Dolcezza Gelato, the popular local frozen treat and coffee chain, will be closing five of its retail locations in October, the owners announced Tuesday.
Dolcezza will close its shops at Bethesda Row, The Wharf, CityCenter, Logan Circle, and Dupont Circle. Its coffee bar in the lobby of the Hirshhorn Museum, as well as its two Virginia stores in the Mosaic District will “remain open with no plans to close.” Dolcezza products will still be available in some grocery stories, including all Whole Foods store nationwide, as well as by delivery, according to a statement from owners Violeta Edelman and Robb Duncan on the company’s site.
“Our world and our industry has been rocked to its core this year, and we are adapting with it to make it though to the other side,” the shop wrote in a thread on Twitter. “These stores have been our anchors and yours in this city, and we are immensely grateful for the privilege of sharing space with you all over the last 16 years.”
Edelman and Duncan did not reveal the fate of Dolcezza’s spacious factory at Union Market. The owners did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Dolcezza, which often ranks on local best gelato and best ice cream lists, is one of countless businesses facing a harsh reality because of the coronavirus pandemic. Numerous D.C. restaurants, some of them longtime mainstays of the food and nightlife scene, have closed in the last few months. Like Dolcezza, a handful of local chains have downsized during the pandemic, including Matchbox, Peregrine Espresso, and the Hilton Brothers’ restaurant group.
In June, Duncan and Edelman signed onto a Washington Post op-ed asking landlords to provide some rent relief for bars and restaurants.
“If we do not receive some rent relief soon, landlords’ alternatives won’t be other tenants paying boom-time rents: It may well be no restaurant and bar tenants at all,” reads the op-ed, organized by Simone Jacobson, co-owner of Thamee and Derek Brown, president of Drink Company. “Nobody wins if D.C. storefronts are left empty and our once passionate and thrilling bar and restaurant scene is no more.”
Dolcezza shuttered its retail locations in March, when the coronavirus pandemic set in around the region, and gradually began to reopen as local governments lifted stay-at-home orders.
Dolcezza first opened in 2004 with a single location in Georgetown.
“Since then, our lives have centered around our family businesses,” Duncan and Edelman wrote on the site. “We learned the importance of local farming and being guided by the seasons. We became parents of three beautiful little girls.” Edelman and Duncan say their daughter’s first job was selling pints of gelato at the Dupont Circle farmer’s market, alongside her grandmother.
Dolcezza grew from a single shop into a successful local chain and national brand. This past January, the gelato products launched in more than 500 Whole Foods locations around the country. But the pandemic wasn’t the first time Dolcezza faced financial challenges.
In 2018, Dolcezza lowered its baristas’ hourly pay several dollars, switching to a tipped wage system. The owners argued it was necessary to stay afloat as the cost doing business in D.C. continued to rise.
“D.C. now is a totally different landscape than what it was when we opened up in 2004,” Duncan told DCist at the time. “Businesses have to be super smart to navigate all these costs.”
In their announcement, the co-owners did not specify exactly when their five stores would close, only that it would be during the month of October. “We hope you will come spend some time with us over the next couple weeks,” they wrote.
