Barracks Row to Get Yet Another Fast-food Carryout

Here’s the proposed location of Wingstop at 406 8th Street, on Barracks Row.

Here’s the current interior of the former illegal weed shop at 406 8th Street. Wingstop hasn’t started a buildout yet, maybe waiting to make sure their application for an exception to the fast food ban on the street is granted.

Yet Another Fast-food Carryout to Open on Barracks Row

by Larry Janezich

Posted December 31, 2025

Last night, ANC6B’s Executive Committee scheduled a January 13 discussion of an application by Wingstop, the popular* fast food carryout and delivery restaurant, to open an outlet at 406 8th Street, on Barracks Row.  The space was formerly occupied by Mother Blossom, an illegal weed gifting shop which was forced to close in 2024 after new regulations banned weed outlets within 400 feet of another.  Up N’ Smoke is a legal weed dispensary located less than 400 feet away. 

Zoning regulations currently restrict new fast food restaurants from opening on Barracks Row.  Wingstop has filed application for a special exception with the Bureau of Zoning Adjustment (BZA). (Earlier yesterday, Washington Business Journal reported the opening to its subscribers, citing the application filed with the Board of Zoning Adjustment.)

Wingstop has over 2,500 outlets internationally and competes with Popeyes which is scheduled to open directly across the street.  The block already suffers from an over-concentration of casual food outlets including & Pizza, Ledo Pizza, Boli Pizza, Dunkin’, Chipotle, Maman Joon Kitchen, and a soon-to-open Popeyes and Taco Bell.  A Starbucks on the block closed last September and a 7-11 closed in August of 2024.  An illegal weed shop on the block was closed down by ABCA last October. 

ANC6B will also hear in January from nearby neighbors regarding efforts to negotiate best operating procedures with the forthcoming Barracks Row Taco Bell and Popeyes.  (A report in December gave Taco Bell high marks – Popeyes not so much.)  Some ANC6B commissioners are concerned about the negative impact on Barracks Row of the large number of fast food and medical weed outlets – especially the 400 block – and are promoting a business roundtable discussion of ways to broaden the economic variety of retail outlets on the street.    

BZA is required to get community input on the special exemption and will or already has referred the application to ANC6B.  The ANC’s Planning and Zoning Committee will consider the application – possibly as soon as its January 8 meeting – and provide an opportunity for public comment.  The committee could then either vote to support the application, oppose it, recommend the ANC protest the application, or forward it to the full ANC without recommendation.  The full ANC commission also has the same options of supporting, opposing, protesting, or taking no position. 

ANC’s are advisory bodies which must be consulted, but city agencies are only required to give their ANC opinions “great weight.”  Given how hungry the District is for revenue, it’s unlikely the BZA will let neighborhood unhappiness about too many fast food outlets – should such opposition develop – stand in the way of an exception. 

Rather than go to war with Wingstop by filing a protest with BZA on behalf of the community – a protest they are likely to lose – the ANC Planning and Zoning Committee is may decide to push Wingstop to sign a Settlement Agreement governing its operation regarding hours of operation, noise and odor controls, and indoor trash storage as a condition of ANC support. 

*Here’s a link to a Wingstop menu:  https://www.wingstop.com/menu