Photo by Yonas Hassen

Police said that Joey Belcher, owner of the H Street NE restaurant Sticky Rice, was found dead Monday in his Capitol Hill apartment. Belcher was 37.

Belcher was found at 3:28 p.m. on Monday. Authorities who responded his apartment on the 200 block of I Street NE found him on the floor, unconscious and not breathing, according to Officer Araz Alali, a Metropolitan Police Department spokesman. “There were no signs consistent with life,” he added.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner took custody of Belcher’s body and will conduct an autopsy. At this time Belcher’s death is not being investigated as a homicide, Alali said.

Belcher opened his off-kilter sushi restaurant in 2008, as H Street was beginning to be built into the District’s newest nightlife scene with a string of dining and entertainment establishments. Sticky Rice also has locations in Richmond and Baltimore. Belcher was also a part-owner of 1905, a bistro on U Street NW and a food truck specializing in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Calls to Sticky Rice went unanswered, but there were several messages in Belcher’s memory left on the restaurant’s Facebook page. “We are family, and we will get through this Sticky Rice D.C.,” one employee wrote.