Eric (left) and Mark (right) Flannery

Public relations is a crucial part of the restaurant business. Brothers Eric and Mark Flannery have learned that the hard way, having to put out their first fire before the flames of their burger grill are even lit.

The brothers Flannery began work on their forthcoming new restaurant, a planned gourmet burger joint called The Big Board, to be located in the former Toyland space on H Street NE, innocently enough. A few weeks ago, they created a logo design contest, advertised on a website recommended by a friend who runs a burger bar in Ocean City. For the sake of freelance designers, who might be unfamiliar with the overall H Street aesthetic, they described their intentions and the setting thusly: “we want to give the idea of a nice restaurant, but we are in a dive neighborhood.”

Oops.

When that unfortunate choice of words reached blogs across the city, critics pounced, accusing the brothers of being ignorant about H Street’s recent transformation and cheering for their failure. Lost in the furor was the fact that the brothers live in the neighborhood. The vitriol got worse when a draft of the restaurant’s website surfaced, littered with typos.

Now that a few weeks have passed and the dust has settled, the Flannerys are taking pains to be sure everything is in place before they try to promote the restaurant again. They say they were “shocked” at the rapid and negative response, but add that nearly all of the people they’ve met in person since the incident have been supportive of their efforts to bring more food options to the west end of H Street.

As for that sloppy first draft of a website? It was never meant for prying eyes.

“We had no intention of the website being public, it was actually just a shared space between us,” Eric says, noting that the site, now "under construction," was live for about 24 hours.

Such is the power of the microscope that scrutinizes every new establishment on H Street: one poor choice of words and a few typos have the guys apologizing and hoping that patrons will just give their upcoming restaurant a chance.

“We did a poor job with putting out some information, we accept full responsibility for putting out that information poorly, and we’ll do better on our next attempt,” says Eric, delivering an apology with a level of earnestness that would put a scandalized politician to shame.

Eric is equally cautious when answering questions about the concept for the restaurant, revealing few details about the menu beyond gourmet burgers, salads, and a full bar. The most detailed description of a menu item they offer is a pepper steak burger with a cognac cream sauce. It's the kind of high-quality burger, Mark says, that will separate the Big Board from D.C.’s growing glut of burger options.

The Big Board’s stock market-inspired beer program may also give it a leg up on its H Street neighbors. Prices will reflect demand, they say, dropping as more customers order a particular beer.

“Rather than us choosing the specials, the customers choose the specials based on what they’re ordering,” Mark says.

When asked about the degree of drinker collusion that the beer market will tolerate, Eric declines to reveal the exact spot at which the cost of a beer “crashes” and resets back to its full menu price.

“If we told you what the bottom was, you might not order anymore,” he says.

Though their adventures in food service got off to a bumpy start before it even began, the brothers say they’re looking forward to a successful opening in a few months, though they’re not sure about an exact opening date.

They wouldn’t want to be late and make anyone angry, after all.

421 H Street NE, site of the forthcoming Big Board

Photos by Nick DeSantis

Inevitably with every good interview, there is never enough space to fit every interesting detail. Herewith, the first in a series of outtakes from Young & Hungry's profile of the "Toque of the Town."

On my first visit to Toki Underground, the H Street corridor's hugely hyped new ramen joint, my friends and I were lucky enough (after an extended wait, of course) to land a spot at the three-seat chef's table where Erik Bruner-Yang was holding court in his trademark ball cap.

As we slurped our various noodle soups, one of my fellow diners immediately took note of the big dark-colored serving bowl sitting atop the counter in front of us, teasing us, like a beacon of untold tasty treasures. We were intrigued enough to ask about its contents.

"Fried onions," the chef replied. "Funyuns," my friend would go on to call them.

It was clearly stuff not intended for distribution among the regular clientele, like grated parmesan cheese or fresh ground pepper, but Bruner-Yang offered to let us try some. He scooped some into my bowl of curry broth, fried chicken and curly noodles. Adding crunch and considerable flavor, it kind of made the dish. I honestly felt a little cheated that I'd started on the soup without it.

During my interview with the chef a few weeks later, I asked him for  some more details about these fancy funyuns.

"That's a Vietnamese topping," Bruner-Yang explains. "They’re deep fried shallots. We brine and then we fry them."

The topping is not something Bruner-Yang has on hand very often. "It does go really great on that, but it’s so time-intensive," he says.

Still, if you're looking for something to spruce up your noodle soup the next time you finally get a seat at the trendy ramen shop, it doesn't hurt to ask the chef for a spoonful of his signature funyuns. Maybe you'll get lucky.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Historically during the weekends, the wait at Granville Moore's has bordered on the absurd or, to put it in more recent terms, on the lobster truck-esque. Some folks willingly wander around the Atlas District for two hours or more in order to secure a table at chef Teddy Folkman's moules frites emporium.

Which is the main reason why the proposed expansion of Granville Moore's can't come fast enough.

