Like many new things in Bloomingdale, the plan to create a neighborhood-wide free wireless Internet cloud involves Big Bear Café at 1st and R streets NW. But where the café’s liquor license fight highlighted divisions within the gentrifying neighborhood, this plan began with a whiskey-fueled conversation about how to transcend them.
“A [...]
There have been so many plans for development of the McMillan Sand Filtration Site that if you put them together in a slideshow, it might make for a dramatic film—except with no clear heroes or villains, and no happy ending. Yet, at least.
The most recent main characters are trying to provide one. In their first [...]
The District has its share of made-up neighborhood names in between established areas–just ask the Borderstan folks–and Housing Complex just received a novel suggestion for another. You know the intersection of Florida, Rhode Island, and New Jersey Avenues? Reader David Feinstein, who works for the brand consulting firm Beveridge Seay, thinks it doesn't quite fit [...]
On the corner of 1st and T streets NW, tucked just a few feet back from the busy speedway of Rhode Island Avenue, a cream-colored building sat vacant for two years, drawing curious glances from passersby. In the last couple of months, it’s come to life, with construction noises emanating from the inside, and recently, [...]
Bloomingdale newshound Scott Roberts caught one of the stranger juxtapositions ever to grace a commercial break: An ad for Comcast's $30 billion acquisition of NBC Universal filmed in that indy-est of independent coffee shops, the Big Bear Cafe. Public interest groups have decried the deal as anticompetitive, and D.C.'s own Albritton Communications has been the [...]
When we last left Bloomingdale's Big Bear Cafe, owner Stu Davenport was hashing out a voluntary agreement with nearby residents to confine his proposed restaurant's hours of operation. But the early June deadline for that to happen came and went, according to Davenport, and he hasn't heard from the group after a few tries at [...]
Could the third time be the charm for Brian Brown?
The NextGen construction executive has been after the firehouse on North Capitol street and Quincy since 2003, submitting an unsolicited proposal before the city was even ready to dispose of the property. The District awarded him the building in 2006, and the future looked bright: Café [...]
ANC 5C Commissioner John Salatti is circulating a petition in a last-ditch effort to convince Yong Choe, who bought the corner building at 1821 1st Street last October, to turn it into anything other than a dry cleaners (since there's another dry cleaners just a hop skip away). It reads:
Although we definitely appreciate the owners’ [...]
On a breezy Saturday afternoon, the only sounds in the Big Bear Café at 1700 1st Street NW in Bloomingdale are the tapping of laptops and some hushed conversation, with the occasional shout of a finished sandwich or coffee order from the counter. Ceiling fans whirr overhead. Large open windows make it feel like an [...]
[Big Bear Café owner Stuart Davenport took a more active role in this week's meeting. Please excuse the shaky footage, I'm still getting used to this video thing.]
Last week, the debate over Big Bear Café’s application for a restaurant liquor license in Bloomingdale exploded into the open, with heated discussion at a meeting of ANC [...]
