Little Red Fox and Burger King are gone. And their departures are a study in contrasts.
The owners of Little Red Fox and Sugar Fox announced their intentions several days before the shops closed for good on December 23rd. The Burger King’s closure, over the New Year’s holiday weekend, was abrupt. So much so that initially, we were a little skeptical.
The successor to Little Red Fox, Call Your Mother, plans to open for business soon at 5035 Connecticut Avenue. Its owners also plan to hire any LRF staff who want jobs. The fired Burger King workers, meanwhile, say they had little to no warning. And while BK corporate initially said franchisee Potomac Foods Group offered them positions at other locations, it later clarified that not all were given the option.
Fond farewells for the Fox: Eater DC asked local restaurant critics about the 2022 closures that saddened them most. Two of them mentioned Little Red Fox. And LRF co-owner Matt Carr tells DCist he did not expect “this tidal wave of personal messages about what an impact the store has had on customer’s families and lives.”
Who’s up for a Connecticut Avenue carbs crawl? By our count, the stretch from Woodley Park to Chevy Chase will soon have six places to grab a bagel. Existing sellers are Baked by Yael in Woodley Park, Bread Furst, Calvert Woodley Fine Wines & Spirits, and Mamma Lucia’s, which recently fired up its Chevy Chase predecessor’s bagel oven.
Some might wonder why we’ve ALWAYS had bagels from NYC. The answer is because of Ed Sands, one of the original owners of CW! Originally from #Brooklyn Ed required all of our bagels to be from there and they have been ever since.#nycbagels #calvertwoodley #washingtondc #bagels pic.twitter.com/lkWnnfTzFL
— Calvert Woodley (@CalvertWoodley) October 5, 2022
They’ll be joined by Buffalo & Bergen, a New York-style deli taking over the California Tortilla space in Cleveland Park, and by Call Your Mother, which is aiming to open its eighth DC area location at the former Little Red Fox in Forest Hills around the end of the month.
The carbs crawl could also include a side trip to Tenleytown and the Bullfrog Bagels food truck at 4810 Wisconsin Avenue.
MOM’s Organic Market progress
Work on transforming the former Epicurian and Company at 4250 Connecticut into MOM’s newest supermarket continues. New, temporary signs in the windows don’t say so, but a summer opening is the goal.
Get Restaurant Week deals before they’re gone. Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week is happening now through Sunday, January 22nd. Participating restaurants include Muchas Gracias, Rosemary Bistro Cafe and Sfoglina Pasta House.
“Stop telling us that we hate to cook.” Bread Furst founder Mark Furstenberg returns to his blog to wonder at professional food writers and other food-crazed people like himself are enamored with cooking shortcuts.