The owners of Pete's Apizza (pronounced \ah-bēts\) in Columbia Heights are taking that old real estate adage: "location, location, location" literally these days. Just two years after opening their popular, New Haven-style pizza joint in Columbia Heights (1400 Irving Street, NW), the owners have turned their attention to opening two additional stores in Metro-adjacent hot spots throughout the beltway.First stop: A converted antique/interiors store at 4940 Wisconsin Avenue, NW in the Tenleytown-Friendship Heights neighborhood, opens for business tomorrow (June 16th).
"We're right between two metro stops and [the location] has the buzz factor we were looking for," says Michael Wilkinson, a co-partner in the family and friend-run endeavor. The team toyed with the idea of locations ranging from Navy Yard to Dupont Circle but ultimately decided on the 3,400 s.f., 84-seater in Tenleytown because of its "high concentration of families," fair amounts of foot traffic, and limited (read: crappy) pizza options.
Northern Virginia gets its own slice of the strangely-pronounced, pizza craze by 2011: a Pete's Apizza is slated for the construction-laden, corner of North Clarendon Boulevard and North Garfield Street.
"What we love about this location is that we could have gone to Rosslyn or Ballston, but being situated in Clarendon gets us right into the grouping of five metro stations, within transit-oriented development" says Wilkinson.Talks with retail brokers went faster than expected and now Pete's Apizza's Clarendon location is happening "a year sooner than we thought it would," says Wilkinson. With building permits already submitted and a construction timeline that spans three months or less, a 4,000 s.f. pizza space could be up and running as early as the end of this year.
Washington DC Real Estate and Development News
7 comments:
A cool place to eat in Tenley?? Seems impossible. Several of the local crazies fought it because they were afraid the noise from outdoor eating would be too much. Amen for this.
I live one block away from the new Fessenden Street location and I've been following the restaurant's progress closely. I haven't heard of anyone opposing this business. What or who is the previous poster referring to? For example, have there been any negative posts on any listservs? If so, I haven't seen them.
@Anonymous 9:09 AM
The first poster is probably correct. I don't know the debate specifically about Pete's Apizza but this is from the Tenley listserve earlier this year:
"RE: [tenleytown] Re: OLD Dancing Crab?
What are the rules these days for transferring liquor licenses? Was there ever a neighborhood/ANC agreement with the former holders (I seem to recall LOTS of problems with the original Dancing Crab upstairs bar when I was commissioner and in the few years after I left office and I don’t recall whether the neighbors ever resolved the issues with a consent agreement). If it is a nice Italian restaurant, that’s one thing. If it’s a bar that serves pizza and has a band, that’s quite another thing!"
It is quite likely the Tenley NIMBYs opposed this too-- that is what they do oppose things such as housing directly above the metro station or streetcars that will improve mobility for people living in this corridor.
Yep, the railed about it at the ANC meeting and in a few other places. The Pizza guys handled it professionally though. Shame that we have to make businesses run the gauntlet and treat them like parolees.
The ANC3E minutes show some of the discussion. Only lists one resident as complaining, but the commissioners seem to share the concerns.
http://anc3e.org/docs/meetingMinutes/2010/2010-minutes-03.pdf
Well, this being the DCMud, someone is bound to bash the locals and paint them as crazy. I live in this area, and I've heard of NO opposition to this establishment.
Just ate there today. Even better than the Columbia Rd one!
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