Summer isn’t slowing down the D.C. restaurant openings, with the past week bringing a beer hall, a new downtown restaurant and bar, and a Chevy Chase lunch spot.
Sauf Haus: The conversion of the former Guitar Shop music store into a beer garden-themed bar and restaurant at 18th and Jefferson streets NW is now complete. Sauf Haus opens Thursday in the Dupont Circle space above Shake Shack, bringing with it a 2,000-square foot rooftop beer garden and two interior levels. The restaurant will feature 16 German beers on tap as well as local and other beers in bottles and cans. A menu of bratwursts, frankfurters, oysters and Bavarian pretzels will round out the offering.
Boss Shepherd’s: No, not THAT boss. Boss Shepherd’s, the restaurant ode to D.C.’s first appointed governor, opened July 21 in the Warner Theater building at 1299 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The restaurant’s farm-to-table American menu, including dishes such as bone marrow with pickled egg and breakfast radish and a pastrami salmon sandwich, comes from Executive Chef Jeremy Waybright. The restaurant, which comes from Capital Restaurant Concepts veteran Paul Cohn, is open daily for lunch and dinner.
Lunchbox: Bryan Voltaggio’s newest D.C. spot, the fast casual Lunchbox, opened July 14 at the Chevy Chase Pavilion, adding to the chef’s already ample footprint in that shopping center. (He also operates Range and restaurant-within-a-restaurant Aggio there.) Lunchbox offers innovative takes on sandwich classics, such as Ma’s Meatloaf with homemade pineapple ketchup and red onion marmalade and the Fileo-fish, a fried catfish sandwich with tartar sauce and coleslaw on a potato role. The restaurant is a reprise of Lunchbox in Frederick, which closed in 2013.
Navy Yard Oyster Co.: The Yards adds oysters to its repertoire with Navy Yard Oyster Co., an oyster and wine bar in the Southeast D.C. development’s Lumber Shed building. The restaurant comes from Elias Hengst, owner of Sonoma Restaurant, and August Paro, co-owner of Beuchert’s Saloon. The 1,887-square-foot restaurant, which will be located between Italian restaurant Osteria Morini and Mexican spot Agua 301, aims to open in the spring of 2015.
