High-end condos coming to Romeo’s block

From the May 2013 edition of the Glover Park Gazette:

The vacant lot at 2140 Wisconsin Ave. (a few doors up from Café
Romeo’s) will become a “very nice, top-of-the-line” condominium
building within a year, according to local developer Zak
Elyasi. The lot—hidden for years behind a construction fence—was
recently purchased by Elyasi’s parents, Abdul and Ramzia Elyasi of
Greensboro, North Carolina. Son Zak, managing member of Raz Development,
says plans are in the works to construct a residential building
that may include ground-floor commercial space. The development
group hopes to begin foundation work within the next month or two
and complete the building in the spring of 2014.

The family recently completed a project in Columbia Heights that
yielded two spacious luxury condo units, Zak says. Asked whether the
Glover Park building’s façade would be as close to the sidewalk as its
blocky beige neighbor at 2136 Wisconsin Ave., he replied that while
final plans have not yet been drawn, “it’s going to look nicer than that
beige building.”

The lot’s previous owner, Davar Ashgrizzadeh—who also owns
Café Romeo’s—bought the property in 2008 for $995,000 and sold it on
March 22 for $1,250,000, according to city land records.

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Tennis Zone building may be extended

From the May 2013 edition of the Glover Park Gazette:

Last month we reported that the Tennis Zone building (2319
Wisconsin Ave.) was seeking a retail tenant. But that doesn’t mean the
tennis store is leaving, says Remy Esquenet, who bought the property
in January for $1.2 million. (If Esquenet’s name sounds familiar, it
might be because he also owns 2317 Wisconsin Ave., the home of Sprig
& Sprout.) Esquenet hopes to expand the building to accommodate a
second tenant. Tennis Zone “may stay where they are,” Esquenet tells
us. “They may move up to the second floor.”

Esquenet provided architectural sketches of front and side views for a potential expansion.

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Kavanagh’s closes; Arcuri confirmed

Kavanagh’s Pizza Pub (2400 Wisconsin Ave.) closed in late January. “We are truly grateful for all of the support we have received from our customers, many of whom have become good friends,” owners Lee Abbott and Kevin McFillin wrote in a farewell letter. “We wish our successors all the best! Thank you for a great 8 1/2 years!

The ground-floor restaurant was sold to a group of four local friends who plan to reopen in mid-April as Arcuri, a trattoria featuring brick oven pizza, antipasti, and other Italian fare. The décor will be “rustic with an industrial city feel,” co-owner Adam Hiltebeitel tells us. The restaurant’s chef will be co-owner Richard Jones, formerly of 2941 Restaurant in Falls Church and Locanda Verde in TriBeCa.

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Kavanagh’s likely to become “vibrant, elegant trattoria” (Updated)

We’ve been hearing rumors this week that Kavanagh’s (2400 Wisconsin Ave.) is on the verge of being sold. Now a liquor license transfer application reveals to whom. A limited liability corporation named “we are 4 partners” has applied to take over the license for the popular pizzeria. The members of the corporation are Adam Hiltebeitel, Joseph Chapman, Bryce Gerlach, and Richard A. Jones.

The application states that the switch in ownership would mean no substantial change to the area’s property values, parking, or peace and quiet. But the sample menu supplied as part of the application suggests a significant culinary shift away from Kavanagh’s simple, hearty fare. Potential dishes include bone marrow crostini with chestnuts, shallots, and lemon; charred octopus with smoked fingerlings, celery and soppressata (a dry salami); agnolotti (a kind of ravioli) with pumpkin, brown butter, and sage; and prosciutto-wrapped cod with fregola (a pasta similar to couscous), quince, roasted fennel, and salsa verde. The sample menu also lists several pizzas, including clam with bread crumbs, lemon, oregano, and four cheeses.

According to a spokesman for the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, the transfer application is still awaiting review by an agency licensing specialist. If it passes that, it will be presented to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board for consideration.

An email to Kavanagh’s sent yesterday afternoon received no reply, and this evening the pizzeria’s owner could not be reached by phone, nor could the attorney for “we are 4 partners.”

UPDATED: PoPville reports that the new restaurant would be called Arcuri.

