A "supper-club" style, high-end restaurant is still planning to open in the Rhode Island Avenue NE corridor, owner and chef Oliver Friendly confirms.
The restaurant, which was going to be called La Table but may now receive a new name after the opening of
Table, has been widely
anticipated by
residents since it was first announced a year ago. The corridor has seen some development in recent years but many storefronts remain vacant, and the area's restaurant options — besides carry-outs — are scarce.
The restaurant will serve as a base for Friendly's
catering company and then "we'll operate as a supper club as opposed to a walk-in restaurant," Friendly explains. Because the meals will be occasional, the restaurant will be "more of a destination thing. I'm not envisioning getting walk-up customers," he says.
That said, "over the next three or four years I do see that area improving quite a lot. And hopefully by that point, our catering company will have outgrown that space and we can turn it into a restaurant of some kind."
The 2,000-square-foot, two-story structure at 2212 Rhode Island Ave NE is still undergoing the permitting and construction process, but Friendly hopes for a April soft opening. Despite some delays in the process, Friendly, a Brookland resident, says he felt strongly about keeping his restaurant not just in the District, but in the neighborhood. "My grandparents came out here in 1896 and it was a big deal for me to keep everything in the District," he says. "When we were looking, it was like, 'Do you want to look in Bloomingdale?' And I said 'I'd really rather keep it here.'"
This venture may not be Friendly's last in the area: "We're looking at places on 12th street [NE] to open a Japanese noodle shop."