The cars return to Sam's Park & Shop

A couple of new places opened up in Sam's Park & Shop recently: the Potomac River Running Store a couple of weeks ago and, next door, Yogiberry on Friday, November 21, 2008. They replaced Whatsa Bagel and Fosters Coffee respectively.

When I walked into Potomac River both the guy and girl behind the counter glanced at my face and then I saw both of them look down at my ratty old sneakers. Potomac River sells all kinds of sports apparel but specialize in shoes. There’s another shoe store just down the block called Foot Solutions so I guess we might have a little competition on our hands (or feet) in the Cleveland Park region.

I tried Yogiberry on Sunday -- two days after they opened -- and it's a cool looking place. Each wall has a different decor: vertical multi-colored stripes on one wall, a wall of things jutting out in a bas-relief that look like smoothed over stones for Braille readers, squares of mirrored tile on another wall and high and wide windows on the side facing the street. The floor wasn't overlooked by the designer either, it's all pebbles. Not loose pebbles, they're stuck in place, and they're all small -- very interesting effect.

The yogurt was good as well, I had the green tea yogurt with three toppings: blueberry, mango, and mochi. I forget what the guy said mochi was but it and the mango were chewy and flavorful and, combined with the blueberries, delicious. An 8 ounce tub was $6.75, with tax it came to $7:16.

We seem to be in the yogurt era at the moment with three shops opening in the Connecticut Avenue vicinity in the past few months. Despite the competition, I hope both Yogiberry and Potomac River Running are successful. After several months of looking at three holes in Sam's Park & Shop strip mall where businesses used to be, even if you hate yogurt and don't run, empty stores are good for no one.

And it only took two years!

Two years later and Van Ness East's plaza has been unveiled. Well, mostly. The lobby area is now being renovated (good timing guys!) and so the main entrance to the building is still locked -- only one door is open into the building from the plaza. But hey, after two years of negotiating underground walkways and underground traffic and the hundreds if not thousands of times trying to get locked doors to open just to get out of the building, this is exciting stuff. No vehicles on the plaza for the moment either, they will have to keep going around to the back of the building until the lobby is finished.

The plaza is on top of a two level garage and I understand that part of the reason for the re-do was to fix structural problems. There used to be a large shallow pool area in the middle of the plaza and I guess that pool water was what would hit me in the head when I was walking through the underground garage. I also heard that another objective was to "round off" the severe, squared-off edges of the roadway. I really didn't have any problems with hard-edged corners so I sure hope the structural difficulties were fixed during the last twenty four months.

New Chinese Embassy Opens

The new Chinese Embassy on Van Ness Street and the corner of International Drive across from the Israeli Embassy and across Van Ness Street from UDC has finally opened after more than three years of construction. This is even longer than it's taking to rebuild the plaza in front of my building -- no wait, the plaza ain't finished yet.

The embassy is huge, and not too interesting -- at least on the outside. I haven't heard anything about the Chinese allowing the masses inside to check it out. I remember the Mormon Temple was opened to the public for a weekend before going into lockdown, maybe the Chinese will do something similar.

I wonder if this means the old embassy in Kalorama is now up for grabs? And I guess the Tibet situation protesters and Falun Gong practitioners will have to move up the road three miles.

You cannot be Sirius!

What once was the Sirius coffee shop next to UDC in Van Ness is now the Starbucks coffee shop. I guess Starbucks is one of the few outfits that has no trouble paying the out-of-this-world rents around here. I know Sirius couldn't handle it, just like, according to the Washington Post, the Dupont 5 movie house couldn't handle it.

So now there's at least one Starbucks in most of the Connecticut Avenue neighborhoods: Chevy Chase, Van Ness, Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Dupont Circle, and Farragut North all have at least one. Only Forest Hills is lacking, although there's a coffee shop in the basement of Politics & Prose. It isn't a Starbucks -- at least, not yet.

That cloud looks like an Irish bar

James Hoban's, an Irish restaurant and bar opened at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 17. I just happened to be wandering by about 4:15 and, in the interests of giving good blog entries of course, I decided to go in and sample the wares. The bartender asked me, "Is this your first time here?" Funny guy.

