The Georgetown Metropolitan

2900 block of M St.

Carine’s Bridal is renovating 1623 Wisconsin Ave. to house the wedding shop. This will finally bring the former Georgetown Cafe property back into service. But in renovating the building, they’ve painted previously unpainted brick white, and that’s a shame.

Everyone wants to see this property improved. It was in terrible shape even before Georgetown Cafe closed years ago. It’s only gotten worse since. It was great news came last year that Carine’s Bridal-a small Georgetown business-was buying the building to move in. Continue reading →

Photo by Kris Robinson.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GREAT NEWS: Neighborhood Restaurant Group is opening a Belgian restaurant in the old Champion’s space off Wisconsin. GM’s known this was coming for over a year, but hearing the confirmation is huge.
• LESS GREAT NEWS: SB-Urban has dropped its plans for a microunit building at the location of the old Latham. The building will be put up for sale again and restoration as a hotel is likely.

Rose Park

As GM discussed yesterday, Tacklebox and Bandolero are officially no mas. And it didn’t take long for word to leak out that the replacement is likely to be retail.

Prince of Petworth is reporting that he heard a reliable rumor that both storefronts would be taken over by a store confusingly called “& Other Stories“. This is a higher end outlet from the Swedish clothing purveyor H&M, which has a normal brand store across the street. Continue reading →

Photo by Ruben Picon-Feliciano.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GU track and field team under investigation for discrimination and hazing.
• Georgetown home seller offers year of free parking to listing. (Seems like the future owner could just buy that themselves.)

3200 block of Volta Pl.

The Washington City Paper announced yesterday that Bandolero has closed. This would appear to bring to close a long troubled history of restaurants at that location.

Jessica Sidman details the tumult that accompanied Bandolero’s last year. It had it’s liquor license protested by its own landlord in 2013. That same landlord started trying to evict them that same year. Mike Isabella, who was supposedly came up with the restaurant’s concept, quickly wanted nothing to do with it.

But the troubles preceded Bandolero. The owners of Bandolero, Jonathan and Bethany Umbel, owned the previous restaurant to occupy these properties: Hook.

Hook was the last restaurant to open in Georgetown and generate buzz until the most recent crop of buzzy restaurants finally came along (i.e. Chez Billy Sud, Grill Room, Fiola Mare). That was way back in 2008. And helming the ship was Barton Seaver, then a young hotshot chef preaching sustainability and conservation. Continue reading →

Photo by Mike Maguire.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Blues Alley is 50 years old!
• Some more detail on the $4.6 million condo flip.

3200 block of P St.