Noodles & Company's Indonesian Peanut Sauté. Photo by Mark H. Anbinder.
Noodles & Company is planning to put a fast casual pasta restaurant in Woodley Park, but it has to secure a zoning exception first.
Noodles applied in March for an exception to Woodley Park’s moratorium on fast food restaurants. It hopes to establish a restaurant at 2635 Connecticut Ave., which Sake Club vacated last year when it closed.
“Because its patrons pay for their meal prior to consuming it, the zoning regulations technically deem it a fast food establishment,” lawyers for Noodles argue in the company’s application to the D.C. Board of Zoning Adjustment, which decides upon exceptions to city zoning laws.
The chain serves pasta, soups, salads and sandwiches in a fast casual format, with a focus on international cuisine. It has multiple locations in the metropolitan area, including Silver Spring and Arlington, but the Woodley Park restaurant would be its first in D.C.
Further details about the planned restaurant itself were not available in its BZA filing. A Noodles spokeswoman did not return email and phone messages.
Noodles contends that its restaurant is “virtually indistinguishable from a restaurant use as defined under the zoning regulation,” save for the timing of payment.
The Cleveland Park/Woodley Park Advisory Neighborhood Commission will vote April 26 on whether or not to recommend BZA grant the exception.
Another reason to relax some aspects of the code (or make it easier to get exceptions).
Looking forward to this addition to the neighborhood.
Doesn’t Woodley Park already have a Chipotle and a McDonalds? There isn’t much difference between how all 3 of them work so why is there a problem for Noodles?