Oakland, California’s Blue Bottle Coffee First D.C. Location Grand Opening Sunday, July 9 – Free Coffee Friday

Photo credit – Kelsey Knutson courtesy Blue Bottle

From a press release:

“WHO

Blue Bottle Coffee announces the opening of a new cafe in Georgetown, located off M Street and adjacent to the C&O Canal. As the first Blue Bottle cafe to arrive in Washington, D.C., the new Georgetown location is a warm embrace to the burgeoning specialty coffee scene in the community. Guests can enjoy a simple coffee drinking experience with pour over coffee, espresso drinks, and a seasonal menu while observing the foot traffic on the canal and towpath just outside the cafe’s doors. In a city that commemorates the past and legislates the future, it’s good to take a moment in this new light-filled cafe to exist in the present.

WHAT

The Grand Opening of Blue Bottle’s new Georgetown cafe will take place on Sunday, July 9. On Friday, July 7, the cafe will host a special Friends and Family Day where community members are invited to enjoy a cup of coffee on the house. Blue Bottle pastry selections and merchandise will also be available for purchase with all sales benefitting the cafe’s local community partner, Bread for the City. Team members from the Georgetown cafe kicked off the partnership with a volunteer event on June 29, with cafe staff donating their time to the organization.

For the first time, Blue Bottle is partnering with a second community partner for its Grand Opening. On Sunday, July 9, all proceeds from coffee, pastry selections and merchandise will go to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), whose goal is to safeguard the earth – its people, plants, animals and the natural systems on which all life depends.

WHEN

Friends and Family Day: Friday, July 7 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Grand Opening: Sunday, July 9

WHERE

1046 Potomac St. NW
Washington, D.C., 20007

DESIGN Blue Bottle’s first cafe in Washington D.C., designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, is on a cobblestone walkway off of Georgetown’s bustling M Street. In a town where coffee inspires diplomacy and filibusters alike, its fold-open storefront with a communal table beckons all to partake in coffee and neighborly conversation. Guests can observe baristas crafting coffee at a standing bar looking toward the brew stations and enjoy pastries, Liège wafels, or toasts in the cafe or on the open-air patio. A grab-and-go case stocks an assortment of signature food and refreshments for busy patrons.

The cafe interior features a distinct pattern of light colors and warm woods. Smooth white Corian and quartz countertops and concrete floors and ceilings are complemented by ash wood furniture, fabric upholstered seating, a Herman Miller Mattiazzi Solo Chair and other custom furniture. The location is faintly hidden away in an alley off M Street NW, and the simple building is believed to have once been a garage.

ABOUT Blue Bottle Coffee was founded by James Freeman in Oakland, California, in 2002. A self-declared coffee lunatic, James hand-roasted beans in a 183 square-foot potting shed and then delivered them to friends from his Peugeot wagon. Fifteen years later, Blue Bottle is now a small but mighty network of cafes in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, and D.C. Improbably and delightfully, the company continues to grow, but remains united by the simple purpose of sourcing and roasting the world’s best, most sustainable coffees and serving them at peak deliciousness.”