The Week Ahead…& Some Photos from the Past Week

Dos Toros Taqueria is opening at 215 Pennsylvania Avenue – formerly Firehook Bakery.  Earlier this year, Dos Toros Taqueria – a San Francisco-style taqueria – announced the opening of three outlets in DC. One of them is on Capitol Hill.  The enterprise has a dozen locations in NYC.  Their liquor license application comes up tonight in ANC6B’s Alcohol Beverage and Cannabis Committee.  Here’s a link to the restaurant’s menu at the NYC outlets:  https://www.dostoros.com/menu

Firehook closed in March of 2021 after a nearly ten year run.  The space has been mostly vacant since then except for a pottery making pop-up.  

On Wednesday, Peregrine Espresso will mark its 15^th anniversary at 660 Pennsylvania Avenue near Eastern Market.  Here’s a photo from Tuesday morning, featuring part of the early morning crowd of patio regulars who convene daily (mostly) regardless of weather conditions. 

Founded by Ryan and Jill Jensen in 2008, the outlet has a reputation for quality coffees and a superb cappuccino.   Peregrine is also distinguished by a transparent and education-driven wage chart for all employees. Their baristas have competed at regional and national Barista or Brewers Cup competitions to continue their coffee education. Another priority is implementing some environmental sustainability efforts including composting & recycling, using wind power and reusable glass milk bottles.  The space has been a coffee shop for a couple of decades – before Peregrine it was Murky which painted over the mural of Eastern Market installed by Stompin Grounds.  Before that, it was Roasters who roasted their coffee on site, leaving you smelling coffee the rest of the day after stopping by for a cup. 

While I Egg You’s application for a liquor license wends its way through the licensing bureaucracy, the owners move forward with the confidence that the application will be granted.  There’s a new sign up  – The Shell – naming the event space for the venue, to go along with the suggested list of possibilities for which the space could be used:  private events, birthday parties, fundraisers, receptions, weddings and corporate events. 

Here’s a look at an exhibit hall in the National Museum of the American Indian that’s dedicated to depicting ways Native American imagery and nomenclature have been reflected in the promotion of commercial products.  Signage asks, “What if (the images or nomenclature) are not trivial?  What if … they … reveal a buried history – and a country forever fascinated, conflicted, and shaped by its relationship with American Indians?”

The Week Ahead…& Some Photos from the Past Week

By Larry Janezich

Posted September 5, 2023

Highlights: 

Tuesday: 

• ANC6B ABC Committee discussion of Cannabis retailer licensing
• MPD First District CAC crime discussion

Thursday:

• ANC6B P&Z Committee discussion on commercial use of residential properties with Acting Department of Buildings (DOB) Director Brian Hanlon. 

Tuesday, September 5

ANC6B Alcoholic Beverage & Cannabis Committee will hold a virtual meeting at 7:00pm. 

For info on how to join the meeting, go here:  https://anc6b.org/

Among items on the draft agenda:

• The Ugly Mug Dining Saloon/Valor Brew Pub, 723 8th Street, SE.  Application for a Games of Skill Endorsement for their Restaurant Class C Liquor license. 
• Dos Toros Taqueria, 215 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE. Application for new Class “C” Restaurant License.
• Wine and Butter, 11^th and East Capitol Street.  Application for the renewal of a Retailers’ Class “B” liquor license with a tasting endorsement.
• Discussion Item: Notice to cure for establishments on Barracks Row.
• Discussion Item: I Egg You Protest wrap up and lessons learned.
• Discussion Item: ABCA law update coming this fall.
• *Discussion Item: Cannabis retailer licensing.

*MPD First District Citizens Advisory Committee will hold a virtual meeting at 6:00pm. 

For info on how to join the meeting, go here:  https://1dcac.com/

Agenda:

• Community safety walks and crime discussion
• 4^th Street, SW: Safeway and CVS safety concerns
• Navy Yard and M Street crime concerns
• 13^th Street, NE, and Constitution Avenue crime concerns
• H Street, NE:  burglaries, car jackings and homicide follow up
• Policing 14^th Place, 15^th Street, NE, and other areas

Wednesday, September 6

ANC6B Transportation Committee will hold a virtual meeting at 7:00pm.

For info on how to join the meeting, go here:  https://anc6b.org/

Among items on the draft agenda:

• DDOT Presentation on 8th St SE Bus Priority Project
• Update on 11th Street Bridge Park Update/Streetscape
• Salden’s Court Alley Renaming
• Eastern HS Homecoming Parade
• Committee Discussion on DDOT Director Everett Lott presentation to ANC6B at September 12 meeting of the full ANC 

ANC6C Planning and Zoning Committee will hold a virtual meeting at 6:30pm. 

For info on how to join the meeting, go here:  https://anc6c.org/hot-topics/

Agenda not available at press time.

Hill Center:  Author presentation:  Writing for Their Lives: America’s Pioneering Female Science Journalists.  7:00pm – 9:00pm.  $10.00.  In-person event.  Purchase tickets here:  https://bit.ly/3PeHtzZ   

• Capitol Hill resident and historian Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette discusses her new book in conversation with Elizabeth Quill, Science News Executive Editor.
• “Writing for Their Lives tells the stories of women who pioneered the nascent profession of science journalism from the 1920s through the 1950s. Like the “hidden figures” of science, such as Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson, these women journalists … were also overlooked in traditional histories of science and journalism.  But, at a time when science, medicine, and the mass media were expanding dramatically, Emma Reh, Jane Stafford, Marjorie Van de Water, and many others were explaining theories, discoveries, and medical advances to millions of readers via syndicated news stories, weekly columns, weekend features, and books—and they deserve the recognition they have long been denied.”

Thursday, September 7

ANC6B Planning and Zoning Committee Meeting

Among items on the draft agenda:

• *Discussion on Commercial Use of Residential Properties with Acting Department of Buildings (DOB) Director Brian Hanlon
• Proposed Alley Renaming in Square 969 “Sladen’s Walk” Project: Rename an unofficially named
• 223 8th Street, SE, Project: To construct a rear addition to an existing, semi-detached, three-story principal dwelling unit in the RF-1 zone.
• 116 5th Street, SE, Project: Addition of a third floor containing a bedroom and bathroom and enclosure of a second-floor rooftop deck to extend an existing bedroom
• 744 13th Street, SE, Project: To construct a rear addition, to an existing, attached, two-story with cellar, principal dwelling unit in the RF-1 zone
• Update on Alley Closing in Square 762 (Block between 2nd and 3rd Streets, SE, and Pennsylvania Avenue, and C Street, SE.)
• Discussion on Fines for Violating Historic Preservation and Unauthorized Work

ANC6C Transportation and Public Space Committee will hold a virtual meeting at 7:00pm..

For info on joining the meeting, go here:  https://anc6c.org/hot-topics/

Agenda not available at press time.