Sparky’s Espresso Cafe on 14th Street is now closed. According to store neighbors, employees showed up to work late last week only to find the gate that fronts the institutional coffee shop bolted.
While employees have not yet learned the future of the restaurant which sits down-block from the Black Cat music venue, the owners have left cryptic clues for the public. A sign taped above the deadbolt notes that Sparky’s is “in transition” and promises that the restaurant will eventually relocate to an undisclosed location with a focus on “vegetarian oriented fare.” Meanwhile, the District of Columbia Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration has used the front window of the cafe to post a liquor license application for a new restaurant using the trade name “Cork.”
According to the sign left by the cafe owners, Sparky’s will temporarily reopen at its location on Thursday, June 28 and Friday, June 29 during which patrons “can say goodbye.” Calls to the cafe for additional information were unreturned.
For more than a decade, Sparky’s Espresso Cafe has served as an anchor of the 14th Street corridor. Located just south of S Street, the cafe proved a gathering spot for musicians, artists, political activists and crowds of indie kids attending shows at the nearby Black Cat. In recent years, the cafe served as a popular wifi location. Laptops often outnumbered lattes in the cafe’s red vinyl side booths.
The 14th Street corridor endured a decades-long strugglefor resurgence following the 1968 riots which burned or displaced most businesses along the street. For most of its existence, Sparky’s anchored a neighborhood which saw little investment. In 2005, competition came with the opening of nearby restaurant and coffeehouse Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Streets. Additionally, 14U Cafe (at 14th and U Streets) opened its doors earlier this year featuring similar fare and later operating hours. This spring, the hours of operations for Sparky’s were cut back to 8p.m. on weeknights, where the cafe had previously been open until 11p.m.
Rapid development in recent years has increased property value and brought new business to 14th Street. The high-end home furnishing store Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams recently joined other, new high-hend home furnishing stores now surrounding the former cafe. Soon, FedEx/Kinkos and a new flagship store for clothing retailer Universial Gear will also claim a home on 14th Street.
Those interested in attending the temporary reopening of the cafe can do so this week.
Sparky’s Espresso Cafe – Temporary Reopening
Thursday, June 28 – Friday, June 29
1720 14th Street, NW (between R and S Streets)
Washington, DC
Because, you know, independent coffee shops are a dime a dozen in DC. Oh wait…
June 25, 2007 at 12:46 pmIt’s sad to see an independent coffee shop go — however, I have never had anything but condescending, execrable service from disinterested hipsters at Sparky’s. There’s a certain amount of that you sign on for when going to a coffee shop, and Sparky’s cleared that bar by a running mile.
June 25, 2007 at 1:01 pmSparky’s may serve the best latte in all of DC but the service and hours sucked, which kept me patronizing Caribbou. Yes, I frequented a chain but hey they are nice and OPEN.
June 25, 2007 at 1:07 pmSorry to burst your bubble, but if you’re speaking of the Caribou in Adams Morgan, i have it on good authority that it’s shutting down soon, too.
June 25, 2007 at 1:42 pm“Laptops often outnumbered lattes in the cafe’s red vinyl side booths.”
Maybe they should have sold laptops.
June 25, 2007 at 3:26 pm@Jason: There’s a liquor license application by an entity called “The Cork” taped inside the window. The curious, and those interested in actual reporting, may wish to follow up.
@Jeff Simmermon: I was never much of a regular patron, but I do know one of the guys who worked there, and I’m somewhat familiar with their attitude toward their customers. Judging from the irritating tone of your post, I’d say they probably just didn’t like you.
@Jessica and svetlana: Please, ladies, I beg you: Let’s all spellcheck. Otherwise, we’re little more than animals, smearing ourselves in our own waste matter and howling incoherently. This is a D.C. blog, people — let’s insist on a standard that’s a wee bit higher than the foxnews.com comments section, mmkay?
Also: Those needing an actual independent coffee shop still in the city limits might wish to try Columbia Heights Coffee on 11th ST NW. They have all the hoity-toity fair-trade shade-grown whatever, and free wifi to boot.
June 25, 2007 at 3:37 pmThe fact that we are discussing independent coffee shops “within city limits” is laughable.
Columbia Heights and 14th and R are NOT the same neighbourhoods.
People should not need to take a metro/walk 15 minutes to buy coffee.
But at least, all is better than those people driving 45 minutes from outside of Beltway to sit at Tryst.
June 25, 2007 at 3:43 pmI loved Sparky’s and am sad to see it go. 14th and R is the only undeveloped block in that whole corridor, kept slightly scummy by the Mission homeless shelter, the low-income housing with a 24-hour police watch, the empty lot and auto shop and kept hip by the slightly incongruous but utterly bohemian presence of Sparky’s next to a flower store that gets no business and a pet store. It lay in the midst of the yuppified-but-still-sorta-cool P street and U streets which have now been largely bulldozed to make way for huge condo buildings. If you take away the bohemian, what do you have left? trashy next to yuppie.
