RedRocks opening

[from Beth Guerard]

Owner and local entrepreneur James O’Brien is proud to announce the official opening of his latest venture, RedRocks FireBrickPizzeria, located in DC’s booming Columbia Heights neighborhood. The 95 seat, 1,800 square foot restaurant will offer both traditional and gourmet pizzas straight from the 800 degree brick oven, as well as café fare including fresh panini with housemade bread, salads and starters, wines by the bottle and the glass, Chimay Triple and Allagash White on tap and 30 beers and microbrews by the bottle.

O’Brien is also pleased to work with Executive Chef Edan MacQuaid, a longtime chef at two acclaimed local pizzerias and an expert in the precise art of brick oven pizza-making. “The brick-oven pizza is special because in about 90 seconds it turns out a pizza with a crisp, wood-smoked crust that holds up to toppings in a way you can’t get from conventional pizza ovens,” said O’Brien. “I grew up on the Jersey Shore and attended school near New Haven, Connecticut, where pizza is a local obsession, so it’s fair to say that I’ve had a lifelong passion for great pizza. The brick oven makes the best, most flavorful pizza, with just the right amount of ‘bite’ in the crust.”

With spacious rooms on two levels for inside seated dining, a takeout section downstairs for carryout customers, and a gorgeous patio seating 35 people, RedRocks invites diners to stop in for dinner or weekend brunch.

In addition to serving some of the best pizza in DC, the eclectic and casual menu will feature items such as warm olives with garlic and herbs, baked panzarotti, wood-fired fresh fish, mussels marinara, white bean and tuna salad, and an array of grilled panini on homemade bread.

O’Brien is eager to become an integral part of the local community. “You can’t beat Columbia Heights for history, character and charm—it is really a neighborhood on the rise,” said O’Brien. “But until now, there was literally no place to get a beer and brick-oven pizza right in the neighborhood. I hope locals - and people from all over who are into wood-fired pizza - will stop by to check the place out, have a drink, and say hello. We’re so glad to be in the neighborhood.”

Situated in a restored rowhouse on the corner of Park Road and 11th Street NW (1036 Park Rd NW), RedRocks is just one block from the historic Tivoli Theater.

RedRocks officially opens for dinner service this evening at 5pm and will offer late-night dining seven days a week. In addition, RedRocks will feature Sat-Sun brunch starting at 11am on Sat, July 21. Once brunch begins, dining hours are:
Mon–Thurs, 5pm to 12am
Friday, 5pm to 1am
Saturday, 11am to 1am
Sunday, 11am to 12am

Comments

[Anonymous]

For good or bad (not my preference), the chicken topping at Red Rocks is mostly skin and the one piece of meat that you do get per slice is dark meat.

[Pizza Face]

I bought pizza to take home the other night. My rating: Outstanding. Very tasty sauce, superb mozzarella, thin and crispy crust with a smokey, brick-oven flavor, high quality incredients. The pizza was not cheap and not huge, but that's okay. I appreciate a place that aims for quality. Red Rocks clearly does. Did not get to try other menu items but I will. I will be a frequent visitor, I suspect. I am extremely hard to please when it comes to pizza. A city without a large Italian American population usually fails - which I think DC does in most cases. Sorisso in Cleveland Park is my only other choice unless I'm desperate. Another good thing about Red Rocks, I relish having another place where we can sit and dine outside. So civilized!

[Anonymous]

My husband and I recently checked out Red Rocks and thought it was great. They were out of several items when we went but I can be understanding of that. They are new and I'll give them a break, I think it just takes time to get things running smoothly. Most importantly the pizza was phenomenal. That is what they are in business for and they got it right! I hope they start delivering soon!

[dd]

I went last weekend; the Funghi pizza is arguably the best pie in town! I wasn't as thrilled with the pesto pizza, and the centers were a little soggy. The service felt very typical of new restaurants. But the ingredients were just sooo fresh and tasty. You should also check out the kitchen/carry-out area. I think I saw heirloom tomatoes in there!!!

[Viipottaja]

Went yesterday. FANTASTIC PIZZA! Much much much, oh so much, more better than most of the disgusting things people call pizza here.. :) Service was very friendly, pizza came out pretty fast, did have some gaps in the beer list (no big deal). PACKED, so it was a bit chaotic, but once the initial rush calms down, I am sure they will iron out any of the issues some people complained about in earlier posts.

[Beverley]

Just to echo David's comments. My family went to Red Rocks pizza last night for dinner. Yes, it is a new restaurant and there will be opening jitters but not of this magnitude; do a dry run with friends and family and work out the kinks in your service before opening to the general public.
*Waited at least 25 minutes for a table. Three people asked if we were being helped and finally we were seated at a table in the "alcove", behind the bar, next to the trash can. Did I like it? NO, but with 2 toddlers asking for their pizza after 25 mins. I had little choice.
*Getting tired of waiting I asked one of the servers, if it was self-seating or if we had to wait to be seated. With a very snippy tone, he said we had to be seated, yet still, not less than 5 minutes later, a party comes in and self seats.
*Ordered 2 drinks, a mojito (not available, no sugar) and sparkling water (ran out). Although, from an earlier post, I am glad the mojito was unavailable. I decided to place my pizza order since from my 'vantage' point behind the bar I overheard that the kitchen was seriously backed up, however, I asked the waiter to come back for my drink order -- still waiting.

