Shaw's Fall Openings Are Moving Into Rooms the Neighborhood Already Knows

"I'll especially miss their banana milkshakes!"

A PoPville reader sent that line in early September, after stopping at Ghostburger on 9th Street for burgers and finding out it was the location's last day. Ghostburger said goodbye on its own the next day: "After six incredible years, we're closing our Ghostburger Shaw location." The reader also passed along what staff had told them. Business had been very slow.

That closing sounds like the usual fall turnover. Look at what's opening around Shaw this season, though, and a pattern shows up. Nearly every new place is moving into a room the neighborhood already had feelings about, and several are holding on to that history on purpose. One chef is trying to bring back a bar he loved. A café changed its name and kept everything else the same. A new restaurant is going into an underground space that sat empty for a year. Two 11th Street addresses are getting either a name Washington already knows or a cuisine the city has never had in a sit-down dining room. The room on 9th Street is the exception, and it's the one with the most layers behind it.

The Grace Is a Bar Built Around Remembering the Passenger

The most open about it is the Grace at 1539 7th St NW. Eater DC's Emily Venezky reviewed it in early August. She described chef Sanjay Mandhaiya, who runs Pappe and Karravaan, as "actually attempting to bring back his favorite industry bar, the Passenger," now reworked as a modern gastropub.

The callbacks are real. A mounted antelope head hangs in honor of Gary, the antelope that once hung on these walls. Venezky guessed that building the drinks list around daiquiris might be a tribute to Hogo, the Passenger's tiki pop-up, and its draft rum drinks. Cocktails start under $15. Beverage director Stefan Sokic runs a rotating cocktail menu with a focus on daiquiris.

The food isn't trying to copy the old bar. Executive chef Courtney Evans cooks dressed-up versions of regional American staples. The menu has a Cuban sandwich, an egg-topped chicken club with tarragon mayo, butter-basted steak, and Parmesan fries that come with every sandwich or cost under $8 as a side. Starters include grilled oysters with collard green-infused butter and suya spice, plus mango-coconut shrimp with a mango and Thai chile chow.

For people who live nearby, the useful part is the hours. The bar stays open until 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. On weekends a late-night menu runs from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., with crab cream sauce fries topped with pickled Fresno chiles, tuna tartare on buttered brioche, and fried chicken sliders, priced from $14 to $17. That gives 7th Street a late kitchen in a room that has been a late-night bar before.

Green's Office Changed the Awning and Kept the Café

The Grace celebrates the room's past. The corner of 9th and P handled its change more quietly. At 906 P St NW, a PoPville reader noticed that the awning on what they knew as Cafe Joy now read Green's Office.

The manager told them she took over in May, and the new name comes from her last name, Green. She called it the same café with more pastries. The café describes itself as "a small neighborhood café in DC's Shaw, where the pastries are made with genuine care and the staff actually means it when they say welcome."

Cafe Joy had only been open since the previous October. Ownership changed months before the sign did, and from what the manager said, regulars kept their café. It's the Grace's approach on a smaller scale. When a familiar room changes hands in Shaw this year, the new operator tends to keep what people already counted on.

Bajo Is Taking the Space Below Eighteenth Street Lounge

Blagden Alley is next, and its timing is the least settled. Bajo is a planned Spanish-Japanese restaurant and listening bar from Max Rivera and Sarah Montell of Hambre Hospitality, a husband-and-wife team. It's going into the underground space at 130 Blagden Alley NW. Never Looked Better, the neon-lit drinking den, left that space when it closed about a year ago, and Eighteenth Street Lounge sits directly above.

Eater DC's September fall preview describes a menu that draws on both Iberian and Japanese cooking, with tapas, yakitori, and crudo. Drinks will include a Spanish and Catalan wine program and a sake list, and DJs will spin vinyl. Rivera has cooked in kitchens in six countries. He was the opening executive chef at Cana and most recently worked at José Andrés' minibar.