"We are definitely going to be expanding," Folkman told Y&H last week. "We don't know if it's going to be downwards or sideways, but it is definite that we're going to expand. It's frustrating to have a wait, people wanting to eat, and not having the space; the kitchen's capable of cranking out more food. Even though [the kitchen] is only 12o square feet, we're getting it really down to a science, especially with the addition of Maria Evans, the new chef de cuisine...She's really taken that place to another level."

There are limitations and issues with both options, however. An expansion into the basement will require an excavation team to remove all the concrete down there. An expansion into the empty space to the right will require more paperwork.

"We don't know what is going to get more bang for the buck, whether it's going down or going to the side," Folkman says. "Plus, if we go down, we have total control of everything; then we don't have to have another landlord and worry about leases and all the legal stuff."

Granville's wants to add only 26 seats, which doesn't seem excessive until you consider again the tiny size of the kitchen. I should add this about Granville's kitchen, too: As currently configured, half of it is dedicated to dish-washing.

But Folkman has a plan for expanding his cooking space as well. It's complicated. There's presently a room upstairs where Granville's stores its cases of Belgian beer. Folkman hopes to convert that space into a dish-washing room. In order to do so, however, Granville's has to finish two projects: the construction of new shelving around the restaurant and the installation of a new walk-in refrigerator, which will allow Team Granville to turn the old walk-in into a keg room, complete with a full-fledged tap system. At present, Granville's uses only sixtel keg fridges behind the bars for taps.

Completion of both projects will free up space to store beer around the establishment — and eventually free up space for Folkman to double the size of his working kitchen.

"We might actually add ovens, which I would be thrilled about. It's like, 'Wow, ovens! What can I do with that?" Folkman says. "Desserts, instead of having to outsource them, we can make them in-house. It's going to give us a lot more flexibility."

Given all the work involved to squeeze more people into Granville's, and to make the operation more efficient to handle these extra diners, you might be asking yourself a logical question: Why doesn't Granville Moore's just open a second location?

"We don't want to open another Granville Moore's because I don't think you could really do that," Folkman says. "It's like seeing a Ben's Chili Bowl in another location. It's just not going to be Ben's Chili Bowl."

Construction at Granville's should start this fall. A completion date is open ended, Folkman says, depending on the availability of construction crews and, of course, on the money to pay for the work.

Erik Holzherr, half-Colombian and the mixologist behind the Southeast cocktail parlor DC Wisdom, threw together the Fruit Bat concept with general manager Roxanna Fereydouni. Fruit bats are nocturnal and known to devour juice from fruits – a clever metaphor for the pair's fresh-juice concept.

“She was really pushing for an urban oasis. A relief from the construction and grittiness of H Street,” Holzherr says. “Kind of a feeling of healthy and fresh.”

“It’s hard to mess up a drink with fresh fruit,” Fereydouni says. “Most people are just used to getting juice from the gun."

Cocktails are mixed with a variety of fresh fruit, which will change with the seasons. La Revolucion and the Colombian Necktie are two that grace the drinks menu. The former is a mix of Bluecoat gin, apricot liquor, fresh grape fruit, and soda, while the latter has banana rum, aguardiente liquor, and fresh orange juice.

The bar also offers liquors infused with fruit and spices, and fruit beers on tap, like a raspberry lambic. If fruit isn’t your thing, the Bat also has a selection of South American and European bottled beers.

Holzherr wanted to concentrate on cocktails but make them “a little more approachable and people friendly, with a better price point,” he says. Specialty cocktails range from $8 to $10.

In the kitchen, the Fruit Bat serves up a menu reminiscent of South American street food – fried plantains with sour cream, coconut basmati rice and beans, handmade tortillas, and Cubano tacos, to name a few.

The bar will be open Wednesday through Saturday. The operation maybe, just maybe, will host live music, like salsa nights, Fereydouni says.

Holzherr hopes to open up the second floor in October or November, with an entirely different concept, which he wouldn’t divulge.

“That’s my real baby. That one was in the works in my head for years,” he says. “I plan to market it as an adult bar on H Street. A lot of the bars appeal to a younger crowd, so I want to appeal to a bit older crowd upstairs.”

And no, there probably won’t be any naked people – but you never know, he says.

Photos by Kim Chi Ha.

UPDATED: 1:31 p.m. Aug. 3

New chef de cuisine Maria Evans has been working with Teddy Folkman for nearly two months now at Granville Moore's, quietly tinkering and expanding the menu, and nobody knew about it.  What gives? How could they have kept this under wraps so long?

"It's a challenging kitchen," says a spokeswoman for the Atlas District restaurant, famous for its mussels, frites, and killer selection of Belgian beers. "She wanted to make sure she was comfortable" before telling Washingtonians about her presence.

Evans and Folkman have already rolled out a new late night menu, available from 11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Thursdays through Saturdays. It features six items, all $8, ranging from braised lamb sliders and griddled flatbread to fromage bleu poppers and risotto cakes.

The pair plans to expand the menu even more in the coming weeks. Look for composed plates and dinner entrees to go along with the moules frites and sandwiches. Some of the new dishes are already popping up as specials but a more complete menu overhaul should arrive later this month or next.