Hoban's is where Cloud used to be at 1 Dupont Circle and it's what an Irish born patron sitting next to me at the bar called, "an upscale Irish bar." And then he said, and I swear he said it, not me, "Now there's an oxymoron for you!"

The entire staff of about 30 people showed up that afternoon to get familiar with the place so they were tripping over themselves and certainly outnumbered the dozen or so patrons in the place when I was there. I had the Shepherd's Pie which was OK though a little dry and had obviously just been nuked because I singed my fingers on the plate. When one of the many black-shirted staff members asked me for about the fifth time, "Is everything OK," I told him about the dryness and he said, "Oooh, good feedback," and brought me a little bowl of gravy. Both the attitude and the gravy helped. The Guinness was good but, at six bucks a pint, too expensive.

The place looks like a lot of money went into the refurbishment and the owner, Patrick somebody, who came over to say hello, agreed. Though he lives in Ireland, Patrick owns restaurants in Philadelphia and Virginia and now D.C. So it's a brand spanking new restaurant with lots of light -- not filled with dark wood and twenty-watt bulbs like many so-called Irish bars -- friendly staff and a decent beer selection. I'm not sure which demographic they're after: it's not a sports bar, I only saw one television and that was tuned to golf during a Sunday afternoon filled with NFL games, it's not a bar with dart boards or pool tables, it's just a big, almost-in-the-round bar with lots of dining space and carpets on the floor!

Now whoever heard of carpets in an Irish bar?

Incidentally, speaking of Cloud, I was told the last entry in their log book was, "the police are on the way!"

Another Restaurant for Cleveland Park

A new tapas restaurant called Sabores (Spanish for flavors) opened last week in Cleveland Park. It's slap bang next to Dino's, and how happy can Dino be about that? In fact, the outdoor Dino crowd was close enough to the (partially) outdoor Sabores customers to hold an inter-restaurant conversation. Unless or until Sabores gets a bigger sign they could well be thought of by passers-by as an extension of Dino.

Sabores is a pretty cool place: white marble tables with black chairs, subdued fluorescent lights that are always changing colors, and private enough to ignore your neighbors if you wish. There are flowers around the adjacent parking meters and that’s not a common sight. They have hot small plates, cold small plates, and large plates. They've also got a fairly long bar if your a bar stool person.

The space occupied by Sabores is an extension to the building (3435 Connecticut Avenue) which sits out on the sidewalk of Ordway Street. The space was, most recently, the Park Bench Pub and to go from the Bench to Sabores is quite a jump. If you were into college football and you didn't care about uneven, sloping floors then the Park Bench Pub had its charm. But, sadly, the Bench passed into history and was removed from the sidewalk. Now, the much classier Sabores is here, and yes, the floor has been leveled and evened out. Just as the Park Bench was both upstairs and down, so the Uptown Tavern folks (downstairs) are also the owners of Sabores (upstairs).

One side of the restaurant (the long side) was open to the street -- a great thing on a warm evening. The staff is friendly and welcoming, the food was tasty and varied, and the Argentinean wine I had was red, dry, and interesting. I'll go back for sure because I like the variety possible with small plates and, like I said, it’s a cool place, but I still miss the Park Bench -- and Bricks of course. Don't you?

What about us?

It seems that every neighborhood of a block or more has a group these days where the residents can share information, experiences, and expertise. Every neighborhood, that is, but the Van Ness area. I know, I know, there is no "Van Ness" area, I believe its official name is North Cleveland Park though I can't imagine why. Why
isn't Cleveland Park known as South Van Ness? But wait, maybe that's another blog entry.


The Van Ness area I'm speaking about is, not surprisingly, around the Van Ness Metro station. There's a lot of houses and mounds of apartments in this area and, therefore, there's a lot of institutional knowledge residing in the neighborhood that could be shared.

So I've created a group for Van Ness area residents and you can find it here. You'll need a Yahoo email address but that's something you can easily get when you're joining the group. So don't hold back, come and share your neighborhood experiences.


