SN&R’s readers don’t need to know where I live. Yes, you’re mostly rational, nonstalkerish types. But I also know for a fact a couple of you are nuts. So, let’s just say I reside on N Street. Maybe.
Anyway, the other day, a letter was stuffed under my front door. It was from the city, regarding a proposed new restaurant and beer garden—called Federalist Public House—that hopes to open a stone’s throw from my apartment.
N Street belies the typical Midtown hustle-bustle. There’s ample parking and few noisy drunks. Yeah, we get passerby drifters and the occasional burglarized car. But it’s a sleepy residential block. That’s how I like it.
So, my first reaction to a bar going in was, “Oh, hell no.” (Guess I do have NIMBY instincts, after all—which kinda freaked me out.)
I called Federalist’s owner, Marvin Maldonado. He’s a local architectural designer with a background in the restaurant business and, turns out, is also my neighbor: Since Labor Day, he’s resided on the second floor of the built-in-1907 home where Federalist aims to open later this year.
Currently, the downstairs of 2009 N Street is a retail boutique called Midtown Pop. Maldonado’s wife owns the Gypsy mobile boutique and is based out of the store, too. “Midtown Pop was a way to let people know that 2009 N Street is going to be a new place on the grid,” he explained.
Federalist Public House will be a “19th-century style” pub, he said, with a backyard beer garden, complete with communal seating, 10 drafts of NorCal-only brews, a wood-fired pizza oven and “shipping container” structures. Maldonado is working with a local chef to be open by Memorial Day.
The NIMBY in me still had to ask: Is this going to be a rager party spot? “No, it’s definitely not going to be the case,” he assured.
Maldonado, who formerly was a partner at Broderick Roadhouse in
A beer garden across the street? Why not? This is the new Midtown. I’m all in.
