Heights General Store [Max Burkhalter]
When you've lived in the Heights for over a decade, or have visited for even a few hours, it can sometimes feel like you've been transported to a calm Southern town from the 1950s. Your blood pressure drops, even busier streets seem quiet and you hope to shop at a small, privately-owned grocery store instead of a big corporate supermarket. So when Alli Jarrett decided she wanted to open a store that would emulate the shops from her childhood, it seemed only natural to open the Heights General Store, and to do so in the historic Harold's department store building on 19th.
"I've been a resident of the Heights for 12 years now," owner Jarrett tells Eater. "I grew up in a small town in South Carolina, and 19th Street [here] reminds me of the main street where I grew up." Jarrett says that she grew up working in the family wholesale business that also had a small retail store. "We called on a lot of country and general stores that we sold to where you would shop where you eat."
Jarrett says that the second floor full-service restaurant and bar concept also came from her love of food and wine. "I loved growing up around the kitchen table with my grandmother having good Southern food," Jarrett says. "We found the right chef who is like-minded like me." That chef is Antoine Ware, who has worked alongside Underbelly chef Chris Shepherd at now defunct Catalan. He enjoyed a stint at Washington Corridor's The Federal Grill, and he's perhaps most popular for heading the kitchen at craft beer mecca Hay Merchant.
Jarrett says that Ware is the best person to be their executive chef at the restaurant portion of this 7,000-square-foot space. "What I've tried to do with [Ware] is give him the tools he needs to be as creative and as passionate about what he's cooking as possible," she says. "He has the keys to that kitchen, and I want him to be proud of it." Jarrett says she's been a fan of Ware's work since his Catalan days, and that he's already producing great food here.
You'll soon be able to taste for yourself, since Thursday (November 7) and Friday (November 8) will be the restaurant's first evenings serving dinner from 5 to 10 p.m.
· Heights General Store [Official Site]
· All Other Opening Reports [-EHOU-]
· All Other Eater Inside Reports [-EHOU-]
