The Georgetown Metropolitan

Dumbarton Oaks

As reported by the Washington Business Journal last week, the trendy men’s clothing store Lost Boys will close down in the next few weeks. The small shop has been tucked away on 31st St. south of M for six years (it attracted early attention for offering free booze for the customers).

The owner, Kelly Muccio, states that she has been given an opportunity she couldn’t refuse and decided to close the shop. And perhaps that’s all there is to take away from the story. But it’s probably worth noting that Lost Boys is basically the model of what the Georgetown BID is hoping to encourage over the next 15 years. Continue reading →

Photo by Via Tsuji.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Fodor’s names Baked and Wired one of the top ten bakeries in the country.
• One bedroom in Georgetown for under $100k! Ok, the bedroom is for a car.

Montrose Park

Next monday, the ANC meets for its May session at 6:30 pm at its normal location, Visitation School. If you’re interested in big dramatic projects, this is the meeting for you.

The projects have been in the review pipeline for a while, and have been mentioned here before. First there is the new condo building where the Key Bridge Exxon is. It appears that Eastbanc has largely won the war with the neighbors over the size of the project, regardless of its impact on their views. Now it just appears to be a case of finding the right design aesthetic for the Old Georgetown Board to approve.

The other big project is the potential conversion of the Alexander Memorial Baptist church on N St. to residential use. GM had earlier reported that an individual had hoped to turn the entire property into a single family building. However, GM has learned that that bid has fallen through. Now several competing bids are seeking design approval, each one contemplating a multi-family project. Continue reading →

Photo by Happy Via.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GM just noticed this: the popular P St. Kids closed suddenly in March. That’s a bummer.
• Georgetown’s DMV is supposed to reopen this month, but expect it to be packed with people freaking out about this.

See you next week!

Recently, GM has been on a bit of an extended rant about the state of liquor licensing in Georgetown. One topic he’s touched on a bit, but not address directly is the question of licenses in “safe keeping”.

A license in safe keeping is a license that has been issued to a Georgetown establishment, but which is not currently being used. You’d think in a rational system that once you stop using a license, you’d lose it. But not in Georgetown! There are licenses in safe keeping for restaurants that closed literally decades ago.

Here’s a list of licenses in safe keeping that GM is aware of:

• International House of Ping Pong (Never opened, still squatting on license)
• Lapis (Ditto)
• Hu’s Wear (Ditto)
• M Cafe (Ditto)
• Machu Pichu (closed in the mid 90s)
• Saigon Inn (closed last decade)
• Fino (closed last year)
• Rubgy Cafe (closed last year)
• Grace Bamboo (closed last decade)
• Unnamed restaurant (Eastbanc holds one for some unnamed restaurant)
• Red Fire Grill and Kabob (closed last year)
• River Restaurant (GM has absolutely no clue about this)
• The Williamsburg (GM also has no clue about this one either, but he believes that either this one or the previous one are licenses obtained by Clyde’s around 2001 in anticipation of them building a floating restaurant on the Potomac. It obviously was never built.)

Continue reading →

Photo by Pinelife.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Big tree down on O St.
• GM is going to be offline after today, through the rest of the week.

Dumbarton Oaks