Mono Diner Gives it Another Try?

Signage appears to show that the troubled Mono Diner is giving it another go.

Back in March 2019, Mono Diner was opened at 1424 Wisconsin Ave. It was opened by Mohammad Esfahani, who has a troubled history in and around Georgetown. For example, he caused a building collapse at 1329 Wisconsin Ave. in 2002 when he put a tar machine on its roof. And in 2014 he caused 1424 Wisconsin Ave. to also partially collapse. Against this backdrop, he and his brother got into a big fight with his business partner in Z-Burger, a small burger chain they owned. He ended up with one of the locations up in Glover Park and renamed it All About Burger.

The rather unfortunate sounding name, Mono Diner, was not in reference to the disease teens get from kissing each other but rather the golden age of early black-and-white cinema. It was originally promised to be a 24 hour diner. If it ever operated those hours, it was not for very long. Very soon after the restaurant opened, GM started getting emails from disgruntled employees. The hours of the restaurant started dwindling more and more and it closed up later that year. It has remained mostly vacant since then (an e-bike seller operated out of the location over the winter).

Throughout all that time it was closed, the tables and chairs remained. And now there’s a new sign above the door: “Mono Diner by All About Burgers”. As mentioned above, All About Burgers is the name of the Glover Park restaurant also owned by Esfahani. So it would appear he’s either just opening an All About Burger location here or somehow merging the concepts. (Back before he caused the collapse at this location in 2014, he was proposing to bring a Z-Burger here).

The biggest question GM has is why, given the opportunity to drop the Mono Diner name, he didn’t. But surely more questions will arise as they move forward.