Flowers on Fourteenth Moving...Down the Street

Via Borderstan, longtime 14th Street purveyor of plant reproductive structures, Flowers On Fourteenth, is moving their operations down the street to the space formerly occupied by Cafe Salsa.

Cafe Salsa abruptly shut its doors a couple of weeks ago, leaving a vacancy near a corner (14th and R) due for significant revitalization in the coming years. The decision by Flowers On Fourteenth to move down the block helps ensure that at least one longtime neighborhood fixture will remain. Retail continuity along 14th Street is increasingly a concern, as longtime businesses have either closed or may soon relocate.

At the same time, a host of new businesses are set to enter the scene, as long-awaited furniture retailer Room and Board progresses towards a summer opening, and JBG gets set to begin work on their massive project between S and Swann streets.

Flowers On Fourteenth has been operating on 14th Street for years. The 14thandyous have occasionally purchased flowers from them, to mixed results--my last purchase, for Mrs. 14thandyou's birthday, resulted in the premature death of about half the flowers within a day's time. I promptly returned the bouquet, which FoF was more than happy to fix. Thus, while the PITA factor was high, we eventually got a bouquet that was quite lovely, until, that is, the 14thandyou cats turned it into salad.

Happy New Year From 14thandYou

Mr. and Mrs. 14thandyou would like to wish everyone a safe and happy new year!  We're pretty much in agreement that the past decade was a pretty crummy one, so we're looking forward to moving on to the next one.

The new year began on an unfortunate tone for at least one local business:  one of the trees in front of Cafe Salsa was destroyed sometime last night.  It's unclear what destroyed the potted tree, but my guess is either a) someone with a baseball bat, or b) a car that ran up over the curb and struck the plant.  Too bad.



As you can probably tell, we're on a bit of blogging hiatus during the holidays, but rest assured we'll be back next week, keeping you up to date on goings-on around the neighborhood.  Cheers everyone!

ANC Roundup: New Owners for "The Space"; Cafe Salsa Threatened with "Show Cause" Hearing; Veranda's patio

Several items of interest related to neighborhood restaurants to pass along from Wednesday evening's ANC2f meeting:

Many of you may be familiar with the ongoing saga of The Space, the trendy "private" nightclub operating in Shaw. The Space, it seems, was operating in violation to its liquor license and the voluntary agreement it had signed with its neighbors (more details can be found here). At February's ANC meeting, following a terse exchange with ANC2f chairman Charles Reed, the ANC voted to recommend that ABRA initiate a "show cause" hearing regarding the club, a step towards the revocation of the club's liquor license.

ABRA elected to proceed with a "show cause" hearing, and a date was set. However, while this was going on, some significant internal changes were occurring with the club's management that has left more questions than answers.

The Space owners, Mitchell Cox and his wife Heather Karen, put the club on the market--unbeknownst to The Space's neighbors. In April, a deal was struck by Cox to sell the club to Columbus, Ohio-based veteran's organization "American Sacrifice Foundation". In an apparent attempt to circumvent ABRA's pending hearing and the potential loss of the club's liquor license, according to comments from Chairman Reed, a deal was proposed to ABRA that would make the American Sacrifice Foundation a 10% owner of the club, with the Cox's retaining a 90% interest (and responsibility for day-to-day operations) in the club. ABRA rejected that deal completely.

Why a Columbus-based veteran's association would have an interest in owning a Washington, DC nightclub was not discussed, and the ABRA-rejected deal between the Foundation and the Cox's leads one to believe that something more is going on here than initially appears.

Whatever the relationship between the Foundation and the Cox's, at this point the ownership issue of the club remains murky. A representative of the Foundation was in attendance at the meeting and indicated that the club had been completely sold to the Foundation, and that the Cox's no longer had any interest in it. However, Mitchell Cox's name remains on the lease for the premises, and--according to the club's representative--many details remain "to be worked out."

In the meantime, ABRA has issued an order--which has been drafted but yet released--detailing how the matter will be handled. According to neighbors, The Space has been closed for the past several weeks. The Foundation representative indicated that when it reopened, it would be a completely different type of operation, something more akin to a "VFW hall". So while the future of The Space's operations is unclear, what IS clear is that whatever opens in its place will be operated under much closer scrutiny by the ANC.

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Also discussed at Wednesday's meeting was recently opened 14th Street restaurant Cafe Salsa. It seems that Cafe Salsa's rear vent fan, which many neighbors have complained about, is not only obnoxious--it is a violation of the voluntary agreement signed between the ANC and the establishment.

Unfortunately, no representative of the restaurant was in attendance at the meeting, which appeared to irk Reed. Noting that the owner had indicated that "approvals were in place" to move the fan, without being in possession of any documents proving that assertion, Reed moved to send a letter to Cafe Salsa threatening them with a "show cause" hearing unless the problem was addressed. The ANC will take up the matter again at the July meeting.

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One final note: during the early part of the meeting, Reed, in discussing problems with DDOT representative Chris Ziemann, cited a persistent problem of parking in the public space. To those unfamiliar with DC's arcane property ownership structure, many property owners do not in fact own the land immediately in front or to the side of their properties; this land actually resides within the public space, and parking here--or otherwise using the land--is illegal. As one particular example of this, Reed cited the existence of a parking pad and an illegally constructed concrete patio in front of Shaw restaurant Veranda.

Reed put forth a motion--passed unanimously by the ANC--to issue a letter to DDOT encouraging them to crack down on such public space violations, going so far as to say that the Veranda patio should be "shut down" if compliance is not gained.

It's worth noting that the matter is up to DDOT, not the ANC, and that while it is DDOT's responsibility to ensure that District laws are followed with regards to the use of the public space, it's unlikely that Veranda's patio would be "shut down" over this issue.

For more information about upcoming ANC2f meetings, and to view notes from past meetings, visit their website at http://www.anc2f.org/.

Cafe Salsa is OPEN

Thanks to Borderstan for the tip--it seems that Cafe Salsa has (finally) opened their doors to business. Although we have yet to dine there, early returns seem to give the establishment high marks (it seems their mojitos drew in the crowds at their Alexandria location...Mrs. 14th and You happens to be quite the mojito fan, so we'll see if they're as good as advertised). No word on why the opening took so long (it seemed that they were "almost ready to open" for some time...) but at any rate we're happy to hear that they finally did.

It should be noted that only the first floor dining room is currently available, so seating will be somewhat limited. Several other dining rooms on the second floor will be open soon, offering panoramic views of the Central Union Mission and the Whitman-Walker Clinic. I jest, of course...I'm certain the view will be quite lovely.

Oh, and in case you go off hunting for Cafe Salsa's website, it seems that they don't have one. Cafesalsa.com takes you to the homepage of Cafe Salsa--in suburban Chicago. Lest you get confused or something.