Saturday’s county board meeting will pit neighbor against neighbor in a battle over a small outdoor patio space.
In one corner are the supporters and management of American Flatbread, the wood-fired pizza restaurant that bills itself as a “community hearth” and is best known for its locally-sourced, organic ingredients. In the other corner are county planners and a majority of local homeowners (others support Flatbread), who don’t want the restaurant to open an outdoor patio on their relatively quiet section of North 11th Street in Clarendon.
At stake for neighbors is the tranquility of the neighborhood and, possibly, the area’s steep property values. At stake for Flatbread is its viability as a business in Clarendon.
Restaurant owner Scott Vasko, who also owns the popular American Flatbread location in Ashburn, has been trying to get county approval for since he signed the lease last year. He says he has tried to find a compromise with the two main sources of opposition, the Clarendon-Courthouse Civic Association and the homeowner’s association president for the townhouses across the street, to no avail.
Vasko says he has offered to close the patio at 9:00 p.m. on weekdays and 10:00 p.m. on weekends. He would limit the space to 24 seats and not allow larger parties to combine tables. He would pay to extend an adjacent wall and to erect a gate in front of the patio. And there would be no music.
Civic association president Rich Dumas says the group wouldn’t have a problem with Flatbread and another restaurant in the same building, Screwtop Wine Bar, setting up sidewalk seating on the Fillmore Street. He also said that he personally wouldn’t mind the addition of seating that wraps around for 15 to 25 feet on 11th Street, which is one option the county board will be considering on Saturday.
Planning department staff will recommend the option that disallows patio seating but allows seating on Fillmore Street and 25 feet of 11th Street. That will provide outdoor seating for about four tables of two, a county planner told ARLnow.com
But Vasko says the patio seating was a major component of his business plan when he decided to come to Clarendon and without it, “we would honestly have to take a look at whether we could still be a viable entity.”
American Flatbread employs 24 people in Clarendon and pays nearly $40,000 in meals tax revenue to the county, he noted.
The few tables the restaurant would be able to set up on the sidewalk, Vasko said, would be helpful but, perhaps, too little too late. He says he was misled by the building owner, who reportedly recruited American Flatbread to be a tenant with the promise of an outdoor patio.
“We’re just trying to get what was originally offered to us by the building owner as an enticement to come in here,” he said.
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