Piola DC
Jason Morenz was working in the kitchen in Piola located on the northern border of U St by Florida Ave NW. The restaurant was popular on Sunday for their bottomless…
The Tower
In October 1984, I enlisted in the Navy straight out of high school in a small town in Southeast Georgia. After serving aboard the USS Francis Hammond (FF-1067) in Yokosuka,…
President’s Bar Comics
Nicole Foster was the wet behind the ears Marketing Manager trying to drum up new clientele for the President’s Sports Bar at the Renaissance Hotel in the Penn Quarter. So…
Prayers for Nepal
May 12, 2015 The views at the Georgetown waterfront were busy with paddle boarders launching from the Key Bridge Boathouse and lunchers enjoying the open patio seating at Sequoia and…
RUNIN — the Theme
RUNIN is not exactly about the joys (or pain) of running. It’s not about running out of food either. Did you realize that RUNIN is actually a back acronym? Huh?…
Ben’s Upstairs
August, 2016. I was driving back from Front Royal, VA, the gateway to the Shenandoah National Park, when I got an unexpected call from a long-time restaurateur friend. “Manuel, it’s…
Best of DC
We applied for the GWU Business Plan competition three times, hoping that indeed the third and last time was the charm. Unfortunately, all the leprechauns in the world could not…
A Site is Born
During the spring of 2010, I enrolled in Professor Richard Donnelly’s New Ventures Class at the George Washington University (GWU) School of Business. Students had to create ideas for a…
The Tower
I enrolled in the Executive MBA program, and before the semester started, our cohort of 20 eager students embarked on a five-day retreat at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs,…
Startup Weekend
That next big tech event was Baltimore’s first-ever Startup Weekend held on April 17-19, 2011. On Friday afternoon, I arrived at the Emerging Technology Center, Baltimore’s Technology Incubator, at 8 pm,…