What kind of plates can you look forward to? How about a New England-style fried clam cake (essentially a fritter with house-made tartar)? Or a panko-crusted roasted red pepper stuffed with lump crab meat, risotto, and cheese? Or a plate of frites topped with malted chorizo and smoked gouda sauce?

Evans comes to Granville Moore's from Trio Restaurant, the two-year-old seaside restaurant in Narragansett, R.I., owned by the Newport Restaurant Group. Evans was the first female to serve as executive chef for one of the group's restaurants; she previously served as executive sous at the group’s Castle Hill Inn and Resort.

According to Evans' biography, she is not formally trained in the culinary arts:

Chef Evans took a non-traditional route to her culinary career. Originally hoping to become a physical therapist, she enrolled at the University of Rhode Island after graduating from Rogers High School in Newport in 1994. Quickly discovering that physical therapy wasn’t the field for her, she began working in kitchens around town until she could figure out what she wanted to do. It was while working as a line cook at the Castle Hill Inn & Resort in April 2000 that she decided she found her niche. Driven by the “thrill of the unknown,” Chef Evans has honed her craft over the past decade with hands-on training, and continues to be inspired by the chefs and cooks she collaborates with in the kitchen.

1016 H St. NE (202) 396-8733

UPDATED: 5:47 p.m., 6/21/2010

The irrepressible Chris Shott has more information on the Sunday morning fire that closed down the Argonaut, one of Y&H's top five eateries for onion rings. (And if you've had the Arognaut's honey-drizzled rings, you know that's not damning with faint praise.) Shott also draws upon his past as a D.C. nightlife reporter to lay out owner Joe Englert's unfortunate history with fire.

Y&H is trying to track down the elusive Englert even as I type, but a lot of info can already be found on the Argonaut's own Web site, including photos of the devastated kitchen (sound familiar?) and a prediction about when the place hopes to re-open. Short answer: before its August birthday, when the joint turns 5.

I just got off the phone with Englert who's relaxing (well, sort of) in the Adirondacks. He may want to stop visiting upstate New York. "Every time I go to the Adirondacks, something burns down," Englert says. The Capitol Lounge fires that Shott detailed both occurred while Englert was in the Adirondacks.

The owner says that the kitchen and half the bar were destroyed by the fire. "Aside from that, it's fine," he says about the structure. He doesn't have a damage estimate yet.

"It's disappointing because we were doing well there," Englert says. The Argonaut, with about 99 seats, was pulling down about $1.3 million in annual revenues, he adds.

Once he gets a structural OK from the city, Englert hopes to reopen at least the upstairs portion of the Argonaut and sell alcohol, with some light finger foods brought in from elsewhere. It will likely require a new tavern license from the city.

For now, Englert and his partners are helping their Argonaut employees find work, whether in one of Englert's other properties or elsewhere. "I'm sure we can beat the bushes and get them work."

Photo courtesy of the Argonaut

It's an issue that brick-and-mortar restaurants have been bitching about in other cities for awhile now: that food carts and food trucks steal their business. Now the battle has reached the D.C. area. We Love DC reports that the beloved District Taco has been forced to relocate because of complaints from Baja Fresh in Rosslyn.

This David vs. Goliath battle leads our latest edition of Food News You Can Use, if only because it gives you a glimpse into the tactics that an overextended chain will employ to stay alive.

More local food news after that jump.

• A car crashes into Rhodeside Grill in Arlington. [via ARL Now]
• Still no word on whether Wagamama has given up on D.C. [via WBJ's Top Shelf]
• A wood-oven pizzeria opens in Silver Spring, run by a guy from a long line of pizzaioli back in Naples. [via Urban Daddy]
• Scheiße! The much anticipated Biergarten Haus opening has been delayed. [via Frozen Tropics]
• WaPo wonders if the Obama White House really has the willpower to lower childhood obesity. [via All We Can Eat]
• Seaton Smith turns Cochon 555 into a long comedy routine. [via BrightestYoungThings]
• An early look at Slaviya, the Eastern European outpost that gobbled up the old Left Bank space in AdMo. [via Thrillist]
• District Taco is promising to rise again tomorrow — at a new location.

A perfectly mediorce meal was topped with a perfectly strange check ceremony. When I paid in cash, the waiter quickly returned with my change. When I started counting bills, he asked, "Oh, did you want the 50 cents?"

Taken aback, I said no and added the spare change to the tip. But in retrospect, I should have been more forceful about this bald assumption about my coinage. I'm sorry, 50 cents is not chump change. It is not automatically yours without my permission.

I asked the Twitterverse if this practice was cool and got a few responses:

• @scottreitz: I don't think it's even cool if they ask if I want change. Don't make me say yes. Just bring me my money. I'll leave a tip.
• @bonappetitfoodie: Decidedly uncool. Even if it's 50 cents, rather presumptuous & kinda rude to assume it's tip & you don't want your change back.
• @msfmary: Either the waiter should ask if you want change when you give them the check or, preferably, just assume you do and bring it ALL
• @xcanuck: My response: "Sir, it's ALL yours." and then I'd walk away with the bills. But I'm a bit of a jerk. :=)

Your thoughts?