Join vannessdc!

The Wearing of the Red

Nanny O'Brien's was bought by Bedrock Companies earlier this year and a few changes have occured since then: the smell has pretty much gone, the stage is no longer level with the center of the bar, it's been moved down to the corner, and the exterior has been spruced up: the sign is now level and the place is a shiny shade of red. All they need now is more customers, I was in on a Saturday night about 9:30 and there was less than a dozen people drinking. So get in there for some fish and chips and a pint of Guinness, they could use your help.

Dive into the Indian Ocean

Don't look now but the Indian Ocean on Connecticut Avenue in the Van Ness area has opened for business! Based on the way things have gone since Reidel's left, it's anyone's guess how long it will stay this way so get in there fast if you're a fan of Indian food. I first wrote about this place back in January when it was -- briefly -- the Coat of Arms. But as of Sunday, August 5, 2007, there it is: all the "North Indian Cuisine" you can shake a stick at. I hope to get in there later this week to give it a try so I'll add my thoughts to this entry by next weekend.

OK, here's the addendum. I'm not a food reviewer by any means, but folks, this was good. I'm told that Heritage India in Dupont Circle is one of the best Indian restaurants around and Indique in Cleveland Park is right up there as well while "Dhaba" as in Delhi Dhaba means "diner" or something like that, but the Indian Ocean was delightful. The menu is restricted for the first week or two -- about five entrees -- but is going to get a lot bigger as time goes by. Presently, the menu is a good introduction to north Indian cuisine. The owner, Raj, emphasized they use a healthy style of cooking; the portions were not huge, yet filling. On an important note -- for me -- they have wine and beer. Although the menu only lists wine bottle prices, you can buy by the glass -- for about seven bucks each.

You'll have to wait for a sensible review until Sietsma or some other foodie goes there but if I had to summarize -- and I do -- I would say this is a fairly upscale place -- for Van Ness anyway -- and if you like Indian food you're probably going to like this place -- get over there and give it a try. It was worth the wait.

No more Candey for you young lady!

When a business goes away there's usually a certain amount of speculation among the local populace about what will be the replacement. One type of business often wished for is a hardware store. Well, we've only had two hardware stores in recent memory on or near Connecticut Avenue -- one left a few weeks ago and the other has just announced they are also calling it quits. True-Value Hardware was on P Street at Dupont Circle and they moved out a few weeks ago. Now Candey Hardware on 18th Street also at Dupont Circle is going away. What happened? Did we stop needing hardware? Or did Home Depot take all the customers?

The usual course of events, at least in this neck of the woods, is that the lease expires, the rent is jacked up to something other worldly, and the business either closes completely or moves. That's not the case with Candey, the family owns the building -- and now they plan to sell it. According to Candey owner Gwen Lofton in an interview with the Washington Post, the store has been losing "a hundred customers a day in the past few years." I don't know how you figure that out, but, regardless, it doesn't sound good.

Maybe some of these big drug stores could incorporate some of the more commonly needed hardware items into their inventory. Maybe CVS could lose some toothbrushes and sell some nails instead. How about dumping some of the thousand different tissue brands and getting some paint in their place? Maybe get rid of a few hundred types of deodorant and put in a few power tools.

But certainly, unless you're Home Depot, it's enough to give potential hardware store owners pause about taking the risk of starting up a business in the city.

One Video Store = One Sandwich Shop + One Bank

What used to be the Video Warehouse in Van Ness is going to be the home of two businesses: Potbelly, which is already here, and Wachovia which is "Coming Soon." We know it's coming soon because the writing is on the wall. Why we're getting another Wachovia when there's already one three doors down is anyone's guess. Maybe they're out to eliminate that Sandwich Shop Capital of the World" moniker that the area is deservedly proud of and change it to, "Van Ness: it's a Wachovia World."

Nanny O'Billiards?

