Some Details on Those New Liquor Licenses

GM can no confirm that the four new applicants for liquor licenses in Georgetown are the four he identified last month. Those include:

• The Georgetown AMC
• Lady Camelia
• Chaia
• Kouzina (GM didn’t have the name last month, but this is the applicant he identified)

Here’s what each applicant has planned:

Georgetown AMC:

The theater doesn’t have really any changes planned, except presumably the sale of alcoholic drinks. They plan to sell drinks right up to the legal deadline: 2 am weekdays and 3 am weekends. They are applying for a Class C restaurant license, which allows for the sale of beer, wine and liquor.

What’s somewhat interesting for this applicant is that they’re pursuing a restaurant license (a C/R license). Other theaters in DC that sell alcohol, such as E St. Cinema, use a Multipurpose Facility license (a C/X license). Multipurpose facilities are theaters and art galleries, etc., which Georgetown AMC would appear to qualify as. And C/X licenses don’t require the licensee to receive a certain minimum amount of its revenue from food sales, whereas C/R licenses require the establishment to get at least 45% of its gross revenues from food sales.

Can a movie theater really get 45% of its revenues from popcorn, especially once it start selling booze? Why doesn’t the theater just get a C/X license? Because the moratorium prohibits them. (Yet another reason to ditch the moratorium).

We’ll see how this plays out…

Lady Camelia

Lady Camelia is seeking a Class D restaurant license. That would permit it only to sell beer and wine. GM doesn’t expect that the tea house will have as much trouble meeting the food revenue requirements.

They plan to serve drinks no later that their normal closing times: 10 pm Tuesday through Saturday, and 5 pm on Sunday.

The application notes that they primarily expect to sell champagne to accompany the afternoon tea.

Chaia

Chaia is a vegetarian taco shop coming to the old woodworking shop on Grace St. They’ve been selling their tacos at farmers markets around DC for a while, and they’re fantastic.

Like Lady Camelia, they are seeking a Class D restaurant license. They plan to stay open late, serving food and drinks until 2 am on the weekdays and 3 am on the weekends.

The application notes that the tacos would go great with beer. GM can attest that they would! The application also notes that they’d like occasional live music. This might be a bridge too far. With homes along Grace St., they’re are probably enough neighbors who don’t want live music played. But we’ll see.

Kouzina

Kouzina is Greek for kitchen, which makes sense since the application states that they plan to open a restaurant selling Greek cuisine with “authentic dishes such as fish and meat”. (That’s such an odd way of putting it. That’s like saying you’re opening an bakery selling authentic French dishes such as bread and dairy products.)

As GM reported earlier, the applicant is the same applicant that squatted on a license application several years ago until the ABC board revoked it for lack of progress towards actually opening. When the application was revoked, the applicant stated that he couldn’t open in the space he intended to use until 2016 at the earliest because the tenant wasn’t going to leave until then. This new application is associated with the same address, so presumably we’re back waiting again.

Mike Isabella is planning on opening a Greek restaurant in Bethesda called Kapnos Kouzina. The application doesn’t suggest that it has anything to do with Isabella’s operation. (And after his bad experience at Bandelero, Isabella probably is not eager to jump back into Georgetown).