Two weeks ago, the kiosk near 18th Street and Columbia Road NW became a chalkboard where locals could leave messages for outgoing president Obama. Now, the sign may have to be taken down for a deep cleaning.
Someone vandalized the sign with red nail polish earlier this week, according to the Adams Morgan BID. The organization tweeted about the vandalization Wednesday.
“Suppose it was bound to happen eventually,” the BID tweeted. “Some genius decided to leave a note in red nail polish.”
Though the group is brushing up on its “nail polish removal tactics,” a representative said the sign may have to be removed soon for cleaning.
Giving a toy to a child in need can get visitors to an Adams Morgan bar a free beer tonight.
The Blaguard at 2003 18th St. NW is scheduled to host a “DC Holiday Toyapalooza” from 6 to 10 p.m., according to a Facebook event post. The toy drive benefits Communities In Schools of the Nation’s Capital, a nonprofit organization that works to stop local kids from dropping out of school.
“Bring a toy and get a free local beer,” the Facebook post says. “It’s that easy!”
Atlas Brew Works, DC Brau, 3 Stars and Port City will have 16 brews available to drink.
The beer list is slated to include:
Atlas
-Town & Country
-La Saison De Brett
-Dance of Days
-Silent Neighbor3 Stars
-Rasp Dissonance
-Starsky and Dutch
-Nectar of the Bogs
-TBDDC Brau
-Alpha Domina Mellis
-Stone of Arbroath
-Brau Pils
-PublicPort City
-Tidings
-Maniacal
-Optimal Wit aged in bourbon barrels
-Porter
“Celebrate the holidays with your favorite DC Breweries and help ensure every child has a great holiday season,” the Facebook post says.
Photo via Facebook/The Blaguard
A sports bar in Adams Morgan wants to see how well you build an edible domicile.
Ventnor Sports Cafe (2411 18th St. NW) is scheduled to host its third annual “Night of Christmas Beers and Gingerbread Houses” event next Friday, Dec. 16, at 7 p.m.
Patrons who sign up for the competition will have everything they need to build a gingerbread house, including candies, sprinkles, cookies and frosting, the bar said. The person or group who builds the best house wins a prize.
“Last year, some of the best designs were a replica of The Lincoln Memorial and a Game of Thrones themed display,” said bar owner Scott Auslander. “This is going to be our third year doing this and every year it gets more and more fun.”
Ventnor’s bartenders are also slated to serve 15 holiday-themed beers to fuel yuletide cheer during the competition.
The event usually sells out quickly, so those interested in competing should sign up right away, the bar said.
Photo via Twitter / Ventnor Sports Cafe
Cleopatra is set to become the butt of jokes from Bob Marley, Jeffrey Dahmer and other historical figures in Adams Morgan tonight.
Laugh Owens Laugh is scheduled to hold a free comedic roast of the Egyptian pharaoh at Rendezvous Lounge (2226 18th St. NW) from 8 to 10 p.m. The D.C. comedy group hosted a roast of Moses this fall.
In addition to Marley and Dahmer, Cleopatra’s roasters played by comedians are slated to include:
- Yasser Arafat
- Genghis Khan
- Janis Joplin
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Saint Patrick
A snake, which allegedly killed her, is scheduled to host the festivities.
Roast organizer Ahmed Vallejos said the show’s comics picked which historical figures they wanted to play, regardless of any connection to Cleopatra.
“It’s a weird mix of people,” he said.
Photo via Facebook/Laugh Owens Laugh
An Adams Morgan bar is once again set to celebrate the holiday season with more than a dozen Christmas beers and cookies for “well-behaved boys and girls,” according to the watering hole’s owner.
The Black Squirrel at 2427 18th St. NW is scheduled to hold its seventh annual Twelve (Or More) Beers of Christmas beginning at 5 p.m. Friday, owner Amy Bowman said. The festivities are slated to continue into Saturday night.
“On the ninth day of December, your true love sent to you: five Christmas Ales, four winter warmers, nine ladies dancing, and one Black Squirrel,” she said in an email. “It is that time of year again — time to shout to the skies and have a glass, or three, of holiday cheer at The Black Squirrel.”
