About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
Silver Diner has opened more than 20 locations across the region in its 33-year history, but the chain hasn’t made its way to the District proper until today. The diner, which sits next to Nationals Park, will be accompanied by Silver Social—a spinoff of the brand’s more upscale Silver New American Brasserie (which does have a DC location)—opening at the end of October.
Co-founder and executive chef Ype Von Hengst says it typically takes the group about a year to plan a restaurant. In this case, it took three. Blame it on the pandemic, staffing, and supply chain woes. Even something as simple as a toaster, which used to take a couple weeks to obtain, suddenly required six to eight months lead time.
In order to ease operations, the DC Silver Diner menu is about 20-percent shorter than the ones at its siblings. Still, you’ll find plenty of all-day breakfast favorites (hello, apple-pie-stuffed French toast), plus an extensive selection of burgers, sandwiches, salads, and comfort entrees from meatloaf to chicken pot pie. It’s one of the only restaurants in the area that will be open from 7 AM to midnight (and 3 AM on Fridays and Saturdays).
Upstairs, you’ll find Silver Social, which has a totally different menu and will be limited mainly to reservations. The 110-seat space focuses on contemporary American shareable plates—from buffalo-chicken tacos to half-smoke sliders—and “mini entrees” like scallop risotto or chicken parm. Groups might dig into larger platters like a coffee/chipotle-rubbed bone-in short rib meant for two to four. The restaurant has its own separate kitchen from Silver Diner, so no, you can’t order pancakes from downstairs. But it will serve its own brunch on weekends with egg flatbreads, churro French toast, and spiked coffee cocktails.
Silver Social doesn’t have the same family-friendly vibe as its sister restaurant either. In fact, it will be restricted to a 21-and-older crowd sipping “fancy coladas” and boulevardiers from the bar.
But the standout feature here is clearly the view from the heated terrace, which overlooks the baseball stadium. Which brings us back to why it took three decades to open in DC: “It needed to be the right location,” Von Hengst. “It’s as simple as that.”
Silver Diner. 1250 Half St. SE.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind D.C.’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
