Business

Caitlin Franz • March 26, 2015

Kanchan Singh is looking to open the District’s first cat café, in Georgetown of all places. Singh launched a Kickstarter campaign for the café, called Crumbs and Whiskers, on March 8. By March 9, the page had exceeded its $15,000 goal, with backers and pledges continuing to roll in.

Singh is very excited about the success of the campaign.

“It’s actually blowing my mind,” she said. “This is the best Monday of my life.”

If you pledge $10 or more to their Kickstarter, Crumbs and Whiskers will write your ex’s of (or an other hated being in your life) the name in permanent marker on a litter box. Rewards are based on the amount of money you pledge. Items include post cards, T-shirts, the privilege of naming a cat and a private party.

Writing the name of donor’s ex on a litter box has been the most popular item.

After Zoning and Department of Health qualification requirements are met, campaign supporters will be notified of when to expect their rewards.

Any pledges made will not be charged to the donor’s card if the business is denied zoning approved.
The business in the process of signing a lease with plans to open this summer.

All cats at the café will be available for adoption through the Washington Humane Society. Food, meanwhile, will be prepared off-site and delivered to café. Guests will be expected to make reservations and pay an hourly cover charge.

Robert Devaney •

On March 20 and 21, Sterling & Burke, the stylish, upscale leather goods and specialty-gifts store on Pennsylvania Avenue, hosted “Bespoke: Jermyn Street Comes to Washington, D.C.” The trunk show featured London’s West End tailors Benson & Clegg, shirtmakers Budd and shoemakers Foster & Son.

Robert Devaney •

General manager Dirk Burghartz has departed the Four Seasons Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue to run a Four Seasons resort in Dallas. His successor will be David Bernand, who worked at the Four Seasons in Georgetown previously. Bernand will be returning from the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Robert Devaney •

David Bernand returned to Georgetown this week as general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. Seven years ago, Bernand had been the hotel’s manager and, before that, the director of food and beverage. Most recently, the French native was general manager at the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He succeeds Dirk Burghartz, who left for a Four Seasons resort in Las Colinas, outside of Dallas.

“Returning to D.C. is like coming home,” Bernand told the press. “All of the best memories I have with the company are here in Washington. From attending to high-profile clientele to working with loyal staff, each aspect of the operation made a difference in my decision to return to this iconic hotel.”

Bernard is the eighth general manager to lead D.C.’s only Forbes Five-Star and AAA Five-Diamond hotel with its 222 rooms, Seasons Restaurant, Bourbon Steak and M29 Lifestyle store, overseeing 450 employees. He arrives at a time when D.C. is seeing hotels opening or being renovated in time for the 2016 General Election and 2017 Presidential Inauguration – and in time for a $13-million renovation of his hotel’s rooms this summer.

Robert Devaney •

Closed for seven years, the once legendary Watergate Hotel – part of the equally legendary Watergate complex on the Potomac River, next to Georgetown – marked a ceremonial “topping off” of the hotel’s grand ballroom – part of a $125-million renovation – on March 19.

“Once it was the grandest luxury hotel,” said Jacques Cohen, principal of Euro Capital Properties, which is developing and owns the Watergate Hotel. The group intends to bring back the hotel’s mystique with retro styling and luxe appointments, as well as a 12th-floor rooftop bar. Other amenities at the hotel, which will re-open this summer, include a whisky bar, fine dining and casual restaurants and a fitness center and spa.

The grand ballroom, the “hotel’s crown jewel,” according to Rakel Cohen, the director of design and development of Euro Capital Properties, will be called the Moretti Ballroom after the hotel’s designer Luigi Moretti, the Italian architect who created the complex’s contemporary and ground-breaking style in 1961.

The hotel opened in 1965. Completed in 1971, the mixed-use Watergate complex with three residential buildings, two office buildings and a hotel was constructed by Italy-based SGI and developer Giuseppe Cecchi.

The Cohens were joined by Mayor Muriel Bowser, Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans and Foggy Bottom advisory neighborhood commissioner William Kennedy Smith, M.D., “Mad Men” costume designer Janie Bryant and hotel managing director Johnny So.