The Georgetown Metropolitan

3200 block of O St.

Photo by Alpha.

Is there a mini-foodie node emerging along Wisconsin Ave.? It’s too early to judge the long term viability, but in the near future three new gourmet-food oriented shops will be open within a short walk of Wisconsin and P.

The first one has already been open for a while earlier this year (technically in preview mode): Via Umbria at Wisconsin and Volta. This Italian shop sells cooking equipment and crockery straight from Italy, along with fancy Italian pastas and wine. They’ve been closed, however, for the last several months and the “temporary” store gets converted into its final shape.

The next shop that is coming is Boulangerie Christophe at 1422 Wisconsin Ave. Not too much has been made public about the project, but it has been identified to GM as a “nice, local high-end bakery”.

And finally, there are now signs outside 1524 Wisconsin Ave. (which used to house Darrell Dean) announcing a new shop called “The Georgetown Olive Oil Company”. That’s all that GM knows at this point, but it sounds like a promising shop. Continue reading →

Photo by Alan Kotok.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Buy local at Madewell.
• Bank of Georgetown employees: happy.

Georgetown University

Fall is here, and what better way to celebrate that fact than enjoying some good times with your neighbors while supporting a vital neighborhood resource? Volta Park Day returns October 4th from 3-6 pm. As always, there’ll be rides, games, drinks and plenty of food to enjoy. All proceeds go to Friends of Volta Park which supports the beautification and improvement of Volta Park.

The traditional East v. West softball game will take place again at 2:00 pm before the party starts.

See you there!

Photo by Alan Kotak.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Creampuff store that originally said it would be open a while ago, is now saying it’ll open in November.
• The Eat and Joy Restaurant on 34th is becoming something called “Curry and Pie”. Sounds interesting.

Potomac River

After a long and tortured process, the Zoning Commission is on the verge of adopting the final changes to the zoning code as part of the dramatic zoning rewrite. There is one final opportunity to chime in. Assuming the plan goes forward as it stands, it will mean some significant changes for Georgetown. Here are two of them:

Corner Stores

Corner stores like Scheele’s and Sara’s are a critical part of the appeal of living in Georgetown. But the thing is, they only exist where they are due to grandfathering. The current zoning code would consider them illegal if they hadn’t existed for as long as they have. And consequently, if any of them closed, unless a new store were opened there shortly after, the grandfathering would expire and no new store would be allowed.

This potentially has real consequences. When the future of Scheele’s was in doubt due to the Scheele family putting the building up for sale, it was never an option for the store to simply pick up and move across the street. The grandfathering isn’t portable. So if a store loses its lease, it cannot simply move to another building unless that building is already zoned commercial. There are only a few small pockets in the side streets of Georgetown that are zoned commercial.

The new rules would loosen the general prohibition on commercial activity in residential zones. You could open a corner store in any property literally on a corner. Some conditions apply, but the main one is that there cannot be more than three other corner stores within 500 feet and it cannot be within 750 feet of M and Wisconsin.

That last condition is a little odd, but the idea is that corner stores are supposed to be neighborhood serving and not simply be an extension of the existing commercial areas.

Admittedly, these rules would not allow for many new stores popping up in the side streets of Georgetown. But the idea isn’t necessarily to add more corner stores (the demand probably couldn’t support it anyway) as it is to make it easier for new stores to open should the existing ones ever close. Continue reading →

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Bearded Papa delayed again.
• Places to get your basic on.

1200 block of 31st St.