Tag: business

Corduroy

Restaurant Week is sometimes an excellent chance to check out some places you normally can’t get to for one reason or another. This time it was a added treat in that IT chose a place that will be relocating to Shaw, specifically 9th Street across from the Convention Center, Corduroy.
After eating there I say, YAY! Not just because it is a white table cloth adult male waitstaff* type restaurant. No, the food is great. I really liked the parsnip soup. Not too salty, not too heavy, nice and creamy. The beet salad made me want to grow more beets this year. The rest of the meal was excellent, and filling. Try the hazelnut chocolate bars, they’re like really high-end Kit-Kats.
B. joked about the possible competition Corduroy would bring to ODB and the Mongolian Grill. Different audiences. I go to the Grill for decent cheap take out sushi. Since I have no interest in sitting around drinking beer and watching screens of people doing things with balls, I tend not to go to ODB often. The competition would be Acadiana facing 9th on New York Avenue, also participating in Restaurant Week. Maybe Vegetate, also participating, but it’s further up 9th.
Well, I hope that Restaurant Week 2009 and 2010 will see more choices along 9th.

*I know, I’m horribly sexist. But in my little mind there is something oh so special about a serious looking mature man in a long white apron and dark suit pouring my wine, over some chipper whippersnapper. I’m also getting old, so I’m getting ageist as well.

Veranda

…or the one place within walking distance to take the Aunt whose liquor license her church hasn’t challenged….
Veranda on P has a decently priced brunch. I had seen the regular dinner menu and was concerned but the brunch featured a selection of omelettes, a burger, a veggie wrap, salads, and some sides. It was standard American fare, but good none the less. We both got big honking plates of food. I could hardly finish mine. It cost me, as I had volunteered to pick up the tab, a little over $30 for the two of us.
Then she dragged me to Handel’s Messiah.

Radio One, back to the drawing board

In the Washington Post Business section page D4, “Council Rejects Plan To Give Radio One Land.” The land in question is the empty lot on top of the S Street entrance to the Shaw/Howard metro stop. Well, it’s been taking a forever and a half for this project to get off the ground, in the meanwhile, why not turn it into a dog park until the details and whatnot have been ironed out?

Lunchtime Research: Taxes and commerce pt 1

Actually the research started before I headed to work, following up on a thought someone had brought up about people being forced out of the neighborhood because of rising real estate taxes. I’ve already covered the fact that some oldtimers who have kept their eye on the ball with the homestead exemption pay a pittance in RE taxes, so no need to rehash it.
While I was poking around reaffirming that notion, I noticed something about businesses and their RE tax. We’re all familiar with the loss of the Warehouse Theater due to skyrocketing RE tax. Well they are no exception to rising taxable assessments. Over on the block that used to have the non-profit bike shop (I think a non-profit works out of that building) and currently has a Chinese take-away and a used/rent-wreck car lot, Square 476, the assessments have gone up a lot. I have to say ‘a lot’ because I can’t do math, I flunked out of B-School. A lot, as in 1628 6th St NW going from $184,690 (2007) to $444,280 (2008). Not as bad is the beauty shop (well use code says beauty shop) at 508 RI Ave NW going from $179,380 (2007) to $331,260 (2008).
Over in my neck of the woods, in the TC, I just got confused with the tax classes. 1627 1st St NW is in the ‘Residential’ tax class but the use code is a ‘Store’ and it is $99,020 (2007) & $177,470 (2008), while next to it is 1625 1st St NW use code ’49-Commercial-Retail-Misc’ in the residential tax class at $263,020 (2007) & $468,460 (2008).
Down North Capitol the taxable assessments double, except for one guy. 1338 North Cap $241,180 (2007) to $585,670 (2008); 1324 North Cap $160,680 to $324,790; 1304 North Cap $264,680 to $583,170; and Brian Brown’s 1334 N. Cap $437,130 to $954,920 ouch! Strangely, possibly for very explainable reasons Big Ben liquors at 1300 North Capitol’s taxable assessment barely moves at $212,360(2007) to $247,670 (2008).
The thing that makes me wonder is what does it mean for the growth of the commercial corridor? And there is little relief, unlike homeowners who can claim the homestead exemption, businesses have to suck up the rises.

