Steve Burns
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON – (WMAL) The District has been enjoying its reputation as a culinary destination for a few years now, but a new analysis shows the city’s booming nightlife scene could soon have its glory days in the rear view. The D.C. Policy Center crunched the numbers, and found bars, restaurants, and nightclubs are closing at a faster rate now than they were over the last decade.

The boom has been unmistakable, as the District is now home to about 1,300 restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, up from around 800 in 2008. But an analysis of liquor licenses given by the city shows around ten percent of those businesses are closing every year. Of the 165 liquor licenses granted by the city in 2010, the analysis showed less than half of those businesses are still operating today.

“It could be the biggest of the nightlife boom is just behind us,” D.C. Policy Center Executive Director Yesim Taylor told WMAL.

Taylor said blame could be given to a number of different factors, including D.C.’s high cost of space, an oversaturation in the market, and the city’s change in demographics.

“Our population is still growing, but not as fast as it did before,” she said. “The formation of the restaurants is following the population patterns in the city.”

The analysis also broke down openings and closings by neighborhood. Some of the city’s more established nightlife areas, like Georgetown, Adams Morgan, and Dupont Circle, saw the biggest turnover. Areas with primarily new development, like Shaw and Navy Yard, saw more opening activity in recent years, but they, too, were not immune to closures.

“The nightlife has done better than a typical small business usually does in the District,” Taylor said. “Now it’s kind of reverting back to normal.”

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