A view of Cap City Diner from across the street

If the tone of Matt Ashburn‘s e-mails indicates anything, the Capital City Diner owner sounds a lot calmer than he was back in August when he and business partner, Patrick Carl, were battling with Washington Gas over the installation of a new line.

Ashburn has been updating Y&H on the progress of the classic 1940s-era  diner, which the partners moved from upstate New York to a spot at 1050 Bladensburg Road NE in Trinidad. Ashburn says that Carl decided to quit his day job to help facilitate construction on the project.

Writes Ashburn:

Construction is coming along really well, and we’re nearly done with the major work. We still have to finish the drywall inside, install some plumbing fixtures, and get utilities (gas & electric) connected. I went ahead and used a credit card to pay for the gas installation, and they were supposed to install the line last week. They rescheduled to today, but told Patrick this morning that they would probably have to get to us on Monday. We just had an electric inspection to allow Pepco to connect the line from the street, but that’s also more expensive than initially quoted, so we’re trying to talk them down on the install price.

We thought we’d be able to open late this month, but the utility delays will push the date back to next month.

Ashburn says the partners are also close to nailing down the final menu, although they haven’t settled on pricing yet. So what can we look forward to at Cap City Diner? Ashburn says the diner will…

serve breakfast all day long— pancakes, waffles, eggs, breakfast sandwiches, omelets, etc.

For lunch and dinner, we’ll add traditional diner fare— deli sandwiches, salads, steaks, Italian foods (spaghetti, chicken parm, veal parm), and rotating daily specials (meatloaf, pork chops, etc.). We will offer some vegetarian options too, and are still getting input on what else people would like to have.

Y&H is getting very hungry.