January 30 is the last night for Nanny O'Briens bar in Cleveland Park. They're being taken over by Bedrock Companies, owners of Bedrock Bars. Bedrock already own Atomic Billiards and Aroma on the same block as Nanny's so maybe one day the strip will be called Bedrock Row. They also own Buffalo Billiards in Dupont Circle and lots of other places locally and around the country.

A Nanny's bartender said that Nanny's will be closed on Wednesday and back open on Thursday so don't look for wholesale changes. All they have time for I guess is to clean up a little and try to do something about that smell that's taken over since the smoking ban. Well something more than just leaving the front door open anyway. And maybe straighten the Nanny O'Brien's sign above the entrance. The word is that the St. Patrick's Day Parade fundraiser scheduled for Saturday, February 3 will go ahead as planned.

I never much cared for the name Nanny's although it's certainly recognizable -- there's only one Nanny's. Still, when I've said "I'm going to Nanny's" or "I spent the night at Nanny's last night," it always sounded to me like I'd been spending an inordinate amount of time with my grandmother. As long as they don't go through the identity crisis that the Four Provinces/Four P's/Four Green Fields/Ireland's Four Fields did across the road.

Bedrock claims they're going to keep the Irish music -- something I can happily live without -- but I can put up with it as long as they keep the Guinness. I'm going to take a stroll down Bedrock Row this weekend and check it out.

Coat of Arms pulled out of Indian Ocean -- signs of life detected

I hate to keep writing about the same place but this is an odd duck. The Coat of Arms which, after being open for about a month, became the Indian Ocean, is now back to being the Coat of Arms again. Well, that's what the sign says, I couldn't actually find anyone to talk to about it. The awning people must be making a fortune off these folks.

I wonder what February holds.

Coat of Arms sinks into the Indian Ocean

In what may be one of the fastest company turnarounds in Connecticut Avenue history, the Coat of Arms restaurant in Van Ness was bought out before it even opened. The Coat of Arms owner told me that a few days before the place was due to open, someone stopped by, took a look at the decor, and, "made an offer I couldn't refuse." That was in early December. The Coat of Arms opened on December 16 and the new place, Indian Ocean, opens January 5, 2007. So we're going from British food -- and I was there on opening day and had a very tasty shepherds pie --to Indian. The sign in the window says "seafood/Northern Indian cuisine" to be precise.

At least that's the way it was this afternoon, by the time you read this it might be a Taco Bell.

A Bigger Burke

There's more Edmund Burke School these days than there used to be. Located on the corner of Upton Street and Connecticut Avenue in the Van Ness area, the new addition is standing on what used to be a patch of grass. The original portion of the school is on the extreme right of the "after" photo.

Whaddya say we skip work today?

Metro rail was closed this morning (November 16, 2006) between Van Ness and Farragut North causing crowds of people to wait on Connecticut Avenue for shuttle buses.

It seems there was a loss of power between Dupont Circle and Woodley Park causing a train to stop. The approximately 75 passengers had to be led back to Dupont on a catwalk that runs beside the track. If any of those 75 are bloggers, I expect they'll have a catwalk story to tell a little later today.

Metro is now trying to find out why there was a loss of power.


Buses are also bringing people north to Van Ness and dropping them off so they can continue northwards on the train.

Lucky Van Ness to be the site of all this activity at 7 in the morning!

CVS Listens

I don't know if the concept of "the customer is always right" ever went away, but if it did, well, it's back. We're living in an age where the customer gets what he wants or he goes elsewhere.

The Paradox of Choice pointed out the astonishing amount of options consumers have available to them on the shelves and also in the amount of places to buy those items whether in traditional stores or on the Web. Any organization that's unresponsive to today's customer might not stay in business for long.

An example of businesses working to keep customers happy, at least locally, can be found at the CVS in Cleveland Park. The store had large, colorful panels in its windows facing out to the street. You might have seen them: mostly red pieces, about 20x24 with CVS in yellow (or white) letters. Inoffensive, impractical, eye-catching blotches of color.

The Cleveland Park denizens, however, didn't much care for them and let CVS know that the windows might be even more attractive if the panels were replaced with photos of historical Cleveland Park. Well, lo and behold, fast-forward a few weeks and suddenly there's old-time Cleveland Park right there in the windows of CVS.

