Monday, February 28, 2005
Attracting People to Emerging Main Streets
Here is a past post from blog Cool Town Studios concerning drawing people to "emerging" commercial areas like the H Street corridor. If you buy this blueprint, we seem to be a little short on restaurants, but I have a hard time imagining any hot restauranteur locating on H Street in its present state. But hey, if you need to feel more hopeful, take an evening stroll down the 8th Street SE strip (that's a pronounced before and after).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I read the article in the Philly Inquirer. It's more accurate about a Philly phenomenon than for DC. You don't need topnotch chef driven restaurants to drive emerging areas, but you do need restaurants. People have to have reasons to explore and feel comfortable doing so. IMO (and I am not always impressed with Neal's "insights" although he didn't write the article) restaurants need five characteristics to be successful drivers of revitalization: (1) relatively appealing cuisine that isn't too specialized; (2) good food (it doesn't have to be great); (3) well priced; (4) good or better service; and (5) nice interior, it doesn't have to be great, but not threadbare.
IMO, restaurants in the area like Banana Cafe, La Loma, and La Lomita exemplify these characteristics. Phish Tea doesn't. R&B Cafe does, but it's a coffee shop, not a restaurant.
What about the brunch? I haven't been for brunch, but at $9.95 wouldn't it be a decent deal? And the self-serve buffet would negate the, um...service issues (but I was once served room temperature "hot" tea, and no buffet can fix that). If I undestand correctly, Phish tea does almost all of its business through catering and private parties. They probably don't have much of a staff because they don't anticipate much of a crowd. This begs the question why they bother to open their doors to regular diners at all (it surely hurts their reputation). Maybe they don't want the neighborhood to only associate them with catering (as opposed to dining out) when the time comes that H Street can clearly support such a restaurant (even w/o the catering safety net). It seems like a far better solution would be to only serve brunch, and maybe dinner Friday and Saturday nights.
Post a Comment