Barbecue is out before it even got through the door at a Barracks Row restaurant space. Busy DMV entrepreneur Steve Salis has decided not to bring Catalogue hospitality’s Federal Pig concept to the storefront and will, instead, be debuting a new steakhouse called Woodruffs there, reports the Washington Business Journal.
The 527 Eighth St. SE restaurant space previously housed Cava Mezze and spans 4,000 square feet. Salis explains the decision to pivot from transforming the storefront into a Federalist Pig to Woodruffs, saying: “When we look at the market more broadly, we think there’s a really interesting opportunity to bring a neighborhood-oriented steakhouse that has the right sort of positioning in the market to support what consumers want. I think this will, at the end of the day, be better for the neighborhood than Fed Pig.”
Future Woodruffs visitors won’t have to wait too much longer to sample the restaurant’s fare; while a specific opening date has not yet been set, leadership is optimistic about the steakhouse being ready in the first half of 2027.
