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.
Yesterday, the Mayor announced dramatic pull-backs on a wide range of Covid restrictions. Most notably, she called for capacity limitations on restaurants to be removed by May 21st. Bars would follow on June 11th.
Right now, restaurants can only fill their inside dining to 25% of the normal capacity. Additionally, tables are required to meet spacing restrictions. Both of these rules will be lifted on May 21st. So in just two weeks, Georgetown restaurants can return to full indoor capacity.
Georgetown restaurants appear to have ultimately weathered the pandemic fairly well, all things considered. We lost a couple coffee shops (Bluestone Lane, Le Pain Quotidien, Paul Bakery, one of the Starbucks, and Peet’s), and a handful of lunch spots (District Pizza, Johnny Rockets, Luke’s Lobster, Sundavich, Subway, and Wisey’s). But only a few sit-down restaurants closed, including America Eats Tavern, Don Lobo’s, High Street Cafe, and Zannchi. Obviously not great to lose them, but it could easily have been a lot worse.
This week on Georgetown Time Machine, GM is donning a fez and visiting the old Masonic Hall on Wisconsin Ave. just above M st.
The photo comes from the Willard R. Ross Postcard collection. The photo is dated from 1911 and shows 1212 Wisconsin Ave. On the first floor is the venerable Weaver hardware store. The building dates to 1858, but this family-owned business has operated there since 1889. The family continues to operate at this same location, which it continues to own.
Weaver’s in the 1920s
The hardware store operated on the first floor at the time of this photo. On the second floor was the meeting hall of Potomac Lodge No. 5 of the freemasons. (Freemason halls were always on the second floor to prevent eavesdroppers). This is the oldest masonic lodge in DC, and even predates the formation of DC.
Monday night, ANC2E voted to support a proposal from DDOT to continue the improvements along Water St., including the extension of the separated bike lane.
Serious efforts to improve Water St. stretch back to (at least) 2015. That’s when the BID, led by its transportation director Will Handsfield, hired Toole Design to create a plan to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety along Water St., as well as improve the traffic management.
Central to the plan that Toole came up with was a separated bike lane on the south side of Water St. After some contentious discussions, this proposal was implemented by DDOT in 2017, and the results can be seen today.
However, two elements of the plan Toole created were not initially adopted by DDOT: the extension of the bike lane to the Capital Crescent Trailhead and the creation of a small traffic circle at 34th st. Both of these proposals were put on the back burner due to the imminent Key Bridge rehabilitation project, which needed the space.
With the rehab project complete, DDOT is now moving to complete the vision created by Toole.
The overarching goal with this last piece is to discourage cars from heading west of 34th St. Take a trip down to Water St. on a Saturday afternoon and you can see immediately how unsafe it is. Cars come driving all the way down Water St. looking for free parking, and then need to turn around when they don’t find it. Pedestrians and cyclists are also forced to walk down the center of the street since there are no sidewalks. It’s a combustible mix and it is only a matter a time before someone gets killed or maimed.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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