5 days ago
D.C. has too many restaurants. It's time for some to go.
The debate about the elimination of the special minimum tipped wage, as was noted in Marc Fisher's May 23 op-ed, 'In D.C.'s new world of eating out, when is a service fee a tip?,' ignores an inconvenient truth: D.C. has too many restaurants.
I live in the Palisades. In my neighborhood, within three blocks of my house, there are six restaurants. If I extend that range to a still-doable 15-minute walk, there are four more. But I don't have a drugstore within that three-block radius, or a hardware store, or a bookstore, or a full-service grocery store. Restaurants make so much money that they can afford to pay higher rents than other kinds of stores, and the result is less variety in the local commercial market.