The photos are accompanied by short captions that are actually drawing passers-by in to examine the pictures and read the captions.

I don't think CVS burned any bridges or lost any customers by agreeing to this request. Well done CVS!

By the way, there's an egregious error on one of the captions. Get down there and see if you can figure it out!

This just in!

We're very excited to imagine that Van Ness just might become the new leader in the race for the coveted title of Sandwich Shop Capital of the World.

The opening of Potbelly in late September brings the total of sandwich emporiums to seven on a strip of Connecticut Avenue about, oh, 150 yards long. Coming south from Albemarle Street we have Quiznos, Schlotzsky's, Subway and Potbelly (across the avenue from each other), Epicurean (actually a cafeteria style restaurant plus a bar but also heavily into sandwiches so work with me here people), and, maybe to stretch it a little, there's also Burger King and KFC/Taco Bell.

If we could just get another dry cleaners to go along with the four existing ones: Zips, Parklane, Diplomat, and Embassy, in that same strip of connave we could potentially get the Dynamite Double of Sandwich Shop and Dry Cleaner Capital of the World!

Where could Van Ness go from there? Well, a decent bar wouldn't go amiss.

Run it up the pole

Pole cameras have made an appearance on Connecticut Avenue. Well, I've actually only seen one (pictured) and this one is close to the Broadmoor in Cleveland Park. The camera is pointing northwards seemingly aimed directly at the middle of the avenue. The police have said that the cameras are not for catching red light runners but are there as a crime deterrent. So, if you happen to get mugged in the middle of Connecticut Avenue just north of the Broadmoor, rest assured the perp will be be captured for posterity -- at least on camera.

Rumblings From Down Under

OK, this isn't strictly about ConnAve, it's about Metro. But hey, the train goes under ConnAve and that's close enough for me.

I've ridden Metro for the last month so obviously I'm now an expert. This is not an anti-Metro rant; you can find plenty of that elsewhere. You want to hear about elevators and escalators that don't work? Late trains? Single tracking? Sorry, wrong blog.

What I have is a list of the things I find particularly annoying about my fellow travelers along with some advice for them. I suppose a “Ten Worst” list would be appropriate but I don’t have ten, I have nine. No anger management necessary here!

In no particular order:

1) Don't sit on the outside of seats in an attempt to keep me off "your" seat unless you want me crawling all over you. You're not really "special" enough to deserve that seat to yourself.

2) If you are the driver that says, "All aboard! Doors are closing." when actually, they're just now opening, and then repeat it at every station, and I mean EVERY station, well, don't be surprised if I run up to the front of the train one of these days and rip out your little microphone.

3) Keep your foot off that vertical pole when you're sitting on the inward facing seat unless you want your lower leg amputated.

4) What about the people who are so enormous that they take up two seats on their own. Do we need bigger seats? Or smaller humans? We already have seats designated as being available for people with disabilities or the elderly, maybe we should have fat seats that stretch most of the way across the train so the 300 pound and up crowd have a place for themselves.

5) Face front, and keep those feet tucked in! When you sit on the outside of the seat and stick your feet -- both of them! -- out there in the aisle, don't be shocked if those naked little tootsies get stomped on.

6) Hey! People that leave newspapers on the train! Why don't you save the paper and tomorrow, give it back to the person that gave it to you?

7) To the crowd of folks who get up two stops before Metro Center and stand next to the door so they can be first in line to burst out the doors and sprint off to another platform. Have you tried getting an earlier train?

8) To Mr. Hard O'Hearing who won't be happy until he's achieved total deafness, and so listens to his music at full blast so we can all hear that annoying, repetitive, tinny, racket all over the train. Thanks a lot Mr. O'Hearing! Here's to your eventual happiness. Come to think of it, why can you only hear the bass from a passing car when the volume is up at the deafening level, but it's only treble that leaks out of an iPod?

9) Please. Let's all liberally apply deodorant and suck on breath mints before boarding a crowded train.