March 99 — The most comfortable cafe in Greater Washington. Easy chairs, couches, coffee tables, and an embarrassment of seating: under skylights, against the walls, and cafe style two-tops.
Their flyer notes that outlets are not to be used by patrons for their computers. What’s up with that? It has to do with liability and insurance. One circuit and lawyers.
Michelle loves the expansive “very well suited” to a cafe paintings that are on the walls. Abstract. She would consider putting the blue one ($500) in our home save for the price.
In their menu there are loads of warnings against camping. Funny, considering its gay run and gay friendly; but seriously folks, the first wrong step when you make a cafe as comfortable as Girogio’s, you are going to attract some cafe-dwellers. And we sit and stay. And if you kick us out, we ruin your rep. It works like a charm.
A pretty boy in leather chaps was my barista (I asked if he was a coffee cowboy and he told me, “no, I like boys who ride motorcycles) and he gave me the following numbers: a large cap, $3.15; a double shot of espresso, $1.75, a Chai, $2.75, a huge latte comes in at $3.15. Tea is a buck and cocoa is between $1.30 and $2.30.
Michelle loved her plain bagel (a toasted bagel is 75 cents and it goes up from there.), her odwalla, and I loved my latte and sweet danish.
I asked about soy milk and Rice Dream and Chaps said I was only the second one to ask and its a possibility should it become necessary… (moo).
There is an entire menu with the focus on focaccia. Everything hovers around a fiver.
Open 7am daily. Sit down dinner menu from 6pm Mon-Sat; Closes 10pm Mon-Sat, 8pm Sun.
The latte I ordered was smooth and creamy in an earthenware cup. The sign says that all waters used in the restaurant is quadruple-filtered and its a good thing since DC spent its earlier years as a swamp. DC water is still fetid and most of the other shops don’t filter anything save their drinking water.
A croissant plain is dollah quatah. Biscotti dolla ten.
The clientele is pretty affluent and preppy — no hipsters here. It lacks diversity and does not represent the greater DC area, but it is new and a little pricey.
There is no rush to move on and since its still cold outside I don’t appreciate the focus on moving on.
In all, Girogio’s lacks the kind of soul that Roasters on the Hill enjoys in spades, but then again, there is a lot to be said about a comfy cafe where the white male taking orders calls everyone hon and cutie and sweets. Where there are five-bill canvases on the walls and no incentive to jack in and write cafe reviews because of offensive lawyers and insurance men. The kind of place where folks might go before or after riding and where someone might get turned on to coffee in the way I am. We give the place two and one half snaps.
Giorgio’s
218 7th Street, SE
[North Carolina & 7th Street, SE]
phone: 202-547-7003
– Chris Abraham & Michelle Nolan
