On August 2nd, Mid City Caffe, located above Miss Pixie’s at 1626 14th Street, NW, had their soft opening. Today we learned that the official opening will be this Saturday, August 15th. The press release says:
“To complement the fine selection of coffee, delicious handmade pastries will complete this shop
I received the following email Sunday evening:
“I was informed by the Yes staff in Brookland that the Yes store in Petworth opens tomorrow Monday!!!! Yeahhhhhhhhhhh!”
Sadly, the celebration may be a bit premature. I took some photos on Sat. and it looks like they’re close to opening but not just yet. A job fair is always a good sign though!
Back in April ’08 we addressed this issue when a reader wondered what was Georgia Ave. Safeway nickname. But since I get this question fairly frequently I thought we could use this post to put together the definitive list.
“Dear PoP,
I was wondering if you could do me a big favor. My friends and I are trying to compile a list of Safeway nicknames. So far, our list is:
* Secret Safeway (20th and S or 42nd and Ellicott sts NW)
* Senior Safeway 2550 Virginia Ave NW (Watergate)
* Sexy Safeway 5th and L St NW
* Social Safeway 1855 Wisconsin Ave NW (Georgetown)
* Socialist Safeway 1747 Columbia Rd NW (Adams Morgan- there’s debate about the Columbia Road one- aka Spanish/Salvadorean/Sandinista Safeway- do you have an opinion?)
* Southwest Safeway 401 M St SW
* Soviet Safeway 1701 Corcoran St NW
* Subterranean Safeway (Rosslyn)
* Superfly Safeway -? We’ve heard the name, but don’t know where this one would be
* Townhouse Safeway 1800 20th St NW
* Un-Safeway 415 14th St SE”
Does the list above look right? Are there others that have been left off?
“Dear PoP,
Do you have any information about what’s moving in on Columbia Road right next to the Safeway? All the surrounding stores went out of business at roughly the same time so I’m thinking maybe they’re putting some new megastore in there.”
I have received a number of emails asking about this. Back in April we learned that CVS will be taking over this spot. They will be closing their store across the street when this new spot opens. At the time Kristen Barden from Adams Morgan BID wrote me that:
“Combined Properties (www.combined.biz) is combining all of their stores along that stretch – Popeye’s, the beauty supply store, Citibank, etc… and the CVS on the south side of Columbia Road will move over there. I also don’t know what will go in the old CVS space yet…”
And of course construction has also begun on the Safeway which will stay open during renovations.
When I got the email saying:
“This weekend I will hit the streets dressed as a tree…”
I wasn’t sure if this was the ramblings of an insane person or a legit cause. Turns out it is a super cool legit cause. Pictured above is Bert Fitzgerald, 27, in Adams Morgan.
He worked on the Holly Tree Farm around Charlottesville VA last summer, and is now organizing this project delivering CSA shares from local Virginia family farms to DC, and partnering with farms that do pastured eggs, grass fed meats, raw milk cow shares, artisan breads and cheeses,local trout, and more.
He says:
“With a CSA (community supported agriculture) the idea is that you put money up front to support the costs of the farm’s growing season, and you get a share of its produce (dozens of different things throughout a season) every week. What we do different is that we deliver to your door, at the time you want it, on Thursday (as opposed to doing drop off points). And we allow people to add a very diverse group of local foods to their orders. If people want to join us we have lots of shares to offer, and they start up this Thursday (going through oct 1), so now’s the time to sign up!”
More detailed info after the jump. (more…)
This is gonna be great!
“Dear PoP,
Shortly after the announcement that Ellwood Thompson would not be moving to DCUSA, the one sign advertising the opening was removed from the window. When I was walking home on Monday, I noticed that there were two new signs in the window (one was lying on its side, one was posted in the window, in a different location than it originally was.) It looked as if there had been people working throughout the day – lights were on, ladders were out.
This morning, on my way to work, I saw that the door to the building was open, and a construction worker was standing outside. I asked him if he was working inside the building and he confirmed that he was. I asked him if he was working on the grocery store, and if it was scheduled to move in and he said “As far as we know, it is.”
