The Georgetown Metropolitan

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

Last week, GM griped that the current system of allocating liquor licenses in Georgetown is, shall we say, sub-optimal. Now the identities of the entities who have snatched up the liquor licenses appears to confirm GM’s fears that the only parties willing to camp out in a tent are parties that are simply speculators.

Top Shelf over at the Washington Business Journal got the list:

• A corporation called AN & JM (trade name TBD)
• A corporation called FR & LH, LLC (trade name TBD)
• Ching, LLC trading as So MI
• Luke’s Lobster VIII LLC (trading as Luke’s Lobster)
• Georgetown Restaurant Partners, LLC (trade name TBD)
• Restaurants, LLC trading as Yummi Crawfish and Seafood Restaurant

Rebecca Cooper determined that the first two applicants are tied to the building currently housing Sobilato and John Rosselli Assoc. on Wisconsin, just above P St. Why do they need two licenses? Are they really going to open two restaurants on stretch of Wisconsin that can’t seem to support more than the two that are open there? It all is awfully similar to the Hu’s Wear situation. Continue reading →

Photo by Peter Bjork.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Post does a deep dive of Georgetown and comes up with pretty much the exact same article it’s been writing about Georgetown for the last 20 years.
• GM would’ve guessed that if one Georgetown place would make this list of great DC patios, it would be the Graham.

Dumbarton Oaks Park