Federalist Pig might be coming to Upshur Street. &pizza co-founder Steve Salis bought the building that formerly housed Slim’s Diner for $2.2 million, and one tentative plan is to use the space for a pop-up version of his Adams Morgan barbecue joint. The Washington Business Journal first reported the news.
Salis tells DCist that he eventually plans to turn the former Slim’s into a gourmet fried chicken spot. In two years, when he estimates the project could debut, “I don’t want to read … that Popeye’s has the best fried chicken in D.C. anymore,” he says “It drives me crazy.”
In the short term, though, his plans are up in the air.While the restaurateur noted that he doesn’t have any firm plans, he said a pop-up at the building at 4201 Georgia Ave, N.W. could incorporate Federalist Pig’s new “Fed-wich” initiative, a selection of barbecue sandwiches available for delivery from one of his other businesses, Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe, to comply with restrictions on D.C. restaurants during to the coronavirus crisis. Salis also owns Ted’s Bulletin and the space once occupied by American City Diner.
Slim’s closed up shop in early 2019 after three years in business. The diner joined a growing list of businesses that had closed along the small but packed Upshur Street, hailed by the New York Times in 2014 as “the future of dining in Washington D.C.” Owners blamed a series of closures on heavy rainfall that year, and a lack of residential and commercial density in the area.
Slim’s former owner, Paul Ruppert, told DCist at the time of the diner’s shutdown that it faced “challenges from the beginning. In hindsight we should have opened more slowly (breakfast first, then add lunch, then add dinner) in order to get our sea legs. The first few months had ups and downs and it was difficult for us to recover. In recent months we made progress in service and quality of food, but we never gained the momentum back to increase our customer counts to a level that could sustain us.”
Ruppert is the former owner of Upshur Street Books—which after he sold it rebranded as Loyalty Books—and the bar Petworth Citizen. Both businesses merged this year into a bookstore-bar hybrid. He also launched a short-lived co-working space in the Slim’s building called Third Floor last March. Salis says Ruppert is not involved with any current plans for the space.
Salis says he’s currently renovating the second and third floors, a project that began before the coronavirus pandemic set in, and plan to lease them out, but the timeline depends on how long the shutdown lasts. “One foot in front of the other,” he says. “That’s what we’re doing right now.”
