This morning, Andy Shallal broke ground on what will be the fifth D.C. location of Busboys and Poets, and one of just a handful of sit-down restaurants east of the Anacostia River.

Mayor Muriel Bowser attended the groundbreaking offering thanks to Shallal, who she named chair of the District’s Workforce Investment Council last year. The Anacostia location is “a project that’s going to enhance the neighborhood,” she said. “It’s always been my focus to make sure that development isn’t happening to the community, but with the community.”

In a building owned and operated by Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative—a non-profit that serves families in Ward 8—Busboys is not only opening a full service restaurant, but the Hospitality and Culinary Leadership Institute. “This training restaurant will lead to actual employment,” Perry Moon, executive director of FSFSC, said in 2014 when the partnership was announced. The collaborative will also house an office space in the building.

The restaurant is being established amidst other big developments in Ward 8 including the 11th Street Bridge Park and a sports arena at St. Elizabeth’s. Still, sit-down restaurants remain scarce east of the river, with only a handful of them serving nearly 150,000 residents in Wards 7 and 8. Meanwhile, other parts of the city and the surrounding suburbs saw roughly 85 restaurants open just this summer, according to Eater.

Busboys, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last year, has four locations in the District, one in Shirlington, and another in Hyattsville. It’s a place “where art and community and passion and politics can be celebrated over food and wine and laughs and tears in some cases,” Bowser said.

Originally, the new location was slated to open this spring, but it was later moved up to the summer of 2017, according to Urban Turf, or “worst-case scenario,” next November.

Filed Under: anacostia busboys, andy shallal, Busboys and Poets, food desert, groundbreaking,