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On Tuesday morning, January 11, members of DCBIA's Retail Committee met at the offices of NoMa BID for breakfast and a tour of Todd Gray's Watershed Restaurant, set for an April 2011 opening. Leading the tour were Chef Gray, his wife and business partner, Ellen Kassoff Gray, and Rich Lingenfelter, GM of the Hilton Garden Inn hotel, where the restaurant will be located.
The menu at Watershed will revolve primarily around Chef Gray's spins on traditional seafood favorites from the Eastern Seaboard, ranging from Maine to Florida and around to the Gulf Coast. The front of the house will offer a raw bar, a lounge area and seating at the full-service bar, where patrons will be able to dine and enjoy an extensive variety of wine, liquor and draft beer. Moving beyond the bar is the open dining area and a separate private room, which may be rented for events and can comfortably accommodate over 100 guests, or be divided into smaller rooms. There is also a patio off of the main dining area and the private room. With affordably priced food and drinks, and backed by the Grays' proven track record at Equinox, Watershed is sure to become NoMa's favorite place for an enjoyable dining and happy hour experience. And finally, as the exclusive food service provider at the Hilton Garden Inn, the restaurant's staff will be busy churning out breakfast, lunch, dinner and room service. So busy, in fact, that approximately 50 new local jobs will be created just to handle this demand.
The Hilton Garden Inn is being fully integrated into the development, giving it the feel of a true urban hotel. Along with the expected amenities, the 204-room hotel will feature fully wired conference facilities, making it attractive as a site for government client meetings requiring higher levels of IT security. Hotel management is determined to provide a lodging experience that will significantly exceed expectations.
The hotel and restaurant are located within Constitution Square, a cornerstone development of the NoMa neighborhood located just steps from Metro's New York Avenue Red Line station. Constitution Square, a joint development between StonebridgeCarras and Walton Street Capital, is also home to the Flats 130 luxury apartments, a recently-opened 50,000 sq. ft. Harris Teeter grocery store and nearly 590,000 sq. ft. of office space occupied by the Department of Justice. With established tenants, additional office and retail space available for lease and easy Metro access, this mixed-use development is destined to remain the centerpiece of the NoMa area.
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