VELOCITY GRILL

VELOCITY GRILL

When Abe Pollin, owner of the Washington Wizards and Capitals, moved the teams to the new MCI Center in DC, he gave the anchor bar lease to the local guys. Suddenly, we were in the big league.
— Geoffrey Dawson

Velocity Grill was located in the SE corner of the MCI Center, now Capital One Arena. Along with visionary architect Travis Price (holding hard-hat) and contractor Tony DePaul (striped sweater), we designed and built a three-floor, futuristic sports bar that celebrated the history of DC Sports. The lower level looked over the Wizards’ new practice court, and Wizards star Chris Webber often stopped in to grab a bite.

Architect Travis Price incorporated glass floors, basketball fabric booths, and stools, and Tony DePaul from Specialized Construction brought in the big guns to open this massive bar on time. The city was thrilled; the place looked great, but the numbers never reached the critical level, and we closed our doors after just one year. Why? We were too early to the dance. The neighborhood around the MCI Center had not grown quickly enough to attract the number of customers we needed every night to keep our doors open. We had also drifted away from our core business building bars where people came to do things, to play pool, shuffleboard, ping pong, and darts.

This was the first time we failed; in hindsight, it made sense. We had stepped outside the comfort zone of pool halls and into the world of kitchens, servers, and rapid turnover of customers. I swore I would never open another bar in that neighborhood, yet several years later, we added RocketBar, Iron Horse, Penn Social, and JackPot within two blocks.