4th and N Street, NW from our archives back in 2009
Thanks to Peter, one of the originals that opened it in 1989, for sharing this great bit of history about the Hoagi House:
“The building was owned by my mother-in-law, Karen Yi an immigrant from Korea. She, her husband and their four children came to the United States in about 1976 and her husband passed away, not long after. She took on multiple jobs, buying a small convenience store and finally working her way up to becoming the owner of Benning liquor, out on Benning Road past the stadium. She supported her four kids and put them all through college… She was an amazing woman!
I met Mrs. Yi’s daughter Meme in my senior year at Syracuse University. I was from Chevy Chase at that time, and Meme’s family lived out in Greenbelt although her mother spent at least 75% of her time living in the apartment above the liquor store.
Anyway, in that senior year when we would come home from from school for holidays and so forth I would work at the liquor store, trying to impress my future mother-in-law.
Once we graduated from Syracuse, Mrs. Yi had bought that building and wanted to convert it to apartments and a business.
Meme’s sister, Sheri and I along with the contractor basically built out the Hoagie House as a small grocery store and take away. I think we opened by July 1989.
Although we were a convenient store and take away, we did have bulletproof glass and so forth and a small front lobby given that the neighborhood wasn’t very safe. We were open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, six days a week and worked our asses off the entire time! We were our own Crew for everything, prep, cleaning, shopping for the store… You name it. A total labor of love, and while exhausting, I absolutely have fondest of memories from being there.
Anyway, the name Hoagie House is from my years in Philadelphia and my love for cheesesteaks and hoagies.
For what it’s worth, I was primarily the cook as the sisters were not very fussy with the kitchen… I fashioned the cheesesteaks after Jim’s in Philadelphia and the hoagies after Lee’s in Philadelphia. I have had a reasonable amount of experience in running small food operations and quickly became a very efficient short order cook with the help of the sisters.
To round out the menu, we also served wings, potato wedges, and as a bit of a sleight-of-hand, had a “teriyaki cheesesteak” which was basically Korean bulgogi, but nobody was familiar with Korean food at that time so we thought playing with the name would make it more attractive. It actually was one of our best selling items.
Anyway, the idea was that the three of us would get the business up and running and then sell it so that you could have a steady stream of rental income and then build out the rest of the building into rental units.
Unfortunately, the family that bought the business from us kind of ran it into the ground. Then, Meme‘s brother Young took over the business with a friend of his, Brian and served similar food but turned more towards pizza. Brian had worked at three brothers out in Greenbelt and thus knew pizza.
The neighborhood had struggles back then… I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, but eventually, I think everyone threw in the towel.
Mrs. Yi passed away in 2001 I think.
Anyway, that’s the brief history of the Hoagie House!”