MGM Roast Beef, the popular and highly praised restaurant at 905 Brentwood Road NE, is expanding. The restaurant is planning to open an enclosed outdoor sidewalk café in December that will more than double its current seating capacity.
Ryan Zaritsky, MGM’s owner, said the restaurant currently seats 18. The sidewalk café will seat an additional 40 customers.
Zaritsky opened MGM Roast Been in 2008. Since then, reviews in local and regional publications have touted its breakfast, lunch and dinner offerings, in particular its sandwiches.
Zaritsky said the expansion was the result of MGM’s popularity. “MGM became so popular that we needed more seats,” he said.
MGM Roast Beef is located across from the Brentwood Post Office, at the corner of Brentwood Road and V Street NE. The small, triangular-shaped neighborhood in northeast Washington, D.C. is bounded by two busy roads: New York Avenue on the south and Rhode Island Avenue on the north.
The tracks of the Washington Metro’s Red Line run along the western boundary. The Washington Metro Area Transportation Authority maintains a major rapid transit maintenance facility in the Ward 5 neighborhood.
The neighborhood has been called transitional but Zaritsky has seen improvements since arriving with MGM Roast Beef.
“It’s changed significantly since we opened in 2008. It’s busier and become more popular. A lot of residential is moving in,” he said of the neighborhood.
Zaritsky predicts a brightening future for Brentwood. “I expect it to change even more in the next 10 years. More of the same,” he said of its popularity and residential growth.
(Photos and tip via Brookland Bridge)