Restaurants Down 7.6%; Columbia Hts. Coffee Closed

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS— Columbia Heights Coffee has closed. PoPville has the scoop on the coffee shop that was an early pioneer in the neighborhood. [PoP]

SHUTDOWN WOES— Mayor Vincent Gray gave a press conference today about the impact the government shutdown has had on D.C. One disturbing statistic: restaurant business in the city is down about 7.6 percent for the first week of October. Eater followed up with Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington spokesman Kyle Rees, who said the data comes courtesy of Avero, a company that surveyed more than 70 restaurants to arrive at the figure. [EaterWire]

NEW YORK— Some fun news from our partners over at Racked: Salt & Sundry founder and food writer Amanda McClements is one of the vendors being featured at the Martha Stewart-curated American Made Market in Grand Central Station this year. [Racked DC]

SHUTDOWN STATS— Foursquare has released some stats related to the government shutdown. During the first week of the shutdown, overall check-ins by D.C. users were about the same, but bars and Italian restaurants were replacing office, train and cafeteria check-ins (bar check-ins were up by more than 50 percent). Meanwhile, as the shutdown dragged on, expensive restaurant check-ins went down, and bar activity returned to normal. [EaterWire]

Columbia Heights Coffee [Photo: Facebook]