The Georgetown Metropolitan

As reported in the Georgetowner, Cady’s Alley’s long standing heart, Kafe Leopold, closed yesterday. The local favorite was open for 21 years.

As Anthony Lanier has recounted many times before, as he was developing Cady’s Alley, he couldn’t convince a restauranteur to take a chance on the space. So he simply decided to do it himself, so he teamed with Paul Guzzardo to recreate the Austrian cafe’s of his homeland. It was a big success and has been well loved by locals and visitors alike ever since.

The Georgetown reports that the decision to close was not like so many of the other stories we’ve heard in recent years. It wasn’t a hike in rent, Guzzardo just wanted to retire. It’s a retirement well earned.

I always loved the feel of Leopold’s, even if I didn’t get to it as much as I’d like. Having honeymooned in Vienna and Salzburg, a trip here would bring me back to that trip, sans red-eye flight. I do hope whatever replaces it is similarly transporting.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s your weekly news round-up:

• Why Halcyon House, the non-profit, is leaving Halcyon House, the house.
• ANC Report from our last meeting.
• As you may have heard, Robert White won the Democratic nomination for DC Delegate, meaning that Brooke Pinto will remain our Councilmember.

A boot store is apparently taking over the former Sprinkles store front at 3015 M st., according to plans filed with the Old Georgetown Board.

The store is Thursday Boots. Presumably they’re also good for Friday through Wednesday. And in keeping with the theme of yesterday’s article: this is a DTC store that is now branching out with a handful of locations in hip locales. For this one that includes the usual suspects of Flat Iron and Soho, NY, Wicker Park, IL, San Francisco, and the less usual suspect Paramus, NJ.

If this store is anything like Georgetown previous leather boot store, Frye and Company, it will smell amazing. Here’s hoping.

The much beloved Random Harvest closed up shop earlier this year. And signs on the windows announce what is to follow: East Fork.

East Fork is a Asheville, NC-based ceramics shop that specializes in home goods. So in that sense, it’s a nice continuation of the legacy of Random Harvest, which also aimed to fill your home with nicely crafted goods.

But in another less obvious way, this store is very much of the zeitgeist in Georgetown, circa 2026. It is a DTC (direct to customer) store that is just now branching out to a small number of stores in various chic neighborhoods across the country. (In this particular case it is just Brooklyn and Georgetown so far; Suck it Back Bay!). This is a description that could fairly describe just about 95% of all the retail stores that have opened in Georgetown since 2020. The spin here is that it’s ceramics, not clothing or eyewear.

And there’s nothing wrong with that! Georgetown circa 2015 or so was a neighborhood with the exact same shops you could find in any mall in any dreary suburb of America. The rebirth that came after the wildfire of 2020 has allowed all these wildflowers to bloom.

But there’s a risk in going too deep with these types of stores. That’s because the (often private equity) owners of these brands surely would love to one day be in every mall in every dreary corner of America. I’m not saying that will happen with this particular brand, which seems lovely. But in general the novelty of these types of stores may ultimately be fleeting by design.

Once a tourist approached me on M St. asking where the stores were. I pointed all around. She replied, “but we’ve got all these at home.” To which I shrugged. I don’t think that scene would happen today. But in 2030? We’ll see…

A stop sign camera has been installed at the intersection of 33rd St. and O St. It appears to capture drivers who drive northbound on 33rd St.

I am very glad to see this installed. This intersection has had some egregiously dangerous driving for a long time. For instance, this is a scene I came upon at this intersection in April. No car should be going so fast through an intersection to allow it to end up in such a position:

I am glad this camera was installed and part of its effectiveness is letter people know it’s there. So here is your notice! Come to a complete stop at this intersection!

Also, it’s important to remember that you have to stop before the stop line, not the cross-walk. The stop line is the white lane about four feet before the cross walk. Stop there!

I am hopeful this is just the first of multiple cameras we see installed in Georgetown. Too many pass-through drivers treat stop signs on the side streets as polite suggestions, not legal requirements. This is especially true along 35th St. in my district. Drivers routinely blow through stop signs all along this corridor. And, of course, the intersection just east of 33rd and O, O and Potomac, sees drivers blow through the stop sign so much that it’s surprising to see someone even remotely stop. This would also be a perfect spot for a camera.

