Tommy Wells Community Office Hours Tonight 5:30-7 at Fruit Bat (1236 H St)

Tommy Wells resumes his H Street Office Hours this Thursday, at H Street's newest business Fruit Bat (1236 H St).  Stop by to catch up with Ward 6's Councilmember or to try one of Fruit Bat's tasty cocktails or South American streetfare.  Their food is every bit as good as their drinks and they specialize in fresh fruit juice, so there are good options for those who are not imbibing as well.

Please join Councilmember Wells this Thursday evening September 23rd from 5:30 – 7:00 pm. for a Special H Street NE Community Office Hours at Fruit Bat, 1236 H Street NE (formerly the Martin Lounge, located next to The Pug). Come out and meet with Councilmember Wells and bring your community concerns.

In order to provide accessibility to residents who cannot attend the morning office hours, Councilmember Wells will periodically host H Street Community Office Hours in the evening.

Link roundup

Frozen Tropics rounded up some bloggers reviews of various H Street venues.

Your Truly already rounded up a lot of praise for and photos of this year's H Street Festival.

We Love DC likes, but does not love the food at Biergarten Haus (1355 H St).

Biergarten Haus (1355 H St) kicked off Oktoberfest with eleven additional taps devoted to various Oktoberfest beers.

The Washington Post has Sticky Rice (1224 H St) on their list of Best Bets for Meatless Fare, highlighting their Garden Balls (vegan rice-and-veggie-stuffed bean curd pockets) and G.I. Jane roll (cumumber and cream cheese roll deredged in crushed wasabi peas).  The online version of the list also touts Ethiopic (401 H St) for their Vegetarian Sample Platter, which is outstanding. 

The Argonaut (1433 H St) announced that they would have the famed Lobster Truck on hand on Friday night.

The Hill is Home noted a lot of local businesses are in the running in the Express's Best Of 2010 Polls and ran a Best Coffee on the Hill Poll (which is clearly being manipulated by the folks at Ebenezers).  In a fair poll, Sidamo would be spelled properly and they'd be neck and neck with Peregrine with Ebenezer's a distant third or fourth.

Best. Festival. Ever.

If you missed this year's H Street Festival, you missed out.  By all accounts, it was the biggest and the best one yet.  Mark your calendar now for the H Street Festival 2011: Saturday, September 17, 2011.  Next year, it wont coincide with Yom Kippur, so the attendance should be even better than this year's.  No official turnout estimate has come in yet, but many are predicting that the number of people in attendance exceeded 30,000, which is twice the number of 2009 attendees, which was three times the 2008 turnout of 5,000.  It certainly felt like there were twice as many people as last year and the great crowd was a real sign of progress on H Street and a tribute to the neighborhood and its many wonderful and diverse small businesses many of whom really went all out to do great sidewalk cafes, provide special menus and performances and events, and to promote the Festival.

TBD,  DCist, The Hill Is Home, and Frozen Tropics all have great pictures up.  Julia Christian of CHAMPS snapped one of our Mayor-elect (to be) Vince Gray who I'm told grew up just north of H Street.   

It was a truly beautiful day and there was a great crowd to enjoy the many, many fun and tasty offerings.  Our existing businesses brought their best, and soon-to-open spots like Toki Underground, Smith Commons, and Queen Vic showed why H Street is on the verge of becoming one of DC's best dining destinations.     

A hearty congratulations and a huge thank you to all the organizers and planners who volunteered to make the Festival possible.  Margaret Holwill (who can be followed at twitter.com/hstreetdc) handled overall logistical coordination and media relations and, in particular, deserves great praise and appreciation for volunteering countless hours to make the Festival a resounding success as she does many things on H Street.  Holwill also identified the following people as playing leadership roles in pulling things together along with H Street Main Street:

Mary Ellen (Dolly) Vehlow, owner of Gallery OonH, and president of Pensare Design, an award-winning graphics firm, that also does the graphics for the Cherry Blossom Festival, Pew Foundation, Downtown BID, and many other groups.  Creative genius and muse for the Festival.  She also provided the Festival website which now includes design continuity.  Dolly and her husband Steve Hessler have long been involved in H Street.  They sponsor the Art Car exhibit which is conducted as a juried event.  They also sponsor the Speed Chess, Oral History tent, and many of the artists who show at the Festival. They contribute generously to H Street causes especially the Festival.

Steve Lambert, Talent Buyer for Rock and Roll Hotel and head of Hood Booking, one of the Top 10 music bookers on the East Coast.  Steve books over 100 bands a month from the 1000s he listens to until his ears bleed. He books the stage talent for the Festival and coordinates with the production company.

Julia Christian, Executive Director of CHAMPS. She is a "corporate loan" from the Board of Directors of CHAMPS to organize the applications process, day-to-day graphic, production of the Festival program, and other invaluable items.  Julia can do anything.

Gail Montplaisir, Taurus Design, who specializes in environmental design.  Gail organized the Green Street Exhibit and obtained grant money from DC Arts and Humanities to cover the costs of some of the artists who performed at the Festival.

Leonard Howell, Donohoe Companies, commercial real estate, who organizes vendors.  He orders all of the equipment necessary to stage the Festival and oversees its installation within a few wild and crazy hours on the morning of the Festival.  Leonard also arranged extended service for the H Street Shuttle and added a route from Eastern Market for the Festival.

Cody Bateman, the sound producer from National Events LLC  the professional production company that provided all of the stages, sound equipment, mechanicals, and technicians.

