In 2019, the final year of our pre-COVID innocence, the option to eat our restaurant food outdoors existed – but it was typically limited to patios or restaurant roof decks.
In 2019, the final year of our pre-COVID innocence, the option to eat our restaurant food outdoors existed – but it was typically limited to patios or restaurant roof decks. But nearly three full years later, we’ve learned that another perfectly viable place to eat restaurant food is in the road, where people used to drive or park their cars. Adapting to the circumstances, restaurants looking to stay afloat breathed life into the streatery. Part street, part eatery, the setup let diners salvage something of a dining experience while trying to avoid our new mystery virus.
In the years, these tables, often ensconced in structures reminiscent of a plywood horse stall, have become fixtures on the D.C. dining scene. On some blocks in the region, local governments took their streateries a step further, closing entire blocks to cars, enabling people to wander without fears of getting clipped by drivers, and it allowed restaurants to devour bike and traffic lanes in the name of lowering the risk of COVID exposure, while still maintaining the normalcy of restaurant dining. For a time, blocks in D.C., Bethesda and Arlington evoked pedestrian boulevards in Paris, Copenhangen and London.
But three years into the pandemic, with the sinking realization that COVID isn’t going anywhere, where does that leave us with our redefined dining landscape? D.C. seems to be trying to figure out ways to formalize it – last year, the city’s Office of Risk Management proposed and then dropped an insurance increase for businesses seeking outdoor dining permits. Many makeshift pedestrian blocks have closed, which is to say reopened to cars. But a handful of hardy pedestrian blocks in each local jurisdictions have hung around, causing us to wonder: is this permanent?
So DCist wanted to take a look at the state of street dining in the region. Here’s a list of what once was, and what still is.
D.C.
18th Street NW in Adams Morgan
There’s still a lively outdoor dining scene here, and tables still take up sections of the street, but it isn’t what it was for a short time in the summer of 2020: a full-fledged streatery blocked off to vehicles. It was D.C.’s first pedestrian-only streatery and proved very popular, but it soon reopened to vehicles due to health and safety concerns. D.C. did revive the all-pedestrian zone last year for a few Sundays in the late summer and fall. Barred DC once ranked Adams Morgan number one among D.C.’s streatery scenes.
Downtown
Penn Quarter was once home to “Downtown D.C. Dine Out On 8th” in the early pandemic days. At this streatery, open from September to October in 2020, diners would often find themselves eating food blocks away from the restaurant that prepared it, with the help of mobile kitchens, bars, and serving stations. There was also a rotation of local food trucks.
It was an effort to revive the dining scene downtown, which had been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Sadly, not all of the participating restaurants pulled through — Mediterranean restaurant Olivia closed down — but others, like Cuba Libre and Modena are still with us. Meanwhile some restaurants are still doing outdoor dining, but not as many as before.
Dupont Circle
17th St NW, a popular streatery destination featuring restaurants like Duke’s Grocery and Annie’s Paramount Steak House, still has tables on the road, where folks would normally parallel park their cars, though people are opting for indoor dining this winter. A short block of 20th St NW (featuring Zorba’s Cafe, Thaiverse DC, and Mission Dupont Circle) remains completely closed to vehicles, as well as a short section of 19th St NW behind Kramers bookstore and Starbucks and in front of Pembroke. Those two mini-streateries are the only ones in D.C. still fully blocked off to traffic, according to DDOT.
Georgetown
M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, once abuzz with shoppers and tourists, grew suddenly quiet in the early pandemic days. The neighborhood began to see a flurry of closures, and to stave them off, restaurants — including Martin’s Tavern, Piccolo and Flavio, and Mr. Smith’s — got street dining permits. Today several restaurants like Bodega still have fenced off sections on the roads for outdoor diners.
Logan Circle
Restaurants, including Rice, Pearl Dive Oyster Palace, and Logan Tavern began opening streateries here in the summer of 2020 along 14th and P Streets. There aren’t as many restaurants participating in the “P Streatery” today, but some, like Logan Tavern, still have dining on the road.
Navy Yard
“Navy Yard vibrancy is up there but streateries not really needed” is what Barred DC had to say of the Barracks Row streatery scene in 2020, which ranked fifth in a list of five D.C. streatery scenes. But streatery dining along 8th St SE is still going strong — Crazy Aunt Helen’s says when the weather is good, it can be very busy on the road.
There are “streateries” in Navy Yard too, in the form of outdoor dining in front of Mission Navy Yard and Walters Sports Bar. The two restaurants weathered a dispute with DDOT, which had almost closed the streateries just ahead of the Nationals’ first home game last spring.
For more info all of D.C.’s streateries — including streateries for individual restaurants — check out this map.
MARYLAND
Newell Street (Silver Spring)
Montgomery County’s first pandemic “playstreet” opened in September 2020 following demand from residents for more recreational spaces. It was technically not a streatery in that people didn’t really eat on patios outside restaurants. Instead people enjoyed takeout and delivery at adjoining Acorn Park, which was part of the county’s Picnic in the Parks program. The streatery lasted for about two years — longer than initially expected. It closed after Labor Day last year, following a county survey where residents gave the streatery mixed reviews.
Norfolk Avenue (Bethesda)
The Norfolk Avenue streatery is still open, but over the past few weeks the county gathered feedback from residents in a survey through Tuesday to decide the streatery’s future. It is one of the two Montgomery County streateries still blocked off to traffic, the other being Price Avenue. The streatery could be here to stay, taken down, or even made permanent.
Price Avenue (Wheaton)
The Price Avenue streatery is still going strong, featuring restaurants like Hakuna Matata Grill and Gisele’s Creole Cuisine. Apart from Norfolk Avenue, it is the the only Montgomery County streatery still blocked off to traffic — and depending on what county residents say in response to a survey about Norfolk Avenue, it could be the last one standing.
Woodmont Avenue (Bethesda)
The Woodmont Avenue streatery is still open and has enjoyed continued popularity with pedestrians, though local businesses have expressed concern that limiting the street to vehicles would divert potential new customers. The streatery shrank last fall after the county’s department of transportation reopened a couple lanes of traffic and created a curbside pickup zone.
VIRGINIA
King Street (Alexandria)
The 100 and unit blocks of King Street became a permanent pedestrian-only zone following a unanimous vote by the Alexandria City Council in November. It first emerged in 2020 to help local restaurants and enjoyed a widespread positive reception. The King Street Pedestrian Zone also expanded recently to Waterfront Park, and there seems to be a push to continue growing it, though there are reservations about doing so on the less retail-dense 200 block.