Safeway Inc. decided to fully embrace the nickname D.C. residents long ago bestowed to its Georgetown store on Wednesday night. The grocery chain threw an elegant, exclusive party to celebrate the reopening of the newly reconstructed “Social Safeway” on Wisconsin Ave. It seems unlikely the company will soon start embracing many of the other monikers its D.C. area stores have earned. Can you imagine a gala celebrating the “Un-Safeway,” or the “Soviet Safeway”?…

The Safeway located at 1855 Wisconsin Ave. NW, more commonly known as the “Social Safeway,” at last has a reopening date: May 6 will be the big day, as the Washington Business Journal reports. The store has been closed for almost a year, while Safeway completely gutted and rebuilt it into one of their fancy new “lifestyle” locations. It will be open 24 hours a day, and include “specialty wine and cheese selection, a…

Attention Tenleytowners or those who have in the past or are likely to raise a fuss over future development in the Wisconsin Avenue corridor. The District is holding a public meeting tonight to discuss the draft proposal to reshape the corridor. What does that mean? Potential mid- and high-density residential and commercial development on plots of land between Georgetown and the Maryland line that could be upgraded. After a quick survey of the draft plan,…

Giant Food and joint-venture developers CHR LLC announced yesterday that a long-awaited 63,000 square-foot Giant supermarket/pharmacy will open in the Camp Simms area of Southeast (near Alabama Avenue and 15th Street SE) in spring 2006. The supermarket, whose planned construction in Ward 8 dates back at least five years, will stand alongside 25 acres worth of commercial development, worth some $37.5 million, in an area notoriously short on retail options. Attracting Giant, to Ward 8…

Ever since the Glover Park Whole Foods opened, it seems to have taken away a lot of the celebrity luster that the Social Safeway in Georgetown used to have a monopoly on. This DCist has seen a number of famous-for-D.C. types in the aisles of the Glover Park Whole Foods, including Joe Lockhart (when his Glover Park Group was actually in Glover Park.) Now we hear that last Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, with…

Paris Hilton, who was in Washington before Thanksgiving, brought her “film crew and entourage” to SomaFit on Wisconsin Avenue and “commandeered” the “posh” gym, according to MSNBC’s Jeannette Walls. It was apparently for a reality television show, Paris had a pedicure and Walls’ source says that the hotel heiress has big feet. Since Ms. Hilton was filmed sans “Simple Life” co-star Nicole Richie, perhaps Paris has a new reality show in the works. DCist speculates that…

It seems that Burleith, that unassuming neighborhood often mistakenly called “Upper Georgetown” is developing a bit of its own commercial identity. The business strip of Wisconsin Avenue between R Street and the Social Safeway has gained a new restaurant, the Curry Club, which one local food reviewer tells DCist could become quite popular. The executive chef, Chris Payton, learned how to cook curry when his wife, Princess Parule (who started BBC America six years ago)…