WCP | Starved For Sit-Down Restaurants, Where Would Ward 7 and 8 Residents Like to Dine?
The Advoc8te encourages you to read this Washington City Paper article by Laura Hayes and not just because yours truly is quoted in it. Anyone who have lived or visited Ward 7 and Ward 8 knows that we don’t have a lot of full-service grocery stores or sit-down restaurants. What are your thoughts on this issue? Are you more worried about the future possibilities of “gentrification” or the present-day challenges of living in a community that has limited amneties?
Illustration by Stephanie Rudig
“Nikki Peele, a Ward 8 resident and marketing consultant who blogs about her neighborhood, agrees that too many dining and grocery dollars are being spent in other parts of the city. “Imagine the irony for those of us getting in our cars to go sit down for a meal outside of my ward and being served by someone from my ward,” she says.
This fall, Peele created a Twitter hashtag, #TheDiscards, where she and other east-of-the-river residents documented what daily life is like, such as how long an Uber Eats delivery takes and the disrepair of the restroom inside the Giant. “We do love the ward, but to be quite honest people are getting frustrated,” she says.
“I’m one of the few people who isn’t afraid of change,” she says. “As much as this is a discussion about places to eat, it’s an economic conversation. If you don’t have restaurants and grocery stores, those basic third places to go and connect, you’re missing important revenue streams and jobs.”
Peele also wishes other parts of Ward 8 were “flourishing” as much as Anacostia. That’s where Andy Shallal says he’s opening a Busboys and Poets in the first quarter of 2019. “I am very bullish on the area,” he says. “I think it’s going to do great.””