Glen’s Garden Market is Changing Hands, Becoming Dawson’s Market
Shopping at Glen’s Garden Market has never felt like an errand. While you might not be able to buy everything you need to make a detailed recipe ripped from the pages of Bon Appétit, perusing the shelves for the latest local products and chatting with sales associates about where the sweet potatoes comes from leaves […]
D.C. Restaurants Had a Staffing Problem Before the Pandemic. Now It’s a Crisis.
dLeña’s multi-day job fair held at the beginning of April was a bust. Assistant general manager Mike McDonald needed 10 more full-time employees for restaurateur Richard Sandoval’s latest Latin American restaurant, which will open downtown at 476 K St. NW. He says fewer than a dozen people came through the door. Posting on job sites […]
Table for None
Over the past year, restaurant owners have lamented being at the mercy of the weather. Surprise squalls and cold snaps thwarted customers’ outdoor dining plans and dollars, metaphorically speaking, slipped down storm drains. Other tortured proprietors had to expand or shrink their staff like an accordion as the city loosened and tightened indoor dining capacity. […]
Food Fighters: How Four Business Owners Persevered Through the Pandemic
“It was supposed to be 14 days to flatten the curve,” Stable co-owner Silvan Kraemer says, reflecting on March 2020. “We were hopeful that after two weeks, we could go back to normal.” Two weeks became two months, then two months became 12. It’s been nearly a year since Mayor Muriel Bowser closed restaurants to […]
Can the Commercial Real Estate Market Hint at the Future of D.C. Dining?
Seasoned commercial real estate broker John A. Asadoorian says the restaurateurs with futures in D.C. recognize we’re not going back to the before times once the coronavirus pandemic lifts. “The longer we went through the period of uncertainty, the more separated we became from the momentum of the market before COVID,” says the Southeast D.C. […]
Life on the Line: D.C. Cooks Confront COVID-19 Risks, Lack of Job Security
In his 27-year cooking career, Antonio Burrell has worked everywhere fromretirement homes and fast-food chains to D.C. restaurants like Bistro Bis, Masa 14, Republic Cantina, and The Occidental. He’s a restless soul who frequently changes jobs and has held every position from dishwasher to line cook to executive chef. “I’ve never wanted to do anything […]
Why Are So Many D.C. Chefs Riffing on Fast Food Classics Right Now?
Ask any chef for their earliest fast food memory and prepare to smile. Chef Jon Taub reminisces about trips to Roy Rogers with his dad when he was growing up in Philadelphia. “You know the Fixin’s Bar?” the chef and co-owner of Bub & Pop’s asks. “You got your burger and then you could put […]
Take-Home For The Holidays
Cassia Denton and Devin Maier found themselves home for the holidays. They heeded repeated warnings that traveling and mingling with older relatives is too dangerous because of COVID-19. “We have always spent Christmas in Hawaii with Devin’s dad,” Denton says. “He always makes a big meal there. We were not expecting to be here instead.” […]
The Year 2020 in Food
The year that devastated the hospitality industry is coming to an end, but 2020 will have lasting effects. Many restaurants and bars will never reopen, with fond memories and scorched livelihoods left behind. Now-empty storefronts will soon be ready for the next generation of restaurant operators. What adjustments will these brave new souls make based […]
D.C. Restaurant Workers Fear Manning Those Instagramable Igloos
Jesty G., a server and bartender with 10 years of experience, was let go from a Northern Virginia restaurant last week that has “winter globes” where visitors can sit. He says his former employer never asked how servers felt about entering the globes to serve customers. “We were left with no choice,” he says. “A […]
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.