News

Good news! Trio Restaurant last year after meeting and gaining approval from the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA), won the right to open our second patio to serve food and alcohol!  The hours of when we serve food and alcohol is slightly different but we will now be able to accommodate our guests requests to sit outside and be a part of lively atmosphere of 17th Street. See article below for full details!

The InTowner Newspaper (www.InTowner.com), October 2006.

Opposition to Trio Owner’s Applicationfor Approval to Serve Mixed Drinks onExisting Q Street Patio Not Sustained

By Anthony L. Harvey

In the face of a well-received Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) license application petition hearing on September 15, 2006 by Trio Restaurant’s owner/proprietor George Mallios to allow for extension of full restaurant service, including the serving of alcoholic beverages other than just beer and wine, before the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC), a group of community activists who had for many months been opposing the application backed away from their full bill of particulars against the Trio and agreed to a compromise resolving the Q Street application.

What Mallios was seeking by his application was ABC Board approval to allow for serving mixed drinks in addition to the more limited beer and wine only as had been allowed on the sidewalk café all along under the existing license when he was operating the old Pizza and Sub Shop on the Q Street side, some of that space now being leased to the new Hank’s Oyster Bar.



photo courtesy Keith Stanley, www.kestan.com.
View, looking south from Q Street, showing patrons enjoying the ambiance of the Trio’s 17th Street sidewalk café.

Appearing at the hearing in support of the Trio’s application were 18 neighborhood residents, many of them well-known community activists themselves, along with a representative from the Dupont Circle Merchants and Professionals Association (DCMAP) — all of whom were prepared to testify in favor.  In addition, the record already included a petition in support of the Trio’s application bearing the signatures of over 500 nearby residents.

The 10 protestants who appeared at the hearing included well-known activists led by Cairo resident Anne Scanley, who most recently protested Hank’s Oyster Bar and the Java House ABRA applications, forcing both to sign so-called voluntary agreements dictating hours, seat-ing, and extensive operational details relating to their business operations, and the Dupont Circle Citizens Association (DCCA), represented by its President Rob Halligan, and the Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC), for whom Commissioner Mark Bjorge spoke.  All were represented by the same attorney.  With the compromise regarding the Trio’s Q Street sidewalk café space having been reached at this time, the protestants’ insistence that the Trio sign a “voluntary agreement” by which it would reduce its hours, seating, and outdoor space on its 17th Street sidewalk café space, which was the heart of the protest against Trio’s Q Street application, will be resumed by protestants when the Trio/Fox and Hounds license renewal application is up for consideration this coming spring.

A Neighborhood Institution.
The four corners of mixed residential and commercial properties at the intersection of 17th and Q Streets may never rank with Thorton Wilder’s Grover’s Corners as a site captured and analyzed with the poignancy of Our Town; rather, this crossroads in the heart of Dupont East may serve simply to symbolize the fundamental clash between two very different, opposing conceptions of what the Dupont Circle community is and should be. On the one hand are long-time restaurateurs, such as George Mallios and his family, who have over 50 years of experience in providing the 17th Street commercial strip with a combination of what its many supporters call the neighborhood’s version of “Cheers” and “Friends.” Indeed, Trio Restaurant, Fox and Hounds, and the now departed Trio Pizza and Subs have anchored the southeast corner of 17th and Q Streets since 1950 when the Mallios family first purchased the properties.And in the 1970s George Mallios acquired one of the first two public space permits in Washington for use in creating much desired sidewalk seating for his establishments. An awning with pull down, plastic windowed flaps was eventually installed to protect the Trio’s patrons on the 17th Street side from inclement weather. Outdoor awnings also protect patrons at the Fox and Hounds and on the Trio’s Q Street side. While other proprietors have come and gone following the 968 riots and the severe down-turn in area real estate prices during the 1970s, the Trio and Fox and Hounds remained and flourished, providing vital services and safety on the street by virtue of operating a popular outdoor café.

