Wonder. 1925 14th St., NW.
Serial entrepreneur Marc Lore co-founded diapers.com and e-commerce site jet.com (the latter was acquired by Walmart in 2016 for $3.3 billion). But in recent years, the billionaire has been taking on the world of restaurant takeout with his tech startup Wonder, a food hall of sorts that brings together dishes from a long list of celebrity chefs and other restaurants under one roof. The company, which has more than 50 locations across New York and the Northeast, opens its first DC outpost today on the 14th Street corridor, with seven more locations coming to the area this year.
“When you’re making decisions about delivery or where to eat, you’re kind of negotiating with your family or your friends to say, ‘OK, what do you want to eat? I kind of don’t want that, but I do. So somebody loses in that usually,” says Jason Rusk, Wonder’s EVP of Restaurant Operations. “For us, there are no losers because there’s so much variety.”
The initial lineup includes 21 different restaurant concepts under one roof, including Streetbird by Marcus Samuelsson for fried chicken, Walnut Lane by Jonathan Waxman for “rustic California cuisine,” and Bobby Flay Steak. You’ll also find pizza, burgers, salads, wings, barbecue, poke, Thai, Chinese, Magnolia Bakery desserts, and more.
And that’s just the start. Rusk says they plan to continue to add restaurants. Some Wonder locations in New York have more than 30 different brands under one roof. DC’s own Middle Eastern hotspot Maydan is among the restaurants that partners with Wonder, though it won’t be offered at the first DC store because the restaurant itself is in close proximity.
In some cases, Wonder partners with celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay or José Andrés (who’s also on Wonder’s board of directors) to create menu items. In others, they buy the rights to serve certain restaurants’ dishes, like Texas-based Tejas Barbecue. Wonder also has in-house chefs who curate some of the fast-casual concepts. Rusk says that ingredients flow through a central commissary, but the cooking happens at each site, typically 2,500 to 3,500 square feet. Altogether, Rusk says they can produce well over 500 menu items, though many of those are just slight variations of the same thing.
Wonder acquired GrubHub earlier this year for $650 million, and so it does its own delivery—with no delivery fees and a promise to get you your food in less than 30 minutes. Rusk says that integrating that delivery technology allows them to give more accurate delivery times, because they can see how busy the kitchen is and how many drivers are on the road. “That’s something no other restaurant company has,” he says.
You can also order from individual concepts within Wonder on other major delivery platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats. But if you want to mix and match your order, you have to do it through Wonder. The “food halls” will also have limited indoor and patio seating. The 14th Street location will host a kick-off celebration today, July 10, from 4:30 to 7 PM with live music, samples of its food, giveaways, and more.
Wonder plans to nearly double its footprint with a total of 90 locations by the end of this year. Wonder’s next DC-area location is set to open in Rosslyn (1771 N. Pierce St., Arlington) on July 24 with locations to follow in West End, College Park, Cleveland Park, Reston, Franconia, and Navy Yard.
“If I look at our growth plan, that will just be the start of it,” Rusk says. “I could see us having full coverage of DC, Northern Virginia, and Baltimore soon. Very soon.”
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.
