Business Group Visits the New Tony & Joe’s

The renovated Tony & Joe’s — to re-open Sept. 5 — provided the setting and Nick’s Riverside Grill the food for a networking mixer by the Georgetown Business Association Aug. 22. Members and friends of the GBA were eager to see the reworked space of Tony & Joe’s which was damaged and shut down by the April 2011 flood at Washington Harbour. The family-run restaurants at the lower level and next to the Potomac River have been serving customers at outside tables. Owners Greg Casten and Tony Cibel agreed that something better had come out of the flood damage. The new Tony & Joe’s is more open with higher windows. Also, the fountain at Washington Harbour — part of a $20-million exterior renovation by owners MRP Relaty and Rockpoint Group, LLC — has been upgraded to shoot lighted water jets in time with music a la the fountains and pond of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. During the winter, the fountain area will be encased and extended as it is transformed into an ice skating rink. Nick Cibel said that elliptical-shaped 12,000-square-foot area would exceed the size of the ice rink at Rockefeller Center in New York City.