Shaw's Tavern, Owner Siya Sadeghi and Chef Joel Hatton on Florida Avenue

[TedE]

I thought we had a thread on Shaw's, but I guess not ...

According to the City Paper, the stillborn Shaw's Tavern has been bought by the owner of the late Axis on U St. He is bringing along the chef from Leopold's to head up the kitchen. I always liked Axis, it was low key for a U St place, if a bit overpriced. Always a nice beer selection, though, which goes a long way in my book. As a nearby resident of Bloomingdale I have high hopes for another worthwhile neighborhood sit down joint.

[DPop]

Happy to hear this, I thought it was dead for good.

[TedE]

Some more info from an interview with DCEater; shouldn't be long now. It sounds like a great addition to the neighborhood, but it will take some doing to overcome the strong gravitational pull that Boundary Stone exerts ...

[DPop]

So they didn't actually buy the place, they're renting from the guys who were part of the alcohol fiasco. Interesting.....

[ad.mich]

So they didn't actually buy the place, they're renting from the guys who were part of the alcohol fiasco. Interesting.....

And the 'fiasco guy' is now moving on to turning the long dormant Hoagie House into some sort of cafe. A cafe that will surely never sniff a liqour license no doubt.

[No separate thread for this, right? I can't bring myself to do it.]

Edited January 20, 2012 by DonRocks

[TedE]

They are still waiting for the liquor license to be finalized but have gone ahead and opened for lunch/brunch without booze for now. Menus and some more details on their Facebook page. It's great to see another breakfast option for when Big Bear is overrun.

[DonRocks]

And the 'fiasco guy' is now moving on to turning the long dormant Hoagie House into some sort of cafe. A cafe that will surely never sniff a liqour license no doubt.

[No separate thread for this, right? I can't bring myself to do it.]

They are still waiting for the liquor license to be finalized but have gone ahead and opened for lunch/brunch without booze for now. Menus and some more details on their Facebook page. It's great to see another breakfast option for when Big Bear is overrun.

Just so this is clear, "they" that TedE refers to is "Shaw's Tavern," not the "Hoagie House" space.

[Yes, Hoagie House's new incarnation will get its own thread.]

[New Foodie]

After the original debacle of the first owners being shady about getting the liquor license, the new owners opened it for brunch and lunch in February and then recently opened for dinner as well once they got their liquor license. We didn't have a chance to visit before this morning, but had been following the saga and looking forward to trying it.

Although the patio wasn't set up this morning, they have a nice space for some outside dining. Inside there are maybe 3-5 big communal tables, a number of seats at the bar, and 6 or 7 2-4 tops made out of what look to be old barrel tops or some other industrial design. The decor is an interesting mix of industrial (ducts running across the ceiling, etc) and old tavern (lots of wood).

It opens at 9am on Sundays, and we arrived shortly after 10. We were seated immediately, and while it was busy this morning, there were always seats available, so it wasn't quite packed. Our server was nice and came by frequently to refill waters and bring anything we needed. When we left, no fewer than 4 people told us "goodbye" and thanked us for coming. Everyone was quite friendly.

As for the food, overall we came away pretty satisfied. My $8 Spicy Bloody Mary with Pickled Okra was not all that spicy, or large, and for the price I would probably pass next time. Otherwise, we were pleased with our orders.

We decided to indulge a bit by starting with the Pastry Basket ($8 - 2 Muffins, 2 Scones and Cinnamon Roll) which was delicious. It's more than enough to share among 4-5 people, so we ended up taking over half of it home for later. I don't know if the selection rotates, but we would be more than happy to have what we got today on the next trip. There were two giant muffins (one blueberry and one that appeared to be a simple banana nut, but upon cutting it open there was a large amount of Nutella filling), two large scones (one with ham, cheese, and jalapeno and one cinnamon), and a big "German Chocolate" cinnamon roll. Our favorites were the two muffins and the ham scone, but honestly everything was good. It would be hard not to order this on future trips and I would recommend it to others.

I had the Chicken and Waffles ($13 - malted waffle, spicy fried chicken, with country ham butter, and honey), which also came with a small mixed greens salad. It was half a waffle (two Belgian quarters), and a large boneless fried chicken cutlet. The chicken had some nice flavor, and when eaten all together with the waffle and ham butter was tasty. I don't love honey so I asked for some maple syrup on the side and that really brought the whole salty and sweet thing together nicely. I'd probably branch out and try something different next visit, but would recommend this dish.

My +1 had the House Brisket ($9 - with cheddar cheese gravy on toast). This was a fairly large plate of food with a thick cut piece of toast topped with slices of brisket and smothered in cheesy gravy. It probably could've used a vegetable or salad or side of some kind to cut the richness, but it was very flavorful and we both liked it a lot.

As we ate we saw a flatbread come out, the grits and pork belly, an omelet, waffle, French toast, and a few other dishes and they all looked good. We're looking forward to going back for brunch but also to try it out for dinner at some point. Glad to have a new place not too far down the road from us!

[Rieux]

Went last night before heading to the 9:30 club to see Willie Nelson. We had tried to go to Bistro Bohem, but they apparently close on Mondays. I liked the decor in Shaw's and the Chocolate City Copper Ale on tap was really good. But the food was just "eh". My friend and I both had burgers. At $14 each I was expecting a really good burger. What we got was not worth it.

The meat (which was decent) was cooked way over the medium rare I asked for. The arugula they give you instead of lettuce was wilted. The tomato slice was so thin I could see through it, and the fries were definitely sysco frozen fries. The bleu cheese I got on the burger was not melted.

All in all, seems like a decent bar, but I would not go back for food. For $14 I could have had a burger at Palena or a burger and fries at Ray's. I could get a better burger for 8 bucks at Stoney's. Sadly, my Shaw's burger was just barely above a whopper in quality.

[bettyjoan]

I have driven past Shaw's Tavern a zillion times, and from the outside, it always looked crowded and like people were having a good time.  So, Jason and I decided to go on Tuesday night to eat and watch the SOTU (which they were playing upstairs on their big projection screen).  The downstairs was very full when we arrived just after 7 PM.  They were doing 2-for-1 draft beers and half off burgers, which I thought was just a SOTU special - but those are the deals every Tuesday night.  We tried two appetizers, the lamb poutine (which was not bad but not great - I'm not a huge fan of their fries) and the calamari (which was delicious - breaded and fried perfectly, and nicely seasoned).  We also split a burger with jalapenos and swiss, which was not as good as our standby (The Big Board on H Street), but still not bad, especially at half price.  The draft list is small but interesting - we stuck with DC Brau's Corruption.  For two apps, one burger, and 6 total beers, the tab was about 50 bucks.

Not sure I would go back at full price, but that is a darn good special, and we will definitely return to take advantage of it again.