Jump to content

The Coupe, Coffeehouse on 11th Street and Park Road in CHE by The Owners of Tryst


Recommended Posts

The Minneapolis-based furniture retailer Room & Board has purchased 1840 14th. St. NW (click for details). Can anyone confirm that the venture by Tryst and The Diner will not be opening elsewhere?

Just a couple weeks ago we went to visit family in Mpls. Room and Board is a great store that we've loved for years and hoped to get a location in this area. So we of course stopped in. When I was asked the phrase, "how can we help you today" I answered how about opening in DC? I was told that they could actually help me with that! laugh.gif The woman pulled it up on her computer and showed me the building that they purchased. Woot!

Washington City Paper did an article in March of this year and if you expand to read the whole thing it details the history very well...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Coupe, from the owner of Tryst, The Diner, and Open City, opened for business in Columbia Heights yesterday.

This is far from the most important aspect of a new restaurant in a great dining neighborhood, but I haven't been there yet so it's all I got: why is it spelled "coupe"? That's a two-door car. But they've got a bird theme, so wouldn't it be "coop"? Is it seriously possible that they mis-spelled it? Please help. This is irritating me to an unreasonable degree. I even looked up both spellings in the dictionary to make sure my vocabulary hadn't blown a fuse. (I am a nerd. An obsessive nerd.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone on Yelp said something like "the indifferent service and overpriced food that we've come to know and love at Tryst".

This is an unfortunately uncannily accurate review.

Cocktails at $11 were unbalanced and over-iced.

The best dish of the night was probably Buffalo Style Frog Legs - 11.99 Ascher bleu cheese, green apple and celery salad. Three very good sized and juicy frog legs, very lightly battered and fried until crisp. The buffalo-style sauce was unfortunately lacking in any heat, and why they thought that placing a slice of bleu cheese on the side of the plate rather than trying to incorporate it into the legs or salad didn't make sense. The salad worked, but also needed to be more aggressively spiced.

Market Day Chicken - 18.25 ¼ chicken confit , creamer potatoes, mushrooms, caramelized onion, thyme jus called to us, but couldn't see ourselves paying almost $20 for a 1/4 chicken, so we went with Rabbit Pot Pie - 18.50 Winter vegetables & rabbit confit baked in a savory pastry and Spaghetti & Meatballs - 14.99 Fresh hand-made pasta, San Marzano tomato sauce, garlic bread. The crust was the best part of the pot pie - insipid filling, with a very small amount of pretty tasteless rabbit. Spaghetti was much closer to angel hair in thickness, so once it made it to the table it was also pretty close to mush. The garlic bread was just grilled bread, the tomato sauce easily the best part of the meal, and the meatballs seemed to be half bread crumbs, with the oddest texture.

Stick with coffee.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, the service at The Coupe has room for improvement although it's better at the tables than in the couch area. But I disagree with the other comments about the food and pricing. And where else in DC can you sit for as long as you want, drink coffee, a smoothy or vodka, eat some of the best hasbrowns in the city, and not be bothered for hours? I haven't strayed much from the breakfast menu and those hashbrowns but I have yet to be disappointed with anything I ordered. The kale/apple smoothie makes any visit healthy eating.

This is a diner with great couches, arm chairs and a bar. It doesn't try to be much else and succeeds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...