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Hardware store and gym to stay put during construction (Updated)

Glover Park Hardware and Washington Sports Club will remain open during a major revamp of their home at 2251 Wisconsin Ave., according to Gordon Nielsen of Summit Commercial Real Estate. Nielsen and business partner Guy d’Amecourt recently brokered the complex’s sale to a joint venture of Altus Realty Partners, Chesapeake Realty Partners, and Ellisdale Construction for $20.1 million.

The buyers plan to install a new glass facade and renovate the retail space, which includes a vacant storefront formerly leased by MyerEmco. In addition, they will construct an 81-unit apartment building with two levels of underground parking on land now covered by a rear parking lot. “The apartments will average 635 square feet with a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units looking to target young professionals,” states a press release provided by Nielsen. “The property overlooks the parkland of the Naval Observatory and Vice President’s residence.” The garage will include 97 parking spaces, Nielsen said, but he did not know how many of these would be reserved for tenants.

The image above, provided by Summit, shows the rear of the planned apartment complex; here’s another Summit image showing a side view:

The website of Brown Craig Turner architectural firm has more images of the planned apartment complex:

And Chesapeake Realty Partners posted its own rendering:

UPDATE: Construction on the facade is to begin this July, with the residential units in the rear completed by July 2014, the Georgetown Patch reports.

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Liquor board transfers JP’s license to Daniel and Mathew

On October 3, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board OK’d a controversial license transfer, approving the application of Jason K. Daniel and Philip M. Mathew to take over the liquor license for JP’s Night Club (2412 Wisconsin Ave.), an ABRA spokesman tells us. Last month, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3B had requested that the ABC Board make no transfer until they held a public hearing to assess the fitness of the two young men to revive the strip club, which has been closed since a January 2008 fire. No such hearing was held, but the board has already committed to scheduling a public protest hearing before after allowing the new owners to begin operating the club. Building permit applications to construct interior walls, bars, and stages are pending.

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ANC wants liquor board hearing on new JP’s owners

At the September 13 meeting of ANC 3B, commissioners unanimously resolved to request a formal Alcoholic Beverage Control Board hearing into the ownership of JP’s Night Club. The strip club, which has been closed since a January 2008 fire at its 2412 Wisconsin Ave. home, is in the process of reopening under new management, but the identity of the reopeners keeps changing.

“ANC3B is seeking a more open process at this point due to a series of actions, representations, and misrepresentations that have occurred in recent months pertaining to the ownership of JP’s,” the resolution states. Referring to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s rapid approval of one new owner—Brian Petruska—last year and a series of  putative new owners who have presented themselves since then, the resolution states that “the actions of ABRA initially and the contual restructuring of owners and partners” in the club’s holding company, Wisconsin Ventures LLC, “do not give us confidence that when JP’s reopens it will be managed well enough to protect the community from the secondary impacts associated with nude dancing establishments.”  ABRA has already promised to hold a protest hearing before the JP’s license is reactivated. The hearing requested by the ANC would occur prior to that.

An August 13 application to transfer the JP’s license to two new owners of Wisconsin Ventures—Jason Daniel and Philip Mathew—is “still pending the submission of additional documentation,” says ABRA spokesman Bill Hager. The ANC’s request for an ownership hearing “will go before the ABC Board for their review and consideration,” Hager added.

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New JP’s owners’ group applies for liquor license transfer

On August 13, two men—Jason K. Daniel and Philip M. Mathew—applied to the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration to take over the liquor license for the dormant JP’s Night Club (2412 Wisconsin Ave.). On their application, the men listed themselves as the president, secretary, and managing member (Daniel) and vice president and treasurer (Mathew) of Wisconsin Ventures, LLC, the corporation that owns JP’s.

Last year, Local Man of Mystery Brian Petruska identified himself to ABRA as the president, secretary, and manager of Wisconsin Ventures. Now that Daniel holds those titles, where does that leave Petruska—let alone Paul Kadlick and Gokhan “Jake” Akkus, who in May represented themselves to ANC 3B as having bought a 90 percent share of JP’s?

We spoke to Kadlick, and he tried to explain the matryoshka doll of holding companies that now surrounds the strip club. Due to unspecified business and tax considerations, Kadlick says, he and Akkus did not end up purchasing the club directly. Instead, a partnership called The Vice Group purchased 90 percent of the shares in Wisconsin Ventures. The remaining 10 percent of the stock in Wisconsin Ventures was retained by Brian Petruska. Wisconsin Ventures owns a company called BJ Enterprises, which owns the JP’s license.

