Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

Open City restaurant/bar/cafe, which opened two days ago and is located at the corner of Connecticut & Calvert in Woodley Park, is the third in the Tryst & Diner (T/D) line. The owner, Constantine Stavropoulos, clearly has a refined eye for restaurant design because he pays attention to the details. I've always loved the ceilings in his places. I hate restaurants that look great, but looking upwards reveals saggy, brown-stained office tiles. In this sense, Stavropoulos has cut no corners.

The coffee is the same as T/D, which is arguably the best in the city. The menu has the standard Diner-type selections, but they've tried to combine all the best from T/D so it's more of an any-time-you-want stopping point. I suppose all their food is as good as the T/D varieties. My only complaint is that their "Classic Martini" lists Grey Goose vodka as the main ingredient. Are there no standards in this world? A classic martini must be a gin martini. A fictional person, James Bond, was the one who created the vodka martini as recent as the 1960s; but the gin-based cocktail had been around since the late 19th century and was created by real humans. But that's a rantlet for another post ...

The upshot is that I can now walk to 161 places to eat or drink instead of 160. Seeing how much business T/D have, I expect my neighborhood's 161st to be around far longer than the prior 160 try-hards.