A few people have written me asking the same question. Sadly, no it is not back on at the moment. I emailed Garland McQueen, Ellwood Thompson’s general manager, and he says:
“ET still would very much like to be in the Columbia Hts community. Due to the economy we have been delayed our expansion there. There is no construction by ET occurring in the space. We continue to work w/ the developer of DCUSA and others to overcome the obstacles associated w/ this recession.”
I’ve been kicking around this idea for a while now, that I would talk about how and why I’m still a dedicated Safeway shopper, even though Harris Teeter came to town. I had all of these noble (“Harris Teeter prevents its employees from unionizing!” “The prices – the prices! Just across the river at the VA HT’s everything’s 30 cents less!”) and not so noble (“The HT after work is full of the kind of psuedo-food snobbery that I fully admit to participating in, and frankly, I’m unemployed and want to grocery shop in my sweats and not have to bump into my fancy employed professional acquaintances with a cart full of ramen.”) reasons that I was going to outline and declare my undying devotion to the Safeway Formerly Known as the Unsafeway. I was… I really, really was.
But lately I have to admit… I’ve been fervently cheating on Safeway with the new kid in town. It started innocently enough around the holidays. HT has some swankier goods, and it was just one time. I kept coming back to Safeway to do my weekly “big shop” though. With all the time on my hands though, I started cooking for myself more and more and getting back in the kitchen, happy to have time to pursue one of my favorite hobbies. I’d go to Safeway, and they just wouldn’t always have what I needed. Slowly but surely, it made less and less sense to even bother with Safeway, since I knew I’d have to make two trips anyway. (Not to mention the trips to Balducci’s and Dean & Deluca for the occasional treat or far flung ingredient. I am happy to report I haven’t set foot in a Whole Foods in at least 6 months, but that’s a whole different, irrational issue.) Then Lent rolled around, and the Harris Teeter seafood department is truly far better than my dear old Safeway’s, and so every Friday I’d hit the HT to see what was on sale, or to pick up their passable sushi. Since Easter, I’ve been really lazy what with Spring sort of, kind of teasing it’s way out, so I’ve been all about the (exorbitantly priced) salad bar at the Teet. And that brings us to today…
I have desperately needed to go grocery shopping for a couple of weeks now. And as I was gathering up my things and getting ready to go, I never even considered my old friend the Safeway. And I realized that I’m one of those people. Those people who dump the old reliable when the new and shiny comes to town. I have shopped at the Safeway for 7 years. The staff was no longer surly to me. I’d seen it transformed from the Unsafeway into a real, live, modern grocery store complete with a Starbucks, an olive bar and a decent produce section. (Once, many years ago, I went to the Safeway on a Sunday morning looking for tomato juice for bloodies. They had none. What the fuck, I thought. Now, I can get a variety of tomato-based juices, including my preferred Clamato.) Continues after the jump (more…)
Thanks to a reader for sending this disappointing news. Dcist is reporting:
“In a press release and message posted to their company blog today, Richmond-based organic grocer Ellwood Thompson’s announced that their planned expansion to the DCUSA development in Columbia Heights is on hold, seemingly indefinitely.”
photo by M.V. Jantzen
Thanks to a reader for sending this DC Mud article with an update on the Social Safeway (1855 Wisconsin Ave, NW) as well as a small update on what they call the “Not So Safeway” in Adams Morgan (which the reader calls the Salvadorian Safeway):
In the meantime, renovation procedures take a much more low-key tact at the “Not So Safeway” at 1747 Columbia Road, NW. That store will remain open when it goes under the knife (as early as early next month) and, although the store will forgo demolition, the end result will be much the same as in Georgetown.
“Under the current situation, [we couldn’t close the store]. We would have liked to, but if we’re not able to that, we’ll do the in-place remodel. It will be a complete interior renovation and decorum upgrade,” said Muckle. “It will look like…our other upgraded Safeways, of which there are now nine or ten in the area.”
We once discussed Safeway nicknames here. While we’re on the topic, anyone know of the renovation plans for the Georgia Ave. Safeway?