The Matchbooks of Georgetown

GM was browsing Ebay looking for a vintage postcard to feature in Georgetown Time Machine when he came across a cache of fantastic (mostly) old matchbooks from Georgetown establishments. As far as cultural ephemera go, they’re pretty easy to overlook, but it’s a trip down memory lane either way. So here they are:

This legendary college bar was famously the shooting location for the interior bar shots from St. Elmo’s Fire. It closed in 2013 after 44 years.

This French restaurant occupied 3057 M St. It closed in the 90s and was replaced by Miss Saigon.

This is an older matchbook from the George Town Club. It’s from when the club mistakenly asserted that it occupied the former Suter’s Tavern building (which was actually down on Water St.).

J. Paul’s was one of GM’s favorite weekend brunch spots. It closed in 2019 as part of the wind down of Capital Restaurant Concepts. It’s space remains vacant.

1789 needs no introduction, but this matchbook is clearly from the restaurant’s earlier days.

Georgetown Manor was the name of the hotel that is currently called the Graham.

Heritage House was the name of the restaurant that occupied the old Heon building prior to Nathan’s. It’s now the Capital One Cafe. Since Nathan’s opened in 1969, this matchbook is at least that old.

Geppetto was one of GM’s absolute favorite restaurants as a child. He ate there every time his family visited DC in the 1980s and the memory of that pizza is still better than all other pizzas. It turned into the Guards in the 90s, but you could still order Geppetto pizza from the location until the early 2000s.

This was a pizza joint in the Georgetown Park Mall. In the 1980s, the FBI investigated it for having mob ties, which must be about the best PR a pizza joint could ever imagine getting.

GM has this exact matchbook on his kitchen counter, so this is clearly not very old.

This matchbook it from Billy Martin’s short lived Carriage House that GM has covered before.

Bowl and Board was a shop in the old firehouse at 1066 Wisconsin that sold homewares, including their eponymous bowls and boards. There’s a chain with the same name in New England that GM believes might be related.

Georgetown Seafood Grill was one of Capital Restaurant Concept’s earlier restaurants. It opened in 1987 at 3063 M St. and stayed open about ten years.

This appears to have been a nightclub at 3056 M St. (the current Thunder Burger) but GM can’t find any information about it.

France’s restaurant was on the second floor of 3005 M St. The name didn’t have anything to do with the country. It was opened in 1955 by a guy named France Anderson.

This matchbook was printed to support the campaign of Mike Feeley to be student body president at GU.

Here is Feeley as a sophomore pitching a plan to bring laundry services to the dorms:

(Doesn’t seem that he won…)

Sundown appears to have been a restaurant operating out of the Chesapeake Inn at 3040 M St.

Cafe La Ruche was a classic French bistro that closed in 2015. It was replaced by the stellar Chez Bill Sud.

And finally here’s Paper Moon, which was renamed Flavio’s in 2016.