More Outdoor Dining coming across the Street from 9:30 Club

Columns

by Prince Of Petworth August 21, 2016 at 10:22 pm 23 Comments

804 V Street, NW

Most recently Hazel opened with a nice patio, now next up is next door neighbor Declaration, who plan on adding a “Summer Garden with seating for 18”.

So what’s the early word on Declaration? Any fans? How’s their pizza?

Ted

Terrible.
JohnH

I know people love to jump in defense of restaurant prices (do you know how much food costs are!?), but $18 for a not that big of pizza is overpriced. Particularly when a pizza without any meat is the same price? Some of the restaurants in this town get away with bloody murder in food pricing (I’m looking at you Espita). Declaration is alright, but not somewhere I’d go out of my way to frequent.
.
Also read they are closing soon for a bit to replace their floors cause apparently pennies don’t work well as flooring….
- ***
  
  That’s how I felt at Etto – Pizza was WAY over-priced and terrible.
- anon
  
  huh I’d walk the 10 minutes down to bloomingdale to get a full pizza at bacio for about $15 then…for anyone who is looking for pizza…bacio is amazing.
  - Kingman Park It
    
    I mean, I love Bacio.. And there pizza makes the price fine, but a 14″ pizza there is $19…
Neighbor

Their pizza – not bad
Anonynon

I wouldn’t be sad if this place closed soon, screams pretentiousness. Went once, way over priced for what it was…ended up paying about 40$ each to split a small pizza app and a beer….as was not full or tipsy after. meh.
aeb

Agree that the food was overpriced, it also came out barely warm. Service was also awful too. I’m fully understanding of new restaurants working out kinks, but it really was bad.
AJ

Honestly the pizza is okay but the service is terrible. I have been 4 times (3 dinners and 1 brunch) and always walked away disappointed. In hindsight, I was acting like an abused spouse thinking it would definitely get better. Just as example – it took 45 minutes for one member of our table to get a bloody mary at brunch (it is 2 hours bottomless) and after 10 minutes of waiting for silverware we just walked up and grabbed some. They need to hire at least 1-2 more waitstaff as the current plan leaves customers angry and waiting. 2 stars.
U neighbor

Been a few times, and I’ve liked the food every time so far. Hard to make a big splash in the pizza scene these days, but I think the toppings are pretty unique and a lot of the pizzas work really well. Of course any new restaurant is either pretentious or nothing special, there’s never an in-between in the commentariat.
They really went for it with the theme.
Decent place in my opinion, maybe catch happy hour if prices are bothering you.
- ***
  
  Is it really necessary to make a “big splash” with pizza though? It doesn’t need to be trendy micro-local-artisanal-free range-whatever. Most of the time, the cheap corner greasy slice is better than these try-hards.
  - U neighbor
    
    Declaration seems to be intentionally aiming towards a different target market, and trying to provide a different experience, than the Jumbo Slice next door. Folks who don’t like artisanal should maybe try there instead, right nearby at Florida and 8th.
    - Kingman Park It
      
      Does All Purpose not strike the balance of good and not pretentious? It does for me, anyway.
LedroitTigah

I went twice, and think at least one of their pizzas (I forgot which president – maybe the franklin?) was really delicious. I also liked one of their gin and lemongrass drinks.
- P. Lecheval
  
  What was on the pizza named after President Franklin? Mushrooms?
Anon

Their happy hour pizza is a good deal. Its only 6 dollars with 1 topping. The pizza itself is OK, nothing special but not horrible.
- Crysknife
  
  +1. Happy Hour is reasonable.
OK

The pizza is ok but the concept is awful. Each pizza it’s name after a state and the prices correlate to the year of their first colony. So the Virginia pizza is $16.07 because their first colony was in 1607. Then they bring you a freaking quill to sign your check. It reminds me of everything about Washington (not DC) that I don’t like. Someone not from DC had to come up with the concept. It’s not in a touristy area but it’s the kind of concept that might work for tourists.
notathome

Just tried it via delivery (Caviar) on Friday. Birthday weekend – thought I’d treat myself to fancy pizza. Spent $70 on three pizzas for the fam. What a waste of cash! Wished I’d ordered papa john’s. To be fair the pizza with brussel sprouts and sausage was decent but the crust was so tasteless.
tom

I thought their pizza was pretty bad. Not just in a typical “slightly over priced for mediocre food” way, but legitimately bad. That was a couple months ago, so maybe they have improved.
9th Street Neighbor

There is always at least one non-pizza item on the menu that is tasty. The pizzas are good and the atmosphere is fun. If you don’t drink, you can get away inexpensively. If you drink, that’s another story.
sg7

Honestly, the pizza is soggy and the service is terrible. It took forever to get drinks–both at the bar, and at the table. We ordered a meatball appetizer and it came…and we had no plates or cutlery with which to eat it. We got forks, but no plates, and an eye roll when we asked. Definitely not going back.
ajs5034

Everything about Declaration screamed mediocrity. We waited six minutes for the staff to get a table ready for us, despite at least a dozen empty tables, then we were seated in the side room, all by ourselves. Saw our server every 10-15 minutes, despite being constantly out of water (we went on a 99 degree day). Each person’s pizza (four in total) came out staggered over a 20 minute period of time. No apology. No nothing. When I finally went over to the main part of the restaurant to request the check, the bartender could barely glance over at me since no servers or the hostess were even in sight. NEVER AGAIN. What a horrible waste of a semi-decent location. Unfortunately, I imagine it will stay in business as overflow from the wildly-delicious Hazel next door.

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