Coming Soon to H Street: Pizza, Egg Rolls, and Jamexican
It's shaping up to be a busy fall season for new H Street NE retail & restaurants, after a somewhat sleepy summer. Several spots have recently been bestowed with signage for new businesses. There's more to come, but the first three we'll take a look at are here:
San Francisco based Neapolitan pizza maker Mozzeria is set for the Baldwin building at 1300 H Street NE. Mozzeria looks great with a classic & simple menu of 12 inch wood fired pizzas, --including vegan pies (yessssssssssssss)-- small plates, and the all important after-dinner coffee service. I finally caught up and read this WaPo article about the founders. So cool to get to know the story of the owners of a place before they open in the city. Just like the SF restaurant, the DC store will be fully staffed by deaf workers, making it the second business on H (Starbucks) dedicated to hiring primarily deaf and hard of hearing staff and management. The restaurant will have around 100 seats, give or take. They look to open in early 2020.
Just a few doors down at 1322 H Street NE, another comfort food purveyor is preparing to open, this time with egg rolls. Yes, the world's most ubiquitous appetizers IS the menu of Alexandria, Virginia's Meggrolls. Meggrolls looks to serve about a half dozen different large size egg rolls as well as a few sides. None look remotely vegan on the menu at this time. They will be in the space that was the long time home of Shawafel and recently the short lived Red Ginger Jamaican restaurant. Meggrolls is planning for a fall 2019 opening.
Jerk at Nite looks to make the jump from popular food truck to permanent brick & mortar restaurant at 1100 H Street NE. It appears they have had dine-in locations at Howard U, and a few partnerships/pop-ups, but a lot of the presence recently has been via the food truck. The cuisine is self-described as "Jamaican-infused treats with an exotic mix of Mexican and American soul." Nothing vegan/vegetarian on the mains, but perhaps some of the sides-- we'll see.
Seems as though this move may have planned for a while, as as the food truck owners made an IG post from nearly one year ago foreshadowing an H Street opening. They also have recent IG posts indicating they are in the final stages of design and build out, in addition to licensing and permitting. So, we could be getting the H Street location sooner than later. 1100 H was last home to Madison Cleaners.
Additional news about even more new businesses coming to H St NE later this week.