About Restaurant Openings Around DC
A guide to the newest places to eat and drink.
The Alumni, 1124 Ninth St., NW.
There aren’t many places in downtown DC where out-of-towners can stumble in and get a taste of the city’s real local culture. But if they’re visiting the convention center or staying at one of the many hotels nearby, it would be easy to stumble into the Alumni, a pop-up that local activist, promoter, and musician Justin “Yaddiya” Johnson has created inside the shuttered bar/restaurant Baby Wale.
That’s happened many times since the Alumni opened in January, Johnson says. When newcomers wander in, they see posters on the walls commemorating concerts by Trouble Funk, EU, and Rare Essence, along with portraits of native Washingtonians like Virginia Ali and councilmember Janeese Lewis-George wearing “Go-Go Alumni” hoodies. They can eat fried whiting and carryout-style wings with mumbo sauce. If it’s a Thursday night, they’ll likely hear a live go-go band.
“We’re not just commemorating the culture, we’re creating the culture,” Johnson says. “We’ve done that in the street through activism and art. Now we can truly do it through the experience of food and actually interacting and engaging with people. This is a heavy tourist area so we are here to introduce a lot of people to our culture.”
So what exactly is the Alumni? It’s a restaurant, bar, club, event space, and a physical manifestation of the Go-Go Alumni collective Johnson has assembled after years in activism and live music promoting.
For the culinary aspect of that, Johnson brought on chef Trea’onne Allen, who grew up six blocks east in Sursum Corda, has worked under DC culinary stars Kwame Onwuachi and Kevin Tien, and has acted as an independent culinary consultant for places like Ben’s Next Door. To build his distinctive menu, Allen drew on the Southern, Chinese, and Creole influences on the city’s staples like wings, Chinese carryQout fare, and fried whiting.
The “Grandma’s House, No Henry’s” is a fried chicken wing plate with collard greens and mac and cheese. A tribute to when the Wharf was largely a seafood market, the “Meet Me Down the Wharf” is a fried fish plate with sides like garlic mashed potatoes or fries. “It Don’t Mean a Thing If You Ain’t Got the Go-Go Wings” translates to wings with Allen’s own gochujang-spiked mumbo sauce. During weekend brunch, which kicked off last weekend, Allen adds items like shrimp n’ grits and bottomless “moemosas.” Fried rice figures into several dishes too.
DC’s own distinctive brand of Chinese carryout food, Allen says, is an often unsung aspect of the District’s food culture that has long been an essential part of life for Black Washingtonians, because it was invented and styled to fit the city’s tastes. “It’s not traditional food,” he says. “It’s like street food for us. They Americanized it so well.”
Along with the #Don’tMuteDC movement, Johnson’s Moechella concert series has been instrumental in boosting go-go’s profile and official recognition. His Go-Go Alumni collective streetwear and photo series, published in Washingtonian, aimed to show the influence DC’s indigenous genre had on prominent Washingtonians. But the Alumni is Johnson’s first attempt at anything like a restaurant.
Despite Allen’s culinary experiments, the space still feels more like a social club than a restaurant: Go-Go Alumni members eat free here, and Baby Wale, which owner Tom Powers shuttered during the pandemic, has a cavernous, loungey space, a long bar, and a secluded upstairs area that lend a club-like atmosphere to Johnson’s pop-up. Crowds have packed in for Go-Go Alumni birthday bashes and “Church on Sunday” dance parties, but regular weekday dinner service has still been slow.
But Johnson’s team now includes some seasoned restaurant professionals, and manager Ranna Khut says they have been trying to make the Alumni feel less like a temporary pop-up and more like a permanent, destination-worthy eatery. If they succeed, Johnson would add another label to his already long list: promoter, musician, activist, designer—and restaurateur.