Photo by Adam Fagen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s your weekly news round-up:

• Q&A Cafe has NBC4 local news anchors next week.
• The CitizenM hotel is set to open this month.
• GU transitions to its new permanent president at the end of the month.

The Volta Park ball field is finally open. The work ultimately took about ten months, which was extended at least four months due to the discovery of an unanticipated grave. That was on top of years of delays caused by permitting challenges and other logistics. Ultimately it took about five years from the original decision to fund the work back in 2021. It takes a long time to do stuff around here, unfortunately.

The field looks great. Most of it, at least. There’s already a large patch of dead sod in left field:

I’ve followed up with DPR about this and they are checking with the contractor about getting it replaced.

The fence that drew some objections has also been installed:

It helps better define the quasi-dog park area as distinct from the ball fiend. This should particularly help during times when many dogs are here at the same time there’s a game going on. Most dog owners are good, but enough are careless and inconsiderate that conflicts have happened in the past, including kids getting bitten. The fence should help, although dogs have no problem getting around it via the bush, so owners still have to be vigilant.

(Also, keep in mind that it’s still illegal to have dogs off-leash anywhere in the park, including this area. Multiple people have been ticketed by the city recently for this, so keep that in mind.)

This area did not get new sod. It got seeds, but honestly the soil is so compacted that the seeds aren’t going to accomplish much. It will need to be aerated and re-seeded at some point or it will turn into a mud patch.

The park is fully open. There won’t be any ribbon cutting. Friends of Volta Park are still working with the city to get rat-proof trash cans installed. Stay tuned on that.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out another photo from the remarkable Emil A. Press collection at the DC Historical Society. This one shows the burned out shell of Weaver’s Hardware following the July 1963 fire.

Weaver’s and Sons have occupied this building for a long time. A really, really long time. The family has owned and operated a shop here since 1889. Here’s a photo of their truck outside the shop in 1926:

Nowadays the building is pretty sedate looking, but before the fire it looked largely like this:

The vaguely exotic architecture might reflect the fact the second floor was (and I think still is) occupied by the Freemasons. They love themselves some vaguely exotic architecture. The first floor was renovated and changed between this photo and the fire, as you can see from comparing the ruins to the old photo. But the masonic lodge part of the building was pretty similar as you can see from a photo from the fire:

Sadly they did not restore the facade after the fire.

While the building was uninhabitable, the hardware shop relocated up the block at Wisconsin and N:

Weaver’s Hardware is still operating at its original location, but it ceased being a bread-and-butter hardware store a long time ago. It now sells high end plumbing fixtures and other household hardware.

Documents prepared for the monthly OGB meeting are often the first time the public hears about new stores and restaurants coming to Georgetown. This month is no exception, however the amount of news is pretty short.

The first is a restaurant coming in to 3287 M St. It’s called Flavor Hive. It is a small chain that started in Alexandria from a food truck. It specializes in halal food. This would be its fourth physical location.

The next is Thuna, which is taking over the former Fedex store at M and Bank. This isn’t a surprise to those who’ve been there recently, since they’ve got signs up. This is a kitchen design store, which will fit in well with the similar stores across the street at Cady’s Alley.

And finally is Lumen Salon, which is taking over the former suit shop at the corner of Wisconsin and P. This hair salon currently occupies the upstairs of the same building.

This week on Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out a photo from when M St. was a much different place from what it is today. It was way more oriented towards cars, with about half a dozen garages, a few car dealerships, and today’s item: an auto-parts store.

This store occupied the historic Georgetown Market building. This is a building I’ve written about many times in the past, but in short: it was a market building constructed by the city of Georgetown in 1865 on a location that had hosted another market since 1795.

The auto-parts store actually moved in in 1945 and remained there until the mid 70s. This photo was taken in 1959.

Following the closing of the auto parts store, the city, which came to own the building following the abolition of the Georgetown municipality, decided it should be a market once more. In fact, the law requires it to be used as a market. In that spirit, a farmers market, in the mold of Eastern Market, was opened in the early 80s. It failed. Soon after Dean and Deluca moved it. They remained for decades before closing late last decade.

The space remained vacant for years, but then Stephen Starr signed a lease to bring Mozza Osteria. It had to clear the hurdle that it could qualify as a “market”, hence the vestigial grocery store that occupies the vestibule of the building. Apparently selling a couple boxes of dry pasta and some onions qualifies.