew behind next-door Po Dogs, and located in a former (wait for it!) auto battery shop, this garage-door-fronted hybrid coffee shop/sports bar's decked with stuff the previous owners left behind (motor-oil signage, an antique battery tester hiding the taps), and has added a room-dominating metal bar, shuffleboard and foosball tables, a dozen flatscreens, as well as their own Xbox and Wii stations, but sadly, because they share with Po Dogs, not their own wee stations. Liquid re-fueling options include a full range of java-juice (supplied by Caffe Vita), eight brews on draft (Manny's, Mac & Jack's, etc), and a selection of four-wheel themed 'tails like the SoCo/gin/vodka/OJ/cran/pineapple juice 57 Chevy, the Jump Start (a shot of Absolut Mandrin with an energy drink back), and the Jameson/ginger ale/bitters Back Fire -- also the only kind of heat Lebron's feeling right now. Grubwise you've got the run of Po Dogs' usual menu, plus extras like the Homemade Chicken Apple Mac N' Cheese w/ Uli's famous Chicken Apple Sausage, and the Polish sausage/pasta/tomato sauce Chef Po r de; in the AM there's omelets ranging from the ham/bacon/sausage 3 Little Pigs, to the corned beef hash/American cheese Steve's Irish, which explains why Steve is so amped to boo Thierry Henry when the Red Bulls come to town.

AB's celebrating its opening with a free counter-Capitol Hill Block Party featuring live shows Saturday and Sunday from 3-7pm by acts including Sex Panther, Continental Soldiers, and Chelsea Speed Party, plus The New Law & Out On The Streets, which means the clunker-based former's the only thing keeping people selling American cars from being the latter.