You can’t always get whacha wannnahant

…but if you try sometime
you just might find
you get what you need

Richard Layman has a pretty good post over on his blog RPiUS, “Retail you want vs the retail the market can support”. It is something to think about, particularly when we talk improving our commercial strip (N.Cap) options. Richard sorta makes another point in the comments about retail vs office in taxes and leasing and how beauty salons and offices have it easier (in terms of revenue) than retail.
I know what I want, I’m quite sure I won’t really get it, and I’m relatively happy with what I got. I think, I hope we wander in enough to support the Big Bear so that it is worth it as a business venture. There are concerns about the Bloomingdale & TC hoods being able to support both the Bear and Windows, and as much, as much as I would love to have another coffee shop like place pop up in the near vicinity, I don’t know if we could keep it. I eye the slight changes on New Jersey Ave over on the corner of R and in that little strip mall where G&G sits, and wonder what’s that going to be. On the 1500 blk of NJ they’ve removed the signs and whatnot from the old art deco store that did not survive. I don’t know if something is going to go in soon or if they are cleaning it up to make it attractive to potential businesses. A little farther down on R St, the old dry cleaners was getting cleaned out, maybe it’s something, maybe nothing. Whatever goes in, I hope it is something that the area can support and something that would be an asset to the neighborhood.

Lunchbreak history: The Big Bear

I’m calling this lunchbreak history as this is something I can churn out on my lunchbreak. Anyway, somewhere on the Big Bear site, which has now disappeared (as the right hand column, with the history, was not there when I went there last) was a history of the Big Bear Cafe, which was the Big Bear Market, and that sort of was the history. So that inspired me to wander down to the library in the building and check out the city directories.
1919 was the first year I grabbed. The index by street is available in earlier years, but I can’t remember how early. Anyway, in 1919 at 1700 1st there was a man by the name of Earnest D. Thorne, and he was a grocer.
Second book, was 1930 and the next guy at 1700 1st NW was Oscar Bernard Diskin. He was also a grocer. I looked for a Big Bear Market, but none was listed.
The last book I grabbed because well, lunch is nearly over, was 1967. At 1700 1st Street NW was the Fairway Market Grocers, telephone number DU7-7969. I did see a listing for a Big Bear Market in 1967, listed at 1018 North Capitol owned by Jack Mehlman. Well Big Bear Cafe, sounds way more interesting than Fairway Cafe, so I’m glad it eventually became the Bear. I wonder if Big Bear Market moved to 1st Street or if it is just a coincidence? The directories go up to 1970something. However, lunch over, back to work.

Bear musings

I was going to post about the broken glass door at the Big Bear, but taking the picture with the Palm made my PDA go through some type of seizure where I was forced to continue the battery drain or ‘erase all data’. I chose to erase. So everyone, I might be asking for your contact info again because guess who fails to back up weekly? Or monthly.
The story, probably more than likely not in any way true, but it is a good story, is that the owner, Lana, kicked the robber through the door. I, resigned to the idea of erasing all my data, spotted Lana in the distinct little original Mini Cooper, coming down Florida, turning onto R, and then zipping up 1st. She could be a superhero. There is the door-kicking myth, the Lana-mobile and the Big Bear Headquarters. The only thing lacking, a superpower, unless conjuring tasty salads and making hot tea is a superpower. And if it is, I’ll take it.

Packed Big Bear

Saturday, around noon, I walked into Big Bear and the place was packed. Where the heck did all these folks come from? Well I know where three people came from, but I couldn’t get a seat inside. Not even at the counter. That crowded.
I’m happy to see the place hopping and lively and active. I see often groups meeting there. Groups as in organized meetings, not a bunch of friends wandering in. I never would have thought there was a great need for meeting spots for groups in the hood, but apparently, there is. Besides the group taking up the big table, there were people with strollers, people with computers, and people. And poor little me, banished to the outside tables.

DC taxes hurt small businesses

The problem is the chains will not make the neighborhood a neighborhood, it will just make it another part of generica. Sitting with Richard Layman at a window table at the Big Bear Cafe we very briefly mentioned how the city actually hurts small business. Taxes is one method of putting on the hurt as reported in today’s Post article “Feeling the Pinch of D.C.’s Prosperity.
And the city does give lip service about supporting the arts. Having Warehouse consider closing down, and stressing other live action theaters, art galleries (particularly the ones that don’t feature art that goes well with the living room couch), and other artsy venues with high taxes is quite unsupportive.
Come on there must be a couple of intelligent people on the council who could think of a way to properly tax businesses, small businesses, the businesses who take a chance on transitional neighborhoods like mine, without discouraging them and pushing them out. Why would a 10% cap be bad? If that’s intolerable how’s about a 20% cap? Well Jack (Evans, who supports a 10% cap, though no one else on the Council seems to) I support you.