Cannons to Close, Ending an Era

Ever since Cannons Seafood closed for unspecified medical problems a few months ago, GM has heard rumors that the closure wasn’t temporary but permanent. Sadly, Carol Joynt verified the rumor yesterday. She writes on her Washingtonian blog:

Bobby Moore contacted Washingtonian to announce he’s decided to close the business for good and lease the space to his 31st Street next-door neighbor, Il Canale Italian restaurant…Moore, 47, says the “medical reasons” are simple wear and tear on his body…He says he sat down to discuss it with his family recently, and they decided to “close [the restaurant] altogether.”

This is a sad day for Georgetown. Moore’s family has owned and run Cannon’s since it opened in 1937. After a time operating at the old Georgetown Market (now occupied by Dean and Deluca), Moore’s father bought the current building on 31st St. in 1966. So with the store’s closure, Georgetown is not just losing its only fish monger, it’s losing one of its last long-term family owned businesses. (The only ones left that GM can think of are the resilient Phoenix, owned and run by Betsy and Bill Hays since 1955 and Martin’s, owned and operated by the Martin family since 1933.)

The closure of Cannon’s reflects another recent closure of a beloved family-owned business in Georgetown: Furin’s. Like Cannon’s, Furin’s owned the building and wasn’t pushed out by a greedy landlord. The family simply came to a decision that it couldn’t keep the business going as is and closed on its own terms. Unlike Furin’s, however, Moore told Joynt that he intends to keep the building in the family. “I don’t want to sell it,” he told Joynt, “because I don’t know what I’ll want to do down the road.” It’s probably unrealistic to expect an eventual return of Cannon’s, particularly after the space is converted into restaurant space, but one can dream.

Until then, Georgetowners are stuck getting their fish from either Safeway, or some other neighborhood.