In any case, hopefully there will be more restaurants and independent shops moving into the neighborhood than Fed Ex/Kinkos and PNC banks.
June 25, 2007 at 6:15 pmaw darn… I’d only been there once, but thought the fella behind the bar was charming and kind…. as well as the patrons on the porch
June 25, 2007 at 11:45 pmis the coffee shop on 14th and U not independent?
June 26, 2007 at 10:10 amspeaking as someone who worked at sparkys for two years i can say that most of us were pretty nice and really liked our jobs. i mean, the hardest part of my job was microwaving the hockey-puck-like ‘egg’ patty for your b, e, and cheese bagels. otherwise, yeah, there were a few surly/unaffected types. but you still got your order at some point. anyways, its like the folks at baked and wired say, a good latte takes time man. so wait for it. waaaaait.
man, i loved the regulars, but hardly anyone of them probably read this website. it was truly a local place. as for the really difficult people, and yes most were yuppies and puppies, and the laptop loungers, we loved them too. that’s how you keep a business in business.
June 26, 2007 at 11:11 amPlease be sure to check out DECOY’s art show at Sparky’s one last time on the 28th and 29th.
Thanks so much to Sparky’s for everything they have done for our community.
June 26, 2007 at 11:45 amI’ve heard that the Central Union Mission is shutting down and being converted to Condos… Anyone have more info on that?
June 26, 2007 at 12:29 pmi am a large preponent of well speling and grammer. also, independent coffee. ha! i laugh. for truly independent coffee go to costa rica, kenya or colombia, but then again, that’s sort of a longer hike than columbia heights.
June 26, 2007 at 12:29 pmhey, you are all talking about the smalltown charm of independent coffee shops but this article keeps speaking of ‘The Owners’ and mentions that the workers showed up to a locked door with a cryptic sign. I hate coming in for a shift to find padlocks, and an oh, never mind attitude.
And please will y’all stop about hipsters and yuppies, it’s really really tired.
I hate how small this city is. You gossip but you don’t know the truth so I will tell you. I went there to get a Venti Soy Latte Iced With Caramel, Extra Ice, Sugar in The Raw, and a Straw. I was sitting down to wait for the two owners to make my delicious drink. I cracked open my laptop and pulled out some blue prints. Map after map, the shit kept unfolding and it ended up covering the barista’s head and smothered her. The owner panicked in a frenzy and ran into my A/C adapter and fell on the floor. I was frightened so I wrote that note outside until I can afford to buy a defilibrator to revive your friends. I borrowed some ground coffee for my Mr. Coffee at my house. Latte party hit me up.
June 26, 2007 at 12:54 pm“Holly Le”….meth addiction isn’t pretty.
I’ve been hearing that the Central Union Mission is about to go condo for about six years now. I did see a “for sale” sign on it about a year ago, but it quickly disappeared. We’ll see.
June 26, 2007 at 1:06 pmJoel: The Mission was going to sell to developers pending approval of a new space in Petworth to relocate to, but community protests in Petworth have stalled that. I haven’t heard any movement on it in, like, 6 months.
I want to know when the 100% Mexico storefront is ever going to transform into La Pata Negra. Any word on that? A chocolate shop is opening up in the Matrix building, apparently, which is mighty twee and precious. Jesus, I sound like Metrocurean (sorry Amanda, if you’re a closet BYTer).
Holly: I know where you can get used defibrillators. Is it too late to save Sparky’s?
N.
June 26, 2007 at 1:15 pmDear Abby, I mean John.
I heard Methamphetamines are a cross between cocaine and a dick in a vagina. I prefer Bubbalicious Cherry Xplosion with a Rock Creek Park Grape Soda. But I’m glad somebody’s mother forgot to tell them not to say anything if it’s not nice or else I’d have no reason to beef with anyone. I’ll pray for you tonight before I sleep.
If you want to call me a methhead to my face my address is at the DMV and in the phone book.
June 26, 2007 at 1:21 pmthere was a dirty charm about that place. maybe service with a sneer was part of it, but good lord, it’s 14th st. we all knew where the starbuckses were in case we wanted classier than a funky looking orange gatorade water cooler by the door. can’t we hang onto a couple places in this city where the music isn’t put together at corporate and the staff don’t have logo-embroidered pique-polo shirts… or a plastic urge to cater to the service whims of whoever is rubbing them the wrong way. Real fucking grit.
I know why i’m bitter. i just lost my job for sticking to my neighborhood grit. I just don’t want to see the whole city go up in mojitos, matching silverwear, and those buzzers to tell you when your table is ready.