Charles Allen, Chief of Staff to CM Tommy Wells, who provided a government liaison nexus, helping with the Mayor, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, Metropolitan Police Department, DC Fire and EMS, DDOT, DCRA, and other.  Tommy Wells' office also facilitated the free bike valet in addition to lending us the services of Charles Allen - right in the middle of a political campaign.  We are really grateful.

There are others that did stuff but that's the main crew in addition to, of course, the business community who all worked to provide special offerings and to help promote the event.

It was awesome.  Thanks all!

The Atlas Room at the H Street Festival (& coming soon to 1015 H St)

The Atlas Room (1015 H St) wont be officially open in time for tomorrow's H Street Festival, but like other coming soon H Street businesses, including Smith Commons (1245 H St), Queen Vic (1204 H St), and Toki Underground (1234 H St, 2nd Fl), they plan to participte.  Atlas Room owner, Chef Matt Cordes will be on hand for the festival and will dish up a version of a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich with a smoked duck mousse.  Sounds delicious.  Check out their cooking tomorrow and look for the Atlas Room to open on H Street soon.  

Follow these links for previous posts on the Festival participation of Queen Vic, Smith Commons, and Toki Underground (via Frozen Tropics).

The H Street Festival runs tomorrow from noon until 7 p.m. and various events inside H Street restaurants, galleries, performing arts venues, and bars will continue into later into the night.  

Living Social: $39 for unlimited yoga at Bikram Yoga Capitol Hill (410 H St)

Today's Living Social Deal of the Day offers a significant discount on Bikram Yoga Capitol Hill (410 H St).  $39 gets you one month of unlimited yoga, which would regularly cost $175.  Bikram Yoga is Lady Gaga approved.  If you have been meaning to try Bikram Yoga, this is a great opportunity to do so.

H Street Festival 2010 - Bigger and better than ever & everything you need to know

This year's H Street Festival is going to be like this year on H Street -- better than ever. 

All your favorites restaurants, bars, pie shops, performing arts venues, art galleries and more are bringing their A game.  Many of the spots you have heard are coming and are excited to see open on H Street in the coming months will be there to give you a preview of great things to come. 

Thanks to the Rock and Roll Hotel, the two stages of live music will be back with shows all day long at 10th and 14th St.  The tattoo competition is on again thank to Gallery OonH and British Ink at 4:15 p.m. (register here).  The amazing Art Cars are coming back, thanks again to Gallery OonH.  So is the boxing ring, fashion show, and other urban sports.  There'll also be a Dangerously Delicious Pie eating competition at 2 p.m. (register here) and DC Roller Girls. The Atlas Performing Arts Center, the Joy of Motion, DC Greenworks, Community Forklift will have events and booths going all day long.  Biergarten Haus has been popular since it opened and will be the place to be for tomorrow's Oktoberfest kickoff.  City Gallery (804 H St) will be open all day with their latest exhibit from Ellen Cornett up.  This year's Festival will be bigger than ever -- running from 8th Street all the way to 14th. 

Excited for the Festival, but not lucky to live close enough to walk?  Thanks to Councilmember Tommy Wells, there will be a bike valet available at the 8th and H St.  The H Street Shuttle from Chinatown (7th & H NW) will begin running early Saturday in time for the start of the Festival and there will also be a shuttle running back and forth from Eastern Market for folks who live closer to the South side of the Hill and for those for whom the blue and orange lines of the metro are more convenient. 

The Festival is officially at noon, but the party keeps going on H Street with the new "DC8 Totems" Pole exhibit on the 300 block of H, an Art Exhibit opening right after at Studio H (408 H St), music at Gallery OonH (1358 H St), Oktoberfest at Biergarten Haus, and dinner, shows, drinks, and more at all your favorite venues up and down the corridor. 

In recent weeks, the H Street Corridor has hosted Lady Gaga and former Governor/prowrestler Jesse "the Body" Ventura.  If you don't already know and love H Street, this is the time to come and see all that it has to offer.

Arboretum Place (1600 Maryland Ave) breaks ground, more development to follow

DCMud and DCUrbanTurf offer these updates on the ground breaking and plans for the new mixed use (retail-residential) development for Arboretum Place (1600 Maryland Ave) at the eastern end of the H Street Corridor near the Starburst Intersection.  The $36 million development will deliver 257 apartments, a 250 space parking garage, and 5,000 s.f. ground-floor retail with the first residencies targeted for occupancy in the spring of 2012.  UrbanTurf notes that the project has received the "luxury tag" and will include a pool, business center, gym, indoor half basketball court, entertainment space, and landscaped gardens complete with fireplace and “meditation courtyard.”  Arboretum Place will be near the Safeway and CVS at the Starburst Intersection and also the ALDI's which is being built at 1700 Maryland currently.   

Groundbreaking recently occured on two other medium-sized developments in the greater H Street area -- The Station (525 9th St) and The Firehouse (1341 Maryland) both historic renovations of old city service buildings.  Other projects have been planned for 200 block of H Street, the 300 block of H Street, the 600 block of H Street, the 800 and the 900 block of H Street.  At least three other plots along the eastern end of the corridor -- a lot in the middle of the 1100 block of H Street (though the plans for the 1100 block space have yet to be finalized), the old R.L. Christian Library (1300 H St), and the parcel that is currently home to Autozone (1207 H St) are expected to be slated for development before long as well.