This post has been updated

The Washington Post breaks the official news that Busboys & Poets owner has signed a lease to bring the restaurant to the new Carroll St. development in Takoma.  Also reported is that the owner is negotiating to open a sixth location in Brookland.

This is semi-good news for Riggs Park (remember what we mentioned about being sandwiched between these two neighborhoods in this post).  Both Takoma and Brookland are sort of walkable (or certainly bikeable) from Riggs Park, so it looks like in a couple of years we’ll get to have our pick of two Busboys to patronize.

One instructive point from the article is owner Andy Shallal’s statement that he received emails from Takoma residents soliciting him to bring his restaurant to the neighborhood.  He said that he likes to go into areas that lack community gathering spaces, certainly an issue for Riggs Park.  As Fort Totten Square and Art Place at Fort Totten come online, it’s worth thinking about what kind of outreach, communication, organizing, and consensus building the community can do to really showcase the community we have here surrounding Fort Totten and to make sure we get the types of amenities we really want, so as not to be blindsided again like we were with the introduction of the big box store to come.