Book Hill
Historic Church to be Converted to Single Family Home?
As GM reported back in September, the parishioners of Alexander Memorial Church on O St. and 27th have decided to sell their historic church and relocate to Maryland, where most of them live.
The sale includes both the church itself, and the large building attached to it, which once served as the home to legendary astronomer Asaph Hall.
Last week, the Washington Business Journal wrote a piece on the property and speculated that the likely buyer would want to convert the property to condos. Well GM has learned that one potential Georgetown-based buyer actually wants to purchase the property and simply move in to it himself (with his young family). Continue reading
Filed under Real Estate
The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Hewy.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Philly restaurant Capriotti’s in talks for Georgetown location.
- El Centro running a mole festival through November.
Filed under Uncategorized
Georgetown a Foodie Desert?
Photo by Gina Jones.
The sad closure of Cannon’s got GM thinking: is Georgetown a foodie desert? In other words, does Georgetown lack a strong gourmet food culture?
Part of what makes a gourmet food culture includes restaurants. And there’s obviously a very old debate about the aggregate quality of Georgetown restaurants. Yes, it is weighed down with a lot of tourist-oriented restaurants. And some of the finer dining options are sometimes accused of resting on their decades old laurels. But a lot of it is just perception. For instance, in GM’s opinion a restaurant like Capitol Prague would get much more press if it were open on 14th St.
But what GM wants to discuss more is not the food that people buy at Georgetown restaurants, but rather the food they make in their own homes.
Now, GM obviously has no idea the quality of food that gets made every night in the neighborhood. But what he can see is that there’s not much retail in the neighborhood that caters to homemade gourmet cooking.
With Cannon’s gone, the only shop in Georgetown that sells unprepared food is Stachowski’s. Sure, there’s also Dean and Deluca, but they’ve basically eliminated their produce, meat and fish sections. Now it’s almost entirely prepared foods. Continue reading
Filed under Retail
The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Ehpien.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- First man to wear the Jack the Bulldog mascot costume was killed in a car crash in New York.
- GM reposted his article on Georgetown theaters on Greater Greater Washington and got some interesting comments.
Filed under Uncategorized
Cannons to Close, Ending an Era
Ever since Cannons Seafood closed for unspecified medical problems a few months ago, GM has heard rumors that the closure wasn’t temporary but permanent. Sadly, Carol Joynt verified the rumor yesterday. She writes on her Washingtonian blog:
Bobby Moore contacted Washingtonian to announce he’s decided to close the business for good and lease the space to his 31st Street next-door neighbor, Il Canale Italian restaurant…Moore, 47, says the “medical reasons” are simple wear and tear on his body…He says he sat down to discuss it with his family recently, and they decided to “close [the restaurant] altogether.”
This is a sad day for Georgetown. Moore’s family has owned and run Cannon’s since it opened in 1937. After a time operating at the old Georgetown Market (now occupied by Dean and Deluca), Moore’s father bought the current building on 31st St. in 1966. So with the store’s closure, Georgetown is not just losing its only fish monger, it’s losing one of its last long-term family owned businesses. (The only ones left that GM can think of are the resilient Phoenix, owned and run by Betsy and Bill Hays since 1955 and Martin’s, owned and operated by the Martin family since 1933.) Continue reading
Filed under Restaurants, Retail
The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Ron Cogswell.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- This is interesting: Number of tavern licenses in Georgetown has dipped below six, meaning a new one could be issued for the first time in 20 years. GM’s believes that all this allows for is for an existing restaurant license to convert to a tavern license. There’s still a cap on new licenses under the moratorium generally.
- More info on the new Georgetown dorm.
- Want to help the library? The Friends of Georgetown Library is holding a book sale this Saturday at the library from 10 to 3. Check it out! (yuk, yuk, yuk…)
Filed under Uncategorized
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
You must be logged in to post a comment.