Mario’s Trattoria at 2444 Wisconsin Avenue has closed, a little over two years after replacing Surfside in Glover Park. The landlord has advertised the space for rent already with a “rooftop restaurant”. Mario’s follows In Bocca al Lupo, which opened in mid-2023 and closed three months ago. In 2021 Glover Park lost Arcuri and Social Beast as well, resulting in a loss of Neopolitan (Mario’s/Arcuri), Roman (Bocca) and Detroit-style (Social Beast) pizza. Suddenly, the neighborhood is down to two pizza choices again – Domino’s and Angelico’s. Well, Whole Foods has pizza in their café now, so three choices, not too bad for the pizza lovers.
Mario’s never seemed to have a crowd (downstairs below the roof deck anyway) and the closing is further evidence that maintaining a viable business from sit-down pizza is challenging in this economic environment with food cost inflation, a limited pool of hourly wage staff and customers tightening their budgets as a result of their own rising costs. This leaves 5 restaurant properties vacant now in Glover Park:
1) In Bocca al Lupo at 2400 Wisconsin vacated three months ago.
2) Heritage India was at 2400 Wisconsin vacated seven years ago.
3) Mason Inn at 2408 Wisconsin vacated six years ago.
4) Social Beast at 2340 Wisconsin vacated two years ago.
5) Mario’s closed up shop last week.
Sadly, the owner of 2444 Wisconsin Avenue, Pablo Furman, died in 2022 soon after the opening of Mario’s. The property transferred to his wife, Berta who has resided recently in both Maryland and Florida. They have owned the restaurant property since 1990. The property appears to be advertised currently as a for-rent-by-owner by a presumed relative named Claude, aka Ariel, aka Ari. Call Ari if you want to start a pizza biz in DC, though I’m not sure I’d recommend it right now…
Chris Jones