Just got this:
Starting this week Vegetate will be closed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the Spring/Summer. We will be open Thursday from 6pm to 10pm, Friday and Saturday 6pm to 11pm and Sunday brunch from 11am to 3pm and Sunday dinner from 6pm to 10pm.
To make a reservation please email
info@vegetatedc.c….
I don’t know anything about the restaurant biz but I do see that they are maximizing on the prime going out to eat nights.
Were they ever able to get their liqour license?
I don’t think so.
Remember when the ANC and neighborhood groups were getting on Trio’s case about late night sales of alcoholic beverages and did some restriction. The owner responded by closing for breakfast. People erupted.
He said “I don’t make money then. I do it almost as a service. But if you restrict my ability to make money at other times of the day, I have to take care of my business…” (rough paraphrase) The brinksmanship worked, and they opened back up for that daypart.
The point is that the restaurant business isn’t easy. The most successful restaurants net about 20% before taxes. Fine dining places make less than 10%. And the most successful places are able to sell alcohol, which has an 80% gross profit margin, versus food, which has a 40-60% gross profit margin. But remember, out of that gross profit comes rent, utilities, labor…
Eventually, it will be easier for Vegetate to move to a place where they can get the liquor license, rather than to stay where they are. And I think that fits in with churchly preferences for squalor, in order to be able to buy property cheaply and stay “the big man” in a squalid, small pond.
My take on some of these issues has been discussed in Squalor is the disease, I’m the cure (part one), Losing My Religion: Shiloh Baptist Church and Neighborhood Destabilization, and 1300 block 9th Street NW, west side.
I used to work in the restaurant biz, & there is only one reason you cut back on your schedule: not making money. First Vegetate cut Saturday brunch, now those 3 nights. Also, notice that for a place whose business model is partly based on DJ Dredd’s lounge, it isn’t open late. Yes, I know ALL of this is thanks to Shiloh’s opposition to their liquor license, & I agree with the previous poster that rather than go out of business, they will likely move somewhere w/o church interference. Hopefully, that somewhere will still be in Shaw. And hopefully we’ll get something other than a carry-out, barber shop/nail salon or check cashing place.
I heard that at last week’s ANC2F meeting there was move afoot to get a special exception from the distance requirement (isn’t it 400 feet from a school?) to allow Vegetate to get their liquor license. I believe Jack Evans is leading that effort.
Chris