Over the last decade, storefronts on Upshur Street have housed several kinds of food businesses: a farm-to-table dinner spot, a Southern comfort kitchen, a taqueria, and a neighborhood tavern. Most drew a crowd for a while before closing. This spring, butcher Matt Sperber moved into the same address with a deli.
District Larder offers a different format from the restaurants that previously occupied the address. The Petworth Community Market, PorchFest, and public park programming offer other examples of neighborhood activity on different schedules. The sections below look at each in turn.
The History of 821 Upshur Street NW
The space at 821 Upshur Street NW has hosted Domku, then Taqueria del Barrio, then Petworth Social Bar & Grill, then Fedwell, a farm-to-table concept from a longtime local caterer. All were sincere efforts by people with real ties to the neighborhood. None lasted long term. Petworth News, which has covered this corner of Upshur for years, has noted that traffic there gets busy on weekends but goes quiet most weekdays.
District Larder Co. opened in that same storefront in April 2026. Before opening in Petworth, Sperber spent time at Momofuku CCDC and Sean Brock's Husk.
As Petworth News reported, Sperber said: "This is not about foodies coming from across the city. It's about the people who live in the neighborhood. This is a place you can come to once a week, not once a year for date night."
The format backs up the words. District Larder runs as a full-service deli and market during the day, with a sandwich counter, house-made salamis, pates, and cheese for sale, plus grocery staples and takeaway meals like lasagna and pot pie. A second Momofuku alum, Chris Levitt, takes over Thursday through weekend evenings for a more composed dinner and brunch service built around whole-animal butchery. As The Infatuation noted in a review published this month, the kitchen processes one or two whole pigs from local farms every week, which is why the walk-in fridge is stocked with curing salamis rather than reserved for wine.
That marks a new chapter for the address.
The Market That's Been Doing This Since 2010
If District Larder is the new proof of concept, the Petworth Community Market is the original one. It has run every Saturday from May through November at 9th and Upshur since 2010, which makes it older than most of the restaurants that have opened and closed a few blocks away in the meantime. The 2026 season started May 2 and runs through November 28, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., rain or shine.
The current market season includes:
- Panorama Bakery and Harrar Coffee & Roastery for the morning routine
- Lost Sock Roasters and Blum Tea for another round of caffeine options
- Open Book Farm, Owl's Nest Farm, EcoBlossoms Farm, and Kuhn Orchards for produce
- Jarabe Ice Pops and Millet Magic Bites for the kids
- The Black Swan Co., a Black-owned, woman-owned brand making small-batch simple syrups
- A weekly music tent featuring artists like Se7en Eli, whose sets blend jazz, hip-hop, and live instrumentation
Its Saturday schedule is one part of Petworth's broader calendar of neighborhood activity.
Weekly Rhythms and Annual Events
Not everything that works in Petworth is quiet and recurring. Petworth PorchFest, the neighborhood's volunteer-run music festival, hit a new scale this year: 430 bands across 31 genres playing on 164 front porches on May 30, with a main stage at the Petworth Recreation Center headlined by HUE, The Montaines, and The Experience Band & Show featuring Riz Tha Great. It is genuinely the kind of event people plan around, and the DC Council's Porchfest Permitting Amendment Act of 2025 even made it easier for residents to host coordinated block parties alongside it.
But PorchFest works for a different reason than District Larder or the farmers market. It is not a business trying to survive on foot traffic. It is a once-a-year civic project, built by volunteers, that borrows the neighborhood's actual homes as its infrastructure. The two models are not competing so much as covering different needs.
| District Larder / Farmers Market | PorchFest | |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency | Weekly, year-round or seasonal | Once a year |
| Who carries the cost | A business or small vendors | Volunteer organizers and hosts |
| What keeps it alive | Repeat foot traffic | Community goodwill and turnout |
| What it offers | Regular opportunities to shop, eat, or attend | A coordinated neighborhood music event |
Petworth has recurring local businesses and annual events, with the farmers market following a seasonal schedule and PorchFest taking place once a year.
Public Events at The Parks and Lincoln's Cottage
The Parks at Walter Reed, the green space and retail cluster off Georgia Avenue, has a published fall 2026 calendar running from August into November. It lists free concerts, outdoor fitness classes, dancing, flea markets, and a large used book sale.
Lincoln's Cottage, the historic site just north of the main Upshur corridor, is running a series of free public events tied to the nation's 250th anniversary. Its programming is spread across the year rather than concentrated on a single commemorative day.
A Neighborhood Calendar
Line these up and there is plenty to follow: a new deli at 821 Upshur Street NW, a farmers market each Saturday from May through November, PorchFest once a year, and calendars of concerts, classes, and anniversary events.
For anyone keeping an eye on this part of Northwest DC, these businesses and events offer a mix of weekly, seasonal, and annual schedules.
If you are watching this stretch of Northwest DC for reasons beyond dinner plans, whether that is a move within the district or a look at what's happening across Washington D.C.'s neighborhoods, the Velvel Group spends time in these corridors the same way any resident does, paying attention to what actually lasts. Reach out any time you want a second set of eyes on a neighborhood, a listing, or just what's changed on a street you used to know well.