[Susan]

I ate at Red Rocks tonight - Saturday. It was completely packed & we had to wait for a table, only 20 min or so. They were out of some of their wines & beers, but all the food we wanted was available. We got the bufala mozzerella appetizer & broccoli raab salid - both delicious. The pizzas were very good - though true a little soggy in the center, i thought the ingredients were very high quality and the flavor was amazing. I had the sausage & red pepper pizza - really loved it. Our waiter did a great job despite the fact that the place was slammed...no complaints about the service. They seemed to have a ton of people working tonight anticipating how busy they'd be. I'm thrilled to have this place close by and am sure I'll be back often.

[Kieca]

We went last night and yeah, it was very disorganized.

We were sat at a table with food menus but no drink menus and waited for about 10/15 minutes before anyone came by. We ordered food and drinks (the waiter had a drink menu on him from another table). Our food (2 of the 3 items we ordered) came out but we were almost done with it by the time the drinks came. We luckily had silverware but never got plates and I didn't even ask for water since I knew that way would lie madness. Not getting plates wasn't the end of the world, but they would have been nice. I noticed another table got drinks but no food (they ordered at the same time we did) and the table next to us wanted more drinks but actually went down to the bar themselves to get them. When we asked for a check we got more drinks instead (which we weren't opposed to; but at that point we were ready to get out of there). They did make sure to not charge us for the thing we didn't get, and comped the second round of drinks, which was nice.

It was very disorganized but I guess I am one of those people who just expect that at openings and I went there thoroughly expecting disaster, so I wasn't upset about it at all (I did notice some other people were getting annoyed). This was maybe a little worse than usual but I think some staffing and organization could sort that out (we had three different people handle us throughout the night and they were all trying hard but things were just too scattered for them to really know what was going on).

I thought the food was good but not great. The rapini was good and the pizza (we just got a Margherita) was nicely crisped on the edges, but I thought it was a little too thin/soggy at the center...the toppings were light enough -with a thin crust they have to be- so maybe the crust could be a teeny bit thicker? But honestly, I was just so glad to be able to walk somewhere and get food like this.

I hadn't thought about the tough issue of kitchen in the basement. They need a dumbwaiter!

[SL]

A cat that tried to cuddle with an unsupecting customer? the horror! Don't go to Wonderland - there are all kinds of fluffy animals there on the patio demanding to be "petted." Anyway, there's nothing in this review that sounds like more than opening glitches...it's good to be a little forgiving. I'm really looking forward to going there, it looked so nice when I biked past it the other day!

[David Rives]

Just ate there tonight. Here is an email I sent Jim:
Actually,
I just came in from the Red Rocks restaurant tonight, and it was terrible. There were a number of things that people were chalking to "we just opened" that I think people should not make excuses for. Its just not being managed well.... Here is a list:

1. Sat down at a table inside, waitress did not bring water like we asked.
2. Asked for Grey Goose gimlet martini, up. Waitress brought grey goose martini up. Very different. I noticed she did not write the gimlet and told her again, but she / they still did not make it well.
3. Pull a mosquito out of my martini and put it on the napkin (did not feel like getting into it with waitress).
4. Girlfriend's mojito was terrible (liquor is too cheap). It tasted more like a Caiparihna.
5. Ordered pepperoni pizza - no "pepperoni slicer" so no pepperoni pizza (why not go to Safeway and buy all of the Hormel's?) - what is a pizza restaurant without pepperoni?
6. Asked "what is the roasted fish of the day?" - no fish "we just opened" - go to the market.
7. Girlfriend ordered a Pomergrante martini from the specialty drink menu - no pomergranite more "we just opened"
8. The food came out (sparse "chicken" broccoli pizza) - but we have no plates. Waited for a bit, and tracked down the waitress. She bought us one plate. She said she did not have another. We watched more dishes coming in from the basement, and got tired of waiting, my girlfriend stood up and got the plate herself so I could eat.
9. As we ate, a cat we saw when we parked in the neighborhood, walked into the restaurant, all the way past the bar before someone on the staff noticed and shoo-ed the cat out. It came back 3 times, including jumping in the window sill nuzzling against an unsuspecting customer.
10. One of your waiters puts the tabs in the back of his pants, either in, or on top of his underwear (asian?).

In general, the restaurant has a tough layout with the kitchen in a detached basement. That brings all of the food traffic through the main area. Also, the dirty / clean dish traffic comes through the same main area of the bar patrons.

This was easily my worse dining experience in DC, and probably overall. Again, I say all of this to say, that much of this has nothing to do with "being a new restaurant". Alot of this is really about a poor waitress and poor management. I hope you take this email to heart, share it with your staff and challenge them to improve. It was packed tonight because of your location, atmosphere and newness. But I assure you, if these issues do not improve, the community will turn its back on this restaurant. The woman of the couple next to us asked the man she was with "what are we going to eat for dinner?" after their unsatisfactory pizza. I went straight to the Wendy's on Georgia.

We were there 7/13 around 9:00pmish. Sat inside (30 minutes for outside table) in a table the bar was facing.

David

[Wayan]

While I am ecstatic that we now have a good pizza joint, I do take exception to the "RedRocks is just one block from the historic Tivoli Theater" hype.

Last time I checked, 11th Street and 14th Street were at _least_ two blocks apart.

[Markus]

Can't effing wait.

[Anonymous]

OMFG I am so happy.

[Lazy Cake]

When I lived at the corner of 11th and Monroe (2004-2005), the house that Red Rocks is now in was a known brothel. Think they kicked the madame out right around the time I moved to Petworth (May '05). Something interesting to ponder while sipping a Leffe Blonde and noshing on goat cheese and kalamari pizza.