Welcome to the newly redesigned Eat the District…..
Pause for effect.
And that’s it. That’s what you get. Over two months of planning and thought and countless drafts and this is the best I could come up (this current iteration came to me while sleepwalking through a game of squash with Evan). No witty opener, no food pun, just welcome. This is going to be rough, but I promise we’ll get somewhere. Someday.
Many of you aren’t familiar with Eat the District so the impact of this redesign and relaunch is lost on you. So before I dive into what we’re about let me quickly tell you where we came from.
Eat the District was founded by the visionary Scott Underwood in February of 2009. The mission (as I understood it) was to make a city full of amazing food accessible to a community that is underserved by the traditional gastronomic blogosphere: college students and young professionals. The blog roll in DC is full of news of celebrity toques, the latest fads, and the hottest new openings. Eat the District, while celebrating these places, would take a different approach. ETD would find the cheap eats and best deals around the city while maintaining an eye for quality.
My involvement with Eat the District came four months later (June of 2009 for those of you playing along at home). Scott invited me on board as a semi-regular contributor. I was thrilled. Eat the District combined my love of food with my love of writing (at the time I was on the writing staff at The McLaughlin Group).
What followed was a crazy summer filled with love, exploration, and good cheap food. Writing about food was a perfect creative outlet and an opportunity to explore new restaurants. The pinnacle moment of these four months came when the large (both in size and heart) proprietor of Goody’s, Angelina, whispered in my ear that I would never have to pay for pizza again (another story for another time).
But like all good semi-serious hobbies, life took over. My senior year at GW started and predictably my contributions fell off. Slowly Eat the District went dormant like so many of the of the best pet project blogs (You can still see the fruits of our labor at www.eatthedistrict.blogsport.com).
Fast forward to January 2012 (there’s a lot of boring stuff in the middle there). Scott had moved to New York City. I was (and still am) working full-time. Looking for more activities I had joined a gym, (oh shut up already about the gym) but I wanted a new creative and productive hobby. The thought of reviving Eat the District had been rolling around in my head off and on for six months. Finally I decided it was time. The world needed Eat the District (debatable, but we’ll ignore the hyperbole).
But first I required permission of the creator of the site, our old friend Scott Underwood. I quickly got his approval and we were in business.
I persuaded (or harangued, whatever) the talented web designer and my good friend and colleague Jordan Sheckman (www.jordansheckman.com) to take on this side project and give us fresh new look. He’s done a fantastic job don’t you think?
But I also realized I couldn’t do it alone. So that’s why I invited friend/roommate/fellow food snob Evan Chiacchiaro to join the fold. He had floated the idea of doing his own blog based on his adventures dating a semi-vegetarian. It never got off the ground. After extending the invite, Evan was in (you’ll hear from him more this afternoon). Eat the District was now two idiots with a platform to spout their ideas.
Evan is going to tell you more about we have in store, but I’ll tell you that our mission remains the same. We’re on the hunt for good cheap food. We’ll travel the city and venture to the suburbs to fulfill this quest. We have a lot in the works. I don’t want to spoil too much, but expect to hear stories from my vast collection of weirdly specific pickiness (certain types of tuna, orange hybrid varietals, clarified butter, etc.).
If you want to join us we’re always look for my more characters to add to our cast (word has it that we’ll be joined shortly by our mysterious “man on the street”). If this opportunity has you up at night shoot me a line: micah@eatthedistrict.com.
We might make you laugh, we might definitely will make you roll your eyes, but I hope that we’ll encourage you to get out into the city and find something tasty.
Eat good. Eat cheap. Eat the District.
Don’t forget to check us on Twitter (twitter.com/eatthedistrict).
