Dining in Apartment Buildings

[DonRocks]

This is a bizarre coincidence:

This one is in the running for strangest location. Turn in to the Seven Springs Apartment complex on Cherry Hill Road, drive back past several high rise buildings until you reach the large central pond/rec center, and look for the apartment building facing the pond that has a neon "OPEN" sign in one of the small windows at the garden level. This is the "mall" for the large complex, including a convenience store and this small Jamaican cafe.  We parked with no problems in the nearby parking area, although a sign at the complex entrance says that permits are required.

It appears Al Crostino is also running the dining room at The Westchester, one of the few grand old DC apartment dining rooms still in operation.

[Tweaked]

The Washington City Paper had a great piece on these apartment dining rooms back in 2011.

[CanY]

The Washington City Paper had a great piece on these apartment dining rooms back in 2011.

 

I was thinking to myself that it would be fun to be a DC apartment/residence dining room. And then I read the piece from The Washington City Paper only to find that the Pines of Florence space is mentioned as one. Perhaps I should have wished for the winning numbers for tomorrow night. Also I was happy to read about Muslu's.

[The Hersch]

I was thinking to myself that it would be fun to be a DC apartment/residence dining room. And then I read the piece from The Washington City Paper only to find that the Pines of Florence space is mentioned as one. Perhaps I should have wished for the winning numbers for tomorrow night. Also I was happy to read about Muslu's.  

I don't think the space once occupied by the Pines of Florence on Connecticut was ever an old-style apartment-house dining room. If anyone out there hasn't had a look at James M. Goode's wonderful Best Addresses, mentioned in the CP article, it's a must. But that building on Connecticut between Wyoming and Kalorama isn't old enough or grand enough to have had an in-house dining room, and even if it had one it wouldn't have been that poky little space off the street. Also, I don't believe the CP article's implication that the Shoreham and the Mayflower were originally apartment houses is correct. The current Churchill hotel across from the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue was indeed a grand apartment house, the Highlands. According to Goode, both it and the Westmoreland just behind it on California Street were owned and operated by the same firm, and the buildings shared a heating plant. Both buildings had their own dining rooms, but at some point they consolidated them (during WWII?), and provided an underground passageway for the Westmoreland residents to get to their dinner at the Highlands without going outdoors. The Westmoreland is now a co-op, and quite beautiful inside.

[Tweaked]

According to Goode, when the Mayflower opened in 1925, it housed 440 hotel rooms and 100 apartments. The apartments had a seperate entrance along DeSales St. The apartments where converted to hotel rooms in the late 1950s.

Likewise the Shoreham Hotel opened in 1931 with 132 apartments and 250 hotel rooms. The apartments were converted in the early 1950s.

[The Hersch]

According to Goode, when the Mayflower opened in 1925, it housed 440 hotel rooms and 100 apartments. The apartments had a seperate entrance along DeSales St. The apartments where converted to hotel rooms in the late 1950s.

Likewise the Shoreham Hotel opened in 1931 with 132 apartments and 250 hotel rooms. The apartments were converted in the early 1950s.

Thanks. All of my books are currently packed up, so I couldn't look this up. It was once fairly common for large hotels to have apartments as well as regular hotel rooms, but the CP article's suggestion that the restaurants in the Mayflower and the Shoreham were once apartment-house dining rooms is still, I think, wide of the mark, since both were always hotels.