All literally under the office of Richard Levy…talk about a bad place to try and sneak in a remodel. Oh, and from her office vantage point it was interesting to watch the demolition of Aux Fruits de Mer and then the long delayed rebuilding where only the street facade remained.
My other half used to work behind it and would be greeted every morning with the wave of bacon being cooked. I have to admit that I do love the Five Guys, recently named the best burger chain in the USA by Zagat, even if the use of the space by Five Guys seems out of place (I mean that beautiful bar sits vacant after how many nights of heart to heart conversations on the chairs there). I also do not miss that its phone number was one digit off of mine then and now, so the calls for the place were way too frequent. It certainly had its issues, terrible bathrooms, the fire and the big issue of illegal workers and under the table payments that led to the government raiding it and auctioning off its assets at one point. Later on it was as a post performance hangout for alums where they would just leave the bottle of vodka on the table for us. (i.e., the A & P) on the side of the far right building.Īu Pied was one of only a couple of places in Georgetown with 24 hour service…and was an all too frequent destination of the late night theatre crews when I was in college at GU. One last cool item: in both pictures, you can see an old ad for The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. Now the building is faced with metallic formstone. A rather dramatic and unfortunate renovation of that neighboring space took place in 2004. It looks like the restaurant once spread over to the space next door. Hopefully someday it will revert back to a French bistro. Not that having Five Guys is remotely better, though. GM would like to say he misses the old place, but frankly he thought the service and the fare did not live up to the atmosphere.
to the Soviet embassy in order to un-defect. Most famously it was the location where in 1985 Soviet defector Vitaly Yurcenko escaped from his CIA handlers by sneaking out the bathroom window and running up Wisconsin Ave.
Georgetown’s Au Pied du Cochon was not without its sordid history. Several other Au Pied du Cochons exist throughout the globe, including a rather well regarded one in Quebec. The Georgetown location was probably named after the famous Paris brasserie of the same name, which has been open since 1947. This week on Not So Long Ago, GM stops by an old favorite for a lot of Georgetowners: the late Au Pied du Cochon.Īu Pied du Cochon means “With a Pig’s Foot”.