Kadlick is the authorized spokesperson for The Vice Group, but he insists that he does not hold an ownership stake in that group. Daniel and Mathew, who do hold ownership stakes, are both area nightclub promoters and managers who “are longtime associates of mine,” says Kadlick. They will be responsible for the club’s day-to-day operations, he adds. We asked Kadlick how he stood to gain from JP’s without being an owner, and he told us that the business is part of a larger structure of deals he could not discuss.

Last week, several Glover Park civic leaders sent a letter to ABRA chief Fred Moosally expressing concerns about the transfer application. In the letter, ANC commissioners Jackie Blumenthal and Brian Cohen, Glover Park Citizens’ Association president Sheila Meehan, and attorney Milton Grossman called upon ABRA to transfer the JP’s license only to “people who have demonstrated their qualification to run a legal, above-board operation.” The liquor board seems likely to go ahead with the transfer, though. In response to our inquiry, ABRA spokesman Bill Hager reminded us that, no matter who holds the license, JP’s will have to survive a public protest period before it’s allowed to reopen.

Kadlick plans to attend the September 13 ANC meeting, where he will discuss the club’s security and valet parking arrangements. He says the ANC should be reassured by his knowledge of the neighborhood and its needs. “I’m not embarrassed to tell you I’ve been a patron of JP’s for 20 years,” he says. “It’s an upscale neighborhood, and we’re going to cater to that customer.”

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Kitchen 2404 sold; will become Slate Wine Bar & Bistro

An investment group headed by a wine-loving lawyer bought Kitchen 2404 (2404 Wisconsin Ave.) today. The lawyer, Internet privacy and security attorney Elizabeth Banker, plans to turn the Southern-themed eatery into a “casual and comfortable” neighborhood restaurant called Slate Wine Bar & Bistro. The new spot will be “a destination for wine lovers of all levels of knowledge and experience” says Banker, who has put both her legal career and her part-time wine consultancy on hold to devote her full attention to Slate, her first restaurant. Banker is the majority owner of the buyers’ group, called Wine Investment Group LLC. Her partners are current and former work colleagues and members of a wine club she has run for the past four years, she says.

Along with daily wine specials, tasting seminars, and winemaker’s dinners, Slate will feature cheese plates, charcuterie, a rotating seasonal menu, and daily and weekly food specials made with fresh, locally sourced ingredients, Banker says. General manager Mark Krieger, a veteran of Chef Geoff’s (3201 New Mexico Ave.), is “developing the menu with the advice of various chefs,” Banker adds. “The food will be American, drawing on various global influences and flavors, since our wines will be from around the world.”

The ownership group plans to redecorate the restaurant, which is temporarily closed. Details of the new decor have not been finalized, but judging from Banker’s “Wine Bar Inspiration” Pinterest page, the look will likely be a blend of farmhouse-rustic and sleek contemporary.

The Kitchen 2404 business comes with a full-service (CR) liquor license, one of 14 allowed under Glover Park’s license moratorium. Two new CR licenses became available April 17 when the moratorium was extended. One of the new licenses seems certain to go to Sprig & Sprout, a Vietnamese restaurant coming to 2317 Wisconsin Ave. in the fall. The other new license had not been applied for as of yesterday, according to a spokesman for the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration.

Slate is expected to open sometime next month. For updates on its progress, you can visit its website, “like” it on Facebook, or follow its Twitter feed.

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Vietnamese restaurant snags Margarita’s site

From the May 2012 edition of the Glover Park Gazette:

The vacant storefront at 2317 Wisconsin Ave., next door to Tennis Zone, has been leased to District Noodles, a restaurant that will specialize in Vietnamese cuisine, says co-owner Jennifer Hoang, who is launching the business with her fiancé, Marc Farmer. “We will be there every day—this is our first restaurant!” Hoang reports.

The menu will feature the rice-noodle soup called pho and French-bread sandwiches called bánh mì, as well as vermicelli and rice bowl dishes, Hoang says. On April 17, the restaurant applied for a full-service (CR) liquor license—one of two that became available that day under an extension of the Glover Park license moratorium. (As of late Friday, no one had applied for the other new CR license, according to a spokesman for the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration.)

Though no structural changes are planned for the building, the interior needs to be renovated before the restaurant can open, says landlord Remy Esquenet: “It’ll probably be a four- to six-month buildout.”

Photograph by Brown W. Cannon III

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