This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m dipping back into the collection of 1993 shots I have. This one features one of the former classic fast food restaurants that used to be in Georgetown: Roy Rogers.
Nowadays this spot (southwest corner of Wisconsin and Prospect) hosts the Wawa. Prior to that for many years it had the Restoration Hardware store. But from sometime in the 1970s through to the 90s, it had the Roy Rogers. Although at its peak this chain stretched across the country, it has its oldest roots right in the DC area. It was started in the late 60s by the Marriott Corp to compete with Bob’s Big Boy. The first location opened in Bailey’s Crossroads, with may more scattered around the DC suburbs to follow.
Live music will come to the Georgetown library on October 28th. The event, called Library Jam Fest, will feature DJ Wonder and three DC bands: Kinda Evil, Red Medicine and Lucky So & Sos. It will run from 2 pm to 5 pm and take place in the rear of the library.
In case you’re curious, here’s a clip of some of the bands to play!
Look at the new Michelin Restaurant Guide for DC. Look how it shines for Georgetown. And everything that one restaurant does. And it was called Yellow.
For those of you not hearing the last paragraph in the voice of Chris Martin, let me try again: the vaunted Michelin guide group has taken a break from making tires and updated it list of DC restaurants that make its grade. And ten spots have been added to the elite list, including Georgetown’s Yellow.
The press release describes Yellow as:
Chef/owner Michael Rafidi and team are behind this daytime casual concept in Georgetown where Levantine cooking takes center stage thanks to a wood-burning oven. It’s always humming here, where long lines form for pastries, breakfast sandwiches or shashuka in the morning and pita sandwiches, spreads and sides (creamy labne with charred corn, urfa chili crisp and smoked feta, anyone?). Fluffy pitas filled with chicken shawarma, Palestinian pickles and green tatbili labne, or tender lamb with smoked peppers, feta and toum are popular. Just try not finishing the batata tots, or golden-brown potatoes with shawarma spices and urfa sauce. To finish, a brown butter and cinnamon cookie, Turkish coffee brownie or soft serve are compelling choices.
(That sounds like it was actually written by a human being. Which would be an odd observation to make but for the fact that the rest of the Michelin press release sounds suspiciously AI-generated.)
It’s quite something that Yellow has made this list apparently even before they added their new not-pizza dinner options. Honestly I can’t remember a new restaurant making quite as big a splash in the neighborhood recently as Yellow has.
The release does not say whether any of these new restaurants have received stars or are just being added to Michelin’s Bib Gourmand honorable mention list. I would be surprised if Yellow were actually awarded a full star, but you never know.
With this inclusion, Yellow joins Das, Fiola Mare, Reverie (which is still closed after a fire last year), 1789 and its neighbor Lutece to represent Georgetown in the guide.
This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m exploring a fantastic shot that was published by the even more fantastic Old Time DC Facebook group. It shows the 1500 block of Wisconsin Ave. in the 1950s. And there’s so much here!
The first is obviously the streetcar. This was the 30 streetcar line, like the 30 series bus that replaced it in the 1960s, it went from Friendship Heights all the way to Barney Circle in southeast. But what’s interesting about this particular spot is that this is where the streetcars shifted from getting power from the overhead wire to the conduit in the street.
In this detail, you can see the DC Transit worker who would switch the power source. In this particular case, the streetcar was switching to the in-ground power as it went downtown.
Another item you can see when you zoom in are the two gas stations:
At the location of the current Shell, you can see a Texaco. Just across the street you can make out the edge of the Esso sign. The Esso stood where the former Capital One Bank is. (There was yet another gas station where the Exxon is now. This intersection has pretty much always had a lot of gas stations!)
What I find intriguing about this detail is the red brick building behind the Texaco. The property at the northwest corner of Q and Wisconsin held a used car dealership from the 1930s through to the 1980s. But I always understood that it was an open lot throughout the time (like it appeared below in the 1960s:)
But from the main photo above, it sure doesn’t look like an open lot. An aerial photo of the intersection from 1950 is inconclusive:
There appears to be five cars or so parked on that lot, which would suggest an empty lot. But maybe the cars were parked on the roof? It’s really hard to reconcile all the photos, honestly.
That mystery aside, there are some great store fronts along Wisconsin in the photo:
But I think the sign that intrigues me the most peeks over the streetcar from what is now the George Towne Club:
There are two intriguing signs off the corner by Volta and Wisconsin. I’m not sure what the circular sign says, beyond the letter 2. But I believe the CLE sign fully spelled out “CLEANERS”. The location hosted a dry cleaners in the 1950s owned by Peter Maroulis:
During a particularly brutal heat wave in late June 1952, the Washington Star visited workers who had particular hot workplaces and attached a thermometer to them to see what they suffered through. Mr. Maroulis’ tally came to 108 degrees, which wasn’t nearly as bad as the blacksmith who worked on 24th St. His thermometer got up to 131!
Buried in the submissions to the Old Georgetown Board this month is an application to convert the former Old Glory building to a New Balance shoe store.
The application calls for a somewhat dramatic alteration to the street level facade, as you can see above. I didn’t happen to catch the Old Georgetown Board discussion on this application last Thursday, but I would be surprised if it were approved as is.
But in either event, the New Balance is going to come. This is a bit of a shame. Not for any fashionable reasons, but because it means yet another restaurant building on M St. is being converted to fashion retail. While the decline has been less steep in recent years, the aggregate loss of dining options on M St. over the past 10-15 years has been significant. True, Old Glory itself closed way back in 2018. But the relatively short-lived Americas Eats Tavern maintained a lot of the same casual dining spirit (although not quite at the same prices). The two restaurants combined for nearly 30 years of food being served at this address. Now it will be only dad shoes served instead.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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