On 18th Street, Adams Morgan's Revolving-Door Addresses Are Getting Their Next Acts
November 12, 2026
November 12, 2026
The two-level building at 2339 18th Street NW has been waiting a long time. Angles and Little Fountain served their last night there on Saturday, July 31, 2016, after about 23 years under the same owners. That September, the replacement plan was a Wingo's downstairs and a sports bar upstairs, with a target opening date of January 1, 2017.
On November 4, PoPville reported that Wingo's is still planned for the lower level. Above it, the new plan is Patina, a cocktail bar with a baby grand piano at the front, from Drinks with You, the team behind The Mirror and The Golden Age. According to the bar's team, its look draws on "storied old-world cocktail bars."
That phrase fits most of what is happening on 18th Street this fall. Very little of the new activity is a brand-new concept at a brand-new address. Operators are taking over rooms with long histories and bringing back formats that Adams Morgan, or the city, had already lost.
Most of the season's changes along the strip involve storefronts that have turned over before, some of them several times.
| Address | Earlier tenants | This fall |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 18th St NW | Imperial, closed May 2025 | CARLA, opened Sept. 24 |
| 2321 18th St NW | Bourbon, then Death Punch, which moved one floor down | The Boogiedown, opened in September |
| 2339 18th St NW | Angles and Little Fountain, closed July 31, 2016 | Wingo's downstairs, Patina upstairs |
| 2436 18th St NW | Eighteenth and Red, Mellow Mushroom, Big Sky, Baja Tap, The Jerk Pit | The Berliner, announced for this fall |
| 2429 18th St NW | La Fourchette, Los Cuates | Tsehay Ethiopian, closing temporarily by year-end |
CARLA opened at 2001 18th Street NW, at U Street, on September 24, in the corner space Imperial occupied until May 2025. It is run by Bill Thomas, who owns Jack Rose Dining Saloon, and his partner John Roberts.
Thomas has a history on this street. In the early 2000s he ran the Blue Room in Adams Morgan, which drew crowds for live music and electronic DJs. He told Washingtonian what the prices were back then:
"We would see people three, four days a week, but rail drinks were $4, beers were $5. Back then, cocktails were super cheap."
CARLA is his attempt to bring that back. In the same Washingtonian piece, Jessica Sidman reports that cocktails at neighborhood bars now often creep toward $20. At CARLA, no cocktail costs more than $13. The bar's announcement, as published by PoPville, lists $5 bites and $11 spritzes all day, every day. Happy hour runs Tuesday through Friday from 5 to 7:30 p.m., with $6 beers, $9 wines and $10 featured cocktails. CARLA takes walk-ins only. It is open Tuesday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., and closed Sunday and Monday.
The look of the place points back too. The bar's description mentions vintage photographs of Adams Morgan's old bar scene, live jazz, and a two-tiered open-air rooftop. Washingtonian puts CARLA in a small citywide group of bars with lower drink prices, alongside Franks Wild Years off 14th Street and Five Dollar Bar on U Street.
The same thing is happening further up the street. The Berliner, a German beer hall with house-made sausages and pretzels, closed at 3401 Water Street NW in Georgetown in 2022. At the time it cited multi-year renovations planned by the building's new owners. Its announced new home is 2436 18th Street NW. The Berliner belongs to the Popal Group, which also runs Lapis and Maison Bar à Vin in Adams Morgan.
The restaurant's own site puts it plainly: "The Berliner started in Georgetown. Now it's coming back to Adams Morgan this fall." If it opens, it will be the sixth concept at this address that PoPville has tracked, after Eighteenth and Red, Mellow Mushroom, Big Sky, Baja Tap and The Jerk Pit. So a beer hall that already proved itself in Georgetown is taking over a space where newer concepts kept turning over.
At 2321 18th Street NW, the space changed hands within the same building. According to Eater DC, owner Chris DeFelice opened The Boogiedown in September as a New York sports bar by day and a dance club by night. It has 10 TVs and 10 draft lines in the room that was Death Punch, which moved one floor down, and before that Bourbon. Eater also reported a plan to turn Shibuya Eatery's former downstairs kitchen into a late-night takeout window for chicken biscuits.
Patina, back at 2339, is designed to work with the restaurant below it. The team says guests may bring in food from the Wingo's downstairs. There will be a back room for events, an affordable price point, and a short list of wines and beers alongside non-alcoholic options. Like CARLA, it promises affordable drinks. In Adams Morgan, that now reads as part of the plan for these spaces.
The longest-running effort to keep something that already existed on this street was not a bar. It was the brick plaza at 18th Street and Columbia Road NW, which was created for community use in the late 1970s.
In 2017, the Kalorama Citizens Association and Adams Morgan for Reasonable Development sued SunTrust Bank to keep public access to the plaza. The bank had planned to sell the site for a luxury condo building that would have covered all of it. SunTrust became Truist during the case and donated the property to Jubilee Housing. On December 12, 2025, D.C. Superior Court Judge D.W. Tunnage dismissed the case after the three groups reached an agreement.
Under that agreement, Jubilee granted the Kalorama Citizens Association a conservation easement. It lets the association help plan events, recommend upgrades, and keep community access to both the current plaza and a future one in perpetuity. The easement agreement is posted publicly. Jubilee plans deeply affordable apartments on the footprint of the old bank building. The plaza the groups designed with Eric Colbert & Associates includes seating, greenery, a covered portico and a small stage. The DC Historic Preservation Review Board approved Jubilee's construction plans in September 2024. PoPville photographed renderings of the design on display at the plaza in early October.
Bringing back an old idea doesn't guarantee survival at the same addresses. Tsehay Ethiopian at 2429 18th Street NW, a space that earlier held La Fourchette and Los Cuates, has announced it will close temporarily by the end of this year. In a notice published by PoPville, the restaurant says the length of the closure is not yet known and that it hopes to return. For anyone who wants another meal there, the window is the next several weeks.
Next door at 2431 18th Street NW, BUL Korean Comfort Food & Bar reopened in early October. On Columbia Road, the new arrivals are smaller:
The Adams Morgan Partnership BID calendar lists several dates on the same blocks discussed above:
For holiday shopping close by, the DC Holiday Market runs November 12 through December 23 on the 1500 block of New Hampshire Avenue NW in Dupont Circle.
The buildings on 18th Street carry long histories, and so do the rowhouses a few blocks away. If you own in Adams Morgan and want a candid read on how your home's history and condition affect its value today, Vassar Broermann Group can walk you through it. Get a Free Home Valuation.
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