DC Reynolds is closing after eight years in Park View amid (what else?) a steep rent hike. As one mourning fan writes on Twitter, the “neighborhood just got less cool.”

The laid-back spot—beloved for its buy-one-get-one happy hour, a spacious back patio, old school hip-hop playing from the speakers, free Thanksgiving buffet dinners, and packed trivia nights—will close in April when the lease is up, according to co-owner Justin Gifford. Popville first reported news of the closure.

Gifford tells DCist that the proposed rent would have been a 40 percent increase and that efforts to negotiate were in vain.

The DC Reynolds crew has gotten used to seeing places come and go in the area, but Gifford says it still “sucks.” He doesn’t put full blame on landlord Douglass Development, but says that the exploding real estate market across D.C. makes it difficult for small businesses to survive in the District.

Walking distance from the Georgia Ave-Petworth Metro station, DC Reynolds is part of a three-property strip owned by Douglass Development; the Washington Post’s Fritz Hahn points out that the properties are up for sale.

In recent years, a string of nearby Petworth locales have also shut their doors—Domku closed on Upshur Street NW in 2016 after a 66 percent rent hike, followed by the shuttering of Ruta del Vino in 2018 after a two-year run. Union Drinkery closed up shop in April.

Rumors of Qualia Coffee moving from Georgia Avenue dissipated in February, but have kept devoted customers on edge.

As DC Reynolds prepares to close, Gifford says he and the other two owners can’t pinpoint just one memory they’ll cherish the most—they’ll miss all of it. “From the start, we wanted to be a neighborhood bar, and that’s what we became,” he says. “We were embraced by the neighborhood.”

All three co-owners have other ventures and concepts they plan to focus on, including co-owner Jeremy Gifford’s Navy Yard sports bar, Walters. They’ve announcing the DC Reynolds closure well in advance to give employees plenty of time to figure out what’s next, Giffords says.

For now, the owners say they plan to keep the buy-one-get-one happy hour alive for six days a week, and they look forward to their last spring patio season.

Until then, Giffords invites customers to celebrate the past eight years: “Come out and enjoy what we have left.”