June 26, 2007 at 1:27 pmHolly, let’s start a new column on BYT, something like Holly Le Rant Fridays – you dig?
June 26, 2007 at 1:43 pmI wanted to be on the street team and take all your stickers and paste them next to BORF stencils so that we can start a crips/blood-beef chapter in DC.
June 26, 2007 at 1:49 pmI work at Whitman-Walker Clinic in the Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center right across the street from Sparky’s. WWC’s administrative building is located on the corner of 14th and S st. Besides hipsters and yuppies the closing of Sparky’s is a blow to the operation of Whitman-Walker. At any one moment in line at Sparky’s you would find one hipster, one yuppie and two folks from the W W C. The attitude in the clinic is bleak, sure we have weathered near bankruptcy three times in three years, constant strife with other providers in the city, an almost hopeless HIV/AIDS administration and the city with the work HIV epidemic in the country with AIDS rates 12 times the national average, but I am not sure that we can weather the closing of our coffee shop. I am very emotional about this. I will truly miss Sparky’s.
RIP Sparky’s 2007
oh holly le, the last thing you want is a classic racial/regional murder extravaganza relocated to the district. because, really, would garutachi, byt and the like be able to turn down all those guest-listed gangmembers on their hip hop dj nights? 250 guns to a tube of cheap lipstick says, “me don’t think so”.
June 26, 2007 at 2:47 pmI’m with Kara on this one. There are far too many polished and shiny place in this city. It was nice to find a place that had a soul.
If I wanted cookie cutter bullsh*t, I’d truck myself out to Reston where the cement causes originality and creativity to vanish from ones brain.
June 26, 2007 at 2:55 pmDoes anyone know what’s going into the storefront where that convenience store used to be between Sparky’s and the Verizon building? Was there a fire? Sparky’s was the first place I discovered when I moved onto R Street. It was nice to have a coffee shop right around the corner. Although in recent months the service has really declined and often the shop would not even be open when I stopped by, at normal coffee hours. Oh well. What’s the deal with Cork? Sounds interesting.
June 26, 2007 at 5:13 pmBecca: 14U is an independent coffee shop, and I like it a lot. Freetrade coffee — the espresso and latte are both excellent — and great pastries and desserts. Free Wi-Fi, vintage couches, free newspapers and a good “local” crowd that seems less-hipstery than other neighborhood coffee places.
Then again, maybe I’m the only person on here who was curious enough to stop in.
June 26, 2007 at 6:04 pmI loved sparkys so hard except the wi-fi there NEVER worked.
um, where am i going to get my breakfast bagel now?
it just isn’t as easy to be hung over at love cafe :(
i worked at sparky’s. their closing is totally understandable i just wish they gave their workers a week or two notice, it was just as much of a shock to us as the customers.
i hope they reopen.
are there any other ex-employees reading this who know about sparky’s reopening plans? i heard that it’s been sold outright, which suggests that even if it does reincarnate somewhere it’ll be so changed no one who loved the old place will even recognise it. (and for those of us in the neighborhood it’s a moot point anyway. i liked columbia heights coffee when i lived in petworth.)
June 30, 2007 at 8:39 pmIt is sad when a business that stuck it out when the going was tough is now a victim of the turnaround it helped create. We need independent businesses like Sparky’s. Let’s hope, indeed, that it is replaced by one.
July 6, 2007 at 5:11 pmwhat is more shocking is the fact that the department of public health didnt close sparkys down much earlier… the inside of that place was NASTY.
July 9, 2007 at 4:31 pmIs Dos Gringos still around in Mnt Pleasant? I moved out of the neighborhood but seem to recall it being a coffee shop. There’s also the International Cafe in Woodley Park. Not particularly hipster but I believe it’s independently owned. And isn’t there also a place near 17th street in Dupont?
July 10, 2007 at 1:44 pmHi all!
Very interesting information! Thanks!
Bye
September 19, 2007 at 8:49 pmDear gentlefolk, allow me to be blunt, 14U is a nice place with friendly independent owners but it doesn’t hit it right to be a spot for me (they have XM radio.)
I don’t need hipster, but I’ll take it – what I need is artistic and independent, I don’t want mean shitty art on the walls artistic, I mean the kind of jones thats open late, no one is bashful, good music is natural, and culture isn’t just neatly stacked eye level.
The Warehouse comes close to this for me, but it’s far from where I live up in Mt P. Any ideas?
September 25, 2007 at 12:05 pmwoe sparky’s! nate, if you find anything good near mt p/col heights, let us know…
November 4, 2007 at 8:18 pmI am sad to see Sparky’s go to a new location. The great memories are at the 14th street location.
June 24, 2009 at 9:30 pm
This smacks of “real reporting”.
June 25, 2007 at 12:44 pm