The beers are set to include:
• Bourbon-Barrel-Aged Great Lakes Christmas Ale (Winter Warmer, Cleveland, OH, 9%);
• Great Lakes Christmas Ale (Winter Warmer, Cleveland, OH, 7.5%);
• Bell’s Christmas Ale (Scottish Ale, Kalamazoo, MI, 5.4%);
• Blue Mountain Barrel House Blitzen (Strong Dark Ale, Afton, VA, 7%);
• Dark Horse 4 Elf (Winter Warmer, 8.75%, MI);
• The Breuery 9 ladies Dancing {Imperial Milk Stout, Placentia, CA, 11.3%);
• Peak Organic Evergreen IPA (IPA with Juniper & Spruce, Portland, ME, 7%);
• Southern Tier 2XMAS (Swedish-Style Glögg, Lakewood, NY, 8%);
• Troegs The Mad Elf (Belgian-Style Strong Dark Ale, Hershey, PA, 11%);
• Natty Greene Red Nose Winter Ale (Winter Warmer, Greensboro, NC, 6.8%);
• Rogue Santa’s Private Reserve (Amber, Newport, OR, 6%);
• Port City Tidings (Belgian Strong Pale Ale, Alexandria, VA, 7.8%);
• Smuttynose Smistletoe (Bière de Garde, Hampton, NH, 8.5%);
• Union Miracle (Weizenbock, Baltimore, MD, 7.7%);
• Sly Fox Christmas (Winter Warmer, PA 5.6%);
• Unibroue La Resolution (Strong Dark Ale, Chambly, Canada, 10%).
In addition to the brews and cookies, The Black Squirrel also is set to have a “XXXmas Burger” with turkey, bacon and cranberry aioli and a “Holy Cheesemas Burger” with beer cheese sauce.
Photo via Twitter/The Black Squirrel
A woman bit a thief who stole her iPhone in Park View over the weekend, according to authorities.
The robbery happened on the 700 block of Kenyon Street NW about 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
The woman was walking about a block north of the Bruce Monroe Community Park when a man came up to her, police said.
“Do you know where ‘easterns’ is?” the man asked, according to authorities. It wasn’t exactly clear what he wanted, however.
Update at 6 p.m. — The store reopened after another health inspection this afternoon, employees said. Inspectors found mice droppings there earlier today, according to NBC Washington.
Read our original story below:
A national grocery chain in Adams Morgan is closed for now after a food safety and hygiene inspector reported finding evidence of pests there yesterday, according to the D.C. Department of Health.
The Safeway at 1747 Columbia Road NW currently can’t serve customers for “failing to minimize the presence of insects, rodents and other pests on the premises,” the DOH said in a notice yesterday.
Security guards turned people away at the store’s front doors last night, according to one person who tried to shop there.
Workers were seen cleaning inside the Safeway when a Borderstan reporter visited earlier this morning. One employee said they hope to reopen the supermarket later today but declined to comment further.
This isn’t the first Adams Morgan business closed by health inspectors in recent months. The health department shuttered neighborhood deli So’s Your Mom (1831 Columbia Road NW) in October and Pop’s SeaBar (1817 Columbia Rd. NW) in September. Both restaurants reopened soon after the closures.
The DOH didn’t immediately provide any further details about the closure. The agency typically releases full reports on closures within a week or two of its inspections.
Photos and additional reporting by Andrew Ramonas
A new Cuban restaurant is in the works for Adams Morgan.
The forthcoming eatery, called “Barada,” is planned to open at 2309 18th St. NW, according to a liquor license application recently filed with D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration.
The business will be a “full service restaurant that will offer Cuban cuisine,” managing member Eduardo Barada wrote in the application. Barada will also have seats for 124 people inside and 35 people in a summer garden area.
The eatery will occupy the space that formerly held Czars 11, the tapas bar that closed in August.
A representative for Barada was not immediately available to comment on the opening. We’ll update this story if we hear back from them.
A longtime Adams Morgan record store that moved to Alexandria earlier this year is slated to return to the neighborhood as a pop-up shop.
Crooked Beat Records, which closed its record store at 2116 18th St. NW in May, will sell vinyl at Songbyrd Music House and Record Cafe (2477 18th St. NW) this Saturday, Nov. 26, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“We will have around 800 to 1000 records for sale at our pop up store this Saturday,” Crooked Beat said in a Facebook post. “Please come out!”
The pop-up store will be held in conjunction with Small Business Saturday, an annual event that encourages people across the U.S. to shop at neighborhood businesses instead of national chains.
JUST ANNOUNCED: @CrookedBeatDC pop up shop at Songbyrd on #SmallBizSat 11/26! @ItsAdamsMorgan @AdMoBID @AdamsMorganDay @VinylDistrict https://t.co/s2DBh7Rfle
— Songbyrd Music House (@SongbyrdDC) November 22, 2016
Photo via Facebook/Crooked Beat Records
(Updated at 2:17 p.m.) A business in Adams Morgan must pay thousands of dollars in fines and surrender its alcohol license for 30 days on charges it failed to maintain some of the records required under its alcohol license, according to D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
Brass Monkey/Spaghetti Garden/Peyote Cafe/Roxanne, a group of joint businesses at 2317-2319 18th St. NW, must pay $30,000 within 90 days and serve a 30-day suspension of its license starting this Sunday, Nov. 27, according to a D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board disposition published last week.
