The Georgetown Metropolitan

Last weekend, GM had a conversation with a Georgetown restaurant owner that left him feeling pretty glum about the future of Georgetown’s dining scene. Reaching the same conclusion that many have reached, the owner said that Georgetown had lost the young people who were now spending all their dining budget on U St. or 14th. He said many restaurants in Georgetown are just barely holding on.

But when it came time for GM to sit down and add up all the restaurants that opened in 2013 and those that closed (as part of his annual census) GM reached a different conclusion: the Georgetown dining scene is in good shape. There are some caveats, but we’ll get to those later.

First, last year (for these purposes, GM is counting roughly February 2013-February 2014) sixteen restaurants opened in Georgetown. Moreover, only seven closed. And of those seven, two of them were Iceberry. Continue reading →

Photo by Jantos.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Ricin scare at GU yesterday. (It wasn’t ricin).
• Georgetown retailers sued by people for requesting zip codes. (They won)

3100 block of Q St.

GM is busy pulling together the State of Georgetown 2014, but he wanted to get the highlight out first: store turnover was way down last year.

GM does an annual census of stores, shops, restaurants, etc. Rather, GM normally does this survey. But this year the staff at the BID did it for themselves and shared it with GM. GM took that data and plugged it into his historic data to come up with trends. (Point of clarification, GM doesn’t do this on a calender year basis, but rather approximately on a February-to-February basis)

In 2012, there were 56 store closings and 43 store openings. In 2013, there were only 24 store closings, but also only 35 store openings. So closings were down sharply and openings were down slightly. Continue reading →

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GM noticed over the weekend that Georgetown Dinette on O St. has closed. The space will reopen at a sandwich shop.
• That’s it. With all this lousy Smarch weather, there’s not much going on.

1700 block of 32nd St.

Sure you could celebrate St. Patrick’s day today getting drunk on Guinness at a chain bar, but why not take an opportunity today to explore Georgetown’s Irish history?

As you may now, during the early 20th century, parts of Georgetown were heavily Irish. The center of it was on the west side, close to the Catholic landmarks of GU, Trinity and Visitation.

The Irish concentration is long gone, but with the help of old photos you can imagine the ghosts still walking the streets. In the 30s, photographer Carl Mydans walked through the poor and heavily Irish blocks of west Georgetown and captured the scene of children treating the sidewalks as their playroom:

Continue reading →

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• If you’re looking for a whiskey, start here.
• Tom Sietsema loves Fiola Mare (although he thinks it’s full of plastic surgeons and their clients).

3000 block of Dent Place

It’s hard to believe on a day like today, but we’re almost there to spring. It’s oh so close, both technically and functionally.

So to help you get through this one (hopefully last) slog of winter, enjoy these shots of what awaits us in just a few weeks:

Continue reading →