Eater's target is late October. A late-September update said the final opening date and reservation details still hadn't been announced. So treat Bajo as coming soon, not open. When it does open, a below-street room that was built for nightlife will be back in use, and the music will still be part of the draw.

On 11th Street, a Familiar Name and a First

The two 11th Street openings fit the same pattern from different directions. One brings a name Washington already knows to a new block. The other brings a cuisine the city hasn't had in a fine-dining room to a quiet one.

Pho Viet opened its second location at 1521 11th St NW on Friday, September 18, with doors open to the public at 11 a.m. Its first location is in Columbia Heights at 3513 14th St NW. When PoPville reported in June that the Shaw location was on the way, its editor called the Columbia Heights original "arguably the best pho in Washington DC." The new spot is near 11th and Rhode Island, next to La Loca, which PoPville listed as a Mexican-style pizza, burrito, and taco bar. Pho Viet arrives with years of reputation from 14th Street, so it doesn't have to build a following from scratch.

A few blocks south, Itiyah is coming to 1416 11th St NW. It's a planned 20-seat tasting room from Haitian-born chef Sebastien Salomon, who has cooked at the White House and as a resident chef at the Haitian Embassy. Washingtonian reported that Salomon remembered his mother telling him, years before he moved here, that the capital had no Haitian restaurant. Itiyah will be the city's first Haitian fine-dining restaurant. Its name is "Hayiti," an old spelling of the country, written backwards.

The tasting menu draws on Haiti's 10 regions and on the cooking of Salomon's grandmother, a well-known private chef who couldn't read or write and cooked from memory and observation. Eater's preview mentions dishes like a coconut-milk brioche and grilled pigeon with caramelized leeks and breadfruit puree, plus plenty of epis, the herb paste central to Haitian cooking.

Washingtonian originally expected a summer opening. Eater's September preview moved the target to fall. As of this writing, Itiyah's homepage still says "COMING SOON," and its menu page is still empty. Washingtonian describes the block as largely residential, just off Logan Circle. On a block like that, a tiny dining room serving one cuisine's family history is a quiet addition.

The Room on 9th Street Already Has Two Chapters

That leaves 1250 9th St NW. PoPville's photo caption calls the address the former home of Espita, before Ghostburger moved in. The PoPville reader remembered Ghostburger as "a tasty, fast, and affordable lunch and dinner spot" in the Mt. Vernon Square area. PoPville said it would post updates once it learned what's next for the space. That September report named no incoming tenant.

The open storefront doesn't undercut the pattern. It's the next room waiting its turn. The Passenger came back as the Grace. Never Looked Better is set to become Bajo after about a year empty. Cafe Joy kept going as Green's Office without closing. The 9th Street room has already gone from Espita to Ghostburger, and whoever takes it next will move into a space many neighbors already have two sets of memories in.

Shaw Addresses to Keep Handy This Fall

1. The Grace, 1539 7th St NW. Open now, with a weekend late-night menu from 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. and the bar open until 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
2. Green's Office, 906 P St NW. Open now. Same café as Cafe Joy, with more pastries.
3. Pho Viet, 1521 11th St NW. Open since September 18.
4. Bajo, 130 Blagden Alley NW. Targeting late October, with no date announced as of late September.
5. Itiyah, 1416 11th St NW. Planned for fall, and the website still says coming soon.
6. 1250 9th St NW. Ghostburger closed here in early September, and PoPville's closing report named no successor.

The neighborhood's stages are busy too. Washingtonian's October culture guide lists Boy Harsher at the Howard Theatre on October 30, with tickets starting at $39. Art All Night Shaw already took place on September 12 from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. this year, so watch for next year's date.

Every storefront in Shaw has a history behind it, and so do the rowhouses on the blocks around them. If you're wondering what your own place on 7th, 9th, or 11th Street has been through, or what it might become, the Jeanne Phil Meg team is glad to talk it over with you. Contact Us.