Furstenberg Is Forced to Expand Beyond Street Foods
Mark Furstenberg’s vision for his new G Street Food was simple: He wanted to bring some of the world’s greatest street foods to a city that has some of the worst. It’s too bad that Washingtonians don’t seem to appreciate them. Or at least don’t seem to appreciate them as much as Furstenberg and his partners had hoped.
The master baker says that revenues at G Street Food, in the first few weeks of operation, are down at least 40 percent from projections. It’s enough to cause concern for the owners of the place, the Choi family, who “expected it to do well from the beginning,” Furstenberg tells Y&H.
Furstenberg doesn’t quite know how to explain the slow start for G Street Food. He takes part of the blame. He thinks he opened with too few items on the menu and the ones he did offer were not familiar enough to the professional set who crowd these downtown sidewalks looking for lunch options. He has literally seen people walk into G Street, look at the menu, and walk right out.
So he has done what he really didn’t want to do: He’s expanded the menu beyond street foods. Along with his banh mi and socca and merguez sausage, Furstenberg now sells a muffuletta, sloppy Joe, meatball sub, and even an egg salad sandwich.
Furstenberg’s not selling anything that he’s “embarrassed about,” he says. “But it’s not what I intended to do. Hopefully I will one day get back to street food.”
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Linked From: November 6th, 2009A Wide-Ranging Look at Beijing Street Food - Young & Hungry - Washington City Paper
2:26 pm[...] Furstenberg may be finding it a challenge to sell the world’s best street foods to Washingtonians, but at least he wasn’t hawking hand-held snacks in China during Chairman Mao’s reign. [...]
10:24 am
This is so true! I went to G Street Foods last week and did find the menu confusing and unfamiliar. What I got in the end I enjoyed, but it took me a while to figure out what I wanted because the menu was not very descriptive. I appreciate that now they will be offering a wider selection, but a better solution would be to just have more explanation both on the menu and from the staff.
11:05 am
I’ve loved the place from the start. His first reason for so few items was he wanted staff to get up to speed before adding more things to the list. Hope this place takes off like it should.
11:42 am
Not a bad thing to add more items to the menu, as long as he doesn’t cut any. I’ve only been there once but the banh mi was probably the best you can get on that side of the river.
1:49 pm
Are the muffalettas on the menu yet? If so, have you tried it yet, Tim?
You know how tough it is to find a good muffaletta here in DC…
8:54 pm
Mike,
They are on the menu. It’s not a muffuletta like you’ll find in Nawlins. The bread is round, yes, but it’s lighter and airier. The meats, cheese, and olive salad are loosely combined in the bread. It’s a little hard to eat, but quite tasty.
-Tim