Good morning Georgetown, here’s the depressing latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Carol Joynt just sent out the email many of us have been dreading for years: Nathans is closing for good. Last call will be this Sunday. GM believes he speaks for the neighborhood when he says that this will be a terrible loss for Georgetown.
Filed under Breaking News
GM is going to try adding a new daily feature to the Georgetown Metropolitan: a morning round up. We’ll see how it goes. Here’s the inaugural edition:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Carol Joynt sent out a email blast last night announcing that Nathans has signed a leased to remain at the corner of Wisconsin and M. This comes after years of uncertainty for the restaurant. This is great news for the neighborhood.
If there are any gray clouds to this silver lining, it’s that the lease is not tied to a specific term. Continue reading
Filed under Bars, Restaurants
While GM is on his honeymoon he is publishing his top ten favorite things about Georgetown. Today at number 4 is Nathans Restaurant.
Nathans is not the nicest restaurant in Georgetown. It’s not the oldest restaurant in Georgetown. And it’s not the most popular restaurant in Georgetown. But what it is is the most improbable restaurant in Georgetown.
Why improbable? It’s sitting on one of the most expensive and sought after corners in Georgetown. It’s constantly surrounded by tourists and suburbanite teens out shopping at stores they could probably find in the suburbs.
Yet despite all of that, it still continues as a quiet and peaceful refuge and a local favorite. Saddle up the the bar on a Sunday and you’ll eventually see someone you recognize come through the doors. Better yet, come to a Q & A Cafe and you’ll probably recognize your fellow diners from the neighborhood and the guest from TV (and perhaps also from the neighborhood).
So yes, some may prefer other places like Clyde’s or Martins for the tavern needs, but none of them is quite as improbable as Nathans. If Nathans does eventually close, we’ll finally see how improbable its continued existence was when some bland and generic chain snaps up the space, rips out the bar, tears up the well-worn floorboards, and turns it into just another place to buy shoes or phones or whatever.
Previously:
8: Bistro Lepic
9: Q St.’s Elms
Filed under Favorite Things
From the department of giant wtf comes this: the next guests at Carol Joynt’s Q & A Cafe at Nathans are none other than the band members of Spinal Tap. This is truly a bizarre and, frankly, inspired choice by Joynt. What media figures know more about getting a raw deal than Spinal Tap? Joynt and the band will have much to commiserate over.
The Tap shall arrive May 13th at Noon. Tickets are $35 a head (which includes the brunch). Call Jon Moss at 338-2000 to reserve your space.
In the meantime:
GM hasn’t stated it directly, but it’s worth celebrating, at least a little bit, that today, April 1st, Nathans lives to see another day. As you may remember, today was supposed to be the end of Nathans. The lease was supposed to expire last night. As any reader of Carol Joynt’s blog could tell you, it appears that long negotiations with the landlord have resulted in a stay of execution for the restaurant. While the details are not widely known, Joynt told WUSA recently that “I think you’ll see us here for the foreseeable future, but it’s also predicated on the economy not getting worse.”
Not exactly the most optimistic words, but nonetheless today we all have something to celebrate because Nathans lives on.
Filed under Bars
As discussed a little while back, Nathans is facing an uncertain future. Owner Carol Joynt has been struggling to work out an extension of her lease which ends March 31st. Today she sent out an update, check it out after the jump:
Filed under Events
As one beloved neighborhood establishment has its head possibly added to the chopping block, another already on the chopping block is seeking a last minute reprieve. It has been long expected that Nathans Restaurant at the corner of M and Wisconsin would close this year. In fact, if a reprieve is not obtained the restaurant will close on March 31st. Owner Carol Joynt (bringer of the bad news about Scheele’s) has been very public about her plight to save Nathans. Notwithstanding the doom and gloom, from her recent missives there appears a slim chance that Nathans will survive till April Fools Day and beyond. Read more after the jump:
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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