Background.
After the recent closing of Trio Pizza and Subs and the leasing of that space to Hank’s Oyster Bar, Mallios sought to expand his Trio Restaurant service directly onto his Q Street sidewalk café space to replace that not used by Hank’s. At that point, the Scanley group, the ANC, and the DCCA announced protests, with the “Scanley 10” developing a lengthy bill of particulars indicting the Trio for alleged license violations in the past and formulating a four-page “voluntary agreement” for owner George Mallios to sign — one which would require him to scale back his 17th Street café service by reducing the number of seats, the hours of operation, the amount of space, and the size of his awnings at both the Trio Restaurant and the Fox and Hounds, and that there would be no more than 30 seats (rather than its existing 48), and that the outside close at 11 p.m. on week nights and 12 midnight on weekends rather than its current 2 a.m. on week nights and 3 a.m. on weekends. Mallios had already offered to reduce his seating on the Q Street side from 48 to 40 and to shut down on weekends at 12 mid-night, creating hours identical to that on his 17th Street side.

Further, on the Q Street side, the protestants would direct that only beer and wine could be served, some of them having previously stated that to allow more than that would be contrary to what had always been the case — that nothing more than beer and wine had ever been sold on the Q Street side. Neighborhood commercial history, however, tells a different story as can be seen in the mid 20th century photograph that accompanied The InTowner’s May 1997 “Scenes from the Past” feature in which can clearly be seen a neon sign in the window of the establishment that preceded the pizza and subs store announcing “Mixed Drinks.”

Mallios reminded the ABC Board that the Trio/Fox and Hounds establishments had operated for over 50 years without any alcoholic beverage sale, public space, or Police Department or violations. The protestants’ attorney, Douglass E. Fienberg, was startled when ABC Board Chairman Charles Burger, having called ABRA investigator Daniel Butler to the stand, had him testify about the results of his unannounced visits to the establishments during the evening and early morning hours on five different days over the week and weekends during this past August and September. No “peace, order, and quiet” violations were found, Inspector Butler testified under oath, nor were any ABC licensing violations observed.

The Outcome.

With some obvious consternation, ABC Board members asked several times if the Trio had not in fact offered to cut back on its Q Street hours of operation and reduce its number of seats. As the answers continued to be “yes,” Chairman Burger asked the two sides if they wouldn’t like to take a five-minute recess and explore the possibility of a compromise agreement. This was done, and the results, which will be memorialized in a formal ABC order, were announced by the contestants and adopted — with obvious relief — by the Board.  The agreement stipulates that Trio Restaurant will serve its full restaurant and alcoholic beverage menu on its Q Street side; the number of seats will be 40 rather than 48; and the hours at which operation of the outdoor seating will close will be 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, except on federal holidays, Emancipation Day, Halloween, and the evening of the annual High Heel Race; and at 12 midnight on weekends. The compromise also stipulated that the Trio would be reminded of the city’s statutory requirements for kitchen hours.

Protestants, however, were adamant in refusing to agree to drop their protest over the 17th Street sidewalk café operations come next spring’s license renewal hearing. With overwhelming support being expressed in writing and at the September 25th hearing by nearby residents for George Mallios, The InTowner inquired of ABRA and DCCA what the requirements for becoming a party to a formal protest are.

ABRA’s spokesperson pointed out that the agency provides a published document which stipulates rules for civic associations that wish to be given party status as protestants.  These include, for example, requiring that a resolution concerning the license application has been approved in accordance with the association’s articles of incorporation or bylaws at a duly called meeting, with notice of the meeting being given at least 10 days before the date of the meeting, and that membership in the organization is open to all residents of the area represented by the citizens association. Not knowing of any DCCA public meeting, announced or otherwise, regarding the Trio application, this reporter asked ABRA’s Director of Operations Jeff Coudriet whether or not DCCA was in fact qualified to be a party to the Trio application protest. Coudriet responded that it would be up to the contestants to challenge each others’ standing as participants in the protest of an ABRA license application before the ABC Board.  DCCA President Rob Halligan, in response to the same question, replied that it was up to ABRA to enforce regulations regarding the validity of such protests as that of the DCCA.

What the present controversy does suggest is that protests aplenty will continue between the neighborhood’s small business owners and powerful Dupont Circle organizations over license renewals as they come up for consideration during the next several years and that proprietors will continue to be presented with so-called “voluntary agreements” to scale back their hours of operations, reduce the size of their outdoor sidewalk cafés and reduce the number of seats, remove awnings and enclosures that offend certain aesthetic sensibilities or allegedly violate public space or historic preservation rules and regulations.

Text and photo(s) reproduced with permission. Copyright (c) 2006 InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Further reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 "fair use".

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Trio Restaurant - copyright (c) 2007 - All Rights Reserved

Photographs courtesy Sharon Farmer (202)-246-7977- copyright(c) 2007 - All rights reserved - Reproduction without permission is prohibited.