According to an ABRA case report, investigators found the bar failed to keep the records needed to prove it met its annual food sales requirement under its “class CR,” or restaurant, alcohol license. Under D.C. code, food sales must account for either $2,000 per seat or at least 45 percent of all sales during a gross annual or quarterly period. (more…)
An upcoming comedy show in Adams Morgan is set to help fund the local Black Lives Matter chapter.
The benefit, organized by the local comedy producers with Laugh Owens Laugh, is scheduled to kick off at the Songbyrd Music House and Record Cafe (2477-2475 18th St. NW) at 8 p.m. Tuesday night.
Local comedians such as Natalie McGill, Paris Sashay and Haywood Turnipseed, Jr. will perform during the event, according to Ahmed Vallejos, one of the show’s organizers. The show will also have musicians Antonia and Sean Barna and storytellers Jessica Murphy Garrett, Dee Ahmed and Nick Baskerville.
The goal of the fundraiser is to “raise a lot of money for a great cause and let people have a space where they have fun without any of the worry of the outside world,” Vallejos told us.
“Philando Castile was murdered and I remember I had a conversation… about wanting to give back to the incredible Black Lives Matter movement and weren’t sure how,” Vallejos said. “We brainstormed and came up with this fundraiser. We just couldn’t sit back and do nothing anymore.”
Attendees can also drop cash into a donation bucket during the event. All proceeds will go toward the activist group.
Photo via Facebook / Songbyrd Music House
A restaurant promising “epic” Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwiches is set to come to Adams Morgan in the coming weeks, an owner of the eatery told Borderstan today.
Epic Philly Steaks is slated to land at 1792 Columbia Road NW by the end of this month, co-owner Daniel Tarekegne said. The space was the former home of Mexican restaurant Mixtec, which closed in 2014 after 40 years in business.
In addition to “quality” cheesesteaks, the restaurant will have chicken wings, french fries and other food to eat there or carry out, Tarekegne said.
“We plan to make our customers happy,” he said.
Epic Philly Steaks, which will have seating for about 40 people, likely will open for lunch and dinner every day, with late-night hours on Fridays and Saturdays, Tarekegne said.
A Mexican and Salvadoran restaurant in Adams Morgan is scheduled host a celebration centered around pupusas this weekend.
El Tamarindo (1785 Florida Ave. NW) will serve buy-one-get-one-free pupusas all day this Sunday, Nov. 13, according to a Facebook event page. The Salvadoran food is the eatery’s “signature dish.”
The restaurant’s pupusas come stuffed with combinations like cheese, pork, beans and chicken, according to the restaurant’s menu.
The party will also include $5 RumChata shots and a contest where patrons can use the hashtag #PupusaMoments to have a chance to get some prizes.
Photo via Facebook / El Tamarindo
A bar that a former Jack Rose Dining Saloon beverage director is bringing to Adams Morgan is slated to try out some of its cocktails in Dupont Circle later this month.
Trevor Frye’s Marble Alley is scheduled to serve drinks with sherry, whiskey, Chartreuse and other liquor at Hank’s Oyster Bar (1624 Q St. NW) Sunday, Nov. 20, from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., the forthcoming bar announced on Facebook over the weekend.
The booze is set to include:
The event at Hank’s will be Marble Alley’s second research and development night. Marble Alley previously tested some cocktails at the restaurant in September.
Marble Alley is slated to open with a deli in the former Bardia’s New Orleans Cafe at 2412 18th St. NW in February, according to the Washington City Paper.
Images via Facebook/Marble Alley
(Updated at 5 p.m.) Community leaders in Adams Morgan have shot down a development team’s revised proposal to bring a nine-story residential building to a historic property just west of Meridian Hill Park.
Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1C last night voted 6-1, with one abstention, to urge the District’s Historic Preservation Review Board to oppose a plan to redevelop the Meridian International Center grounds on 16th Street NW between Belmont Street and Crescent Place NW. The site includes the Meridian and White-Meyer houses, which were built between 1912 and 1919.
Designed by Jefferson Memorial architect John Russell Pope, the mansions won’t disappear under the proposal by Streetscape Partners and Westbrook Partners. Rather, a 110-unit residential complex would take over a parking area and other open land on the property.
The development team presented the plan at an ANC 1C meeting yesterday after more than a year working on alterations to a previous proposal that failed to win the commission’s approval and drew concerns from HPRB and locals over its size, among other issues.
