Opening on old turf
Students anxiously awaiting the opening of Terrapin Turf, the bar set to replace the former Santa Fe Cafe on Knox Road, will have to hold on until January, as its debut has been delayed for months over permits for the sprinkler system.
Although the bar’s owners, Mohammad, Salomeh and Yasmine Afshar, hoped to initially open the bar in May and then October, months passed as they worked to acquire a permit for pipes for the bar’s new sprinkler system, mandated by the city to bring the bar up to code.
“That’s been the first and last step,” said Salomeh Afshar, a university alumna. “Everything else is ready to go.”
Sightings of the construction crews that had worked throughout the summer making renovations became less frequent, said Michael Stiefvater, city economic development coordinator. To city officials and students, it seemed the new bar’s opening was on hold, possibly indefinitely.
But Afshar said the bar is finally almost ready to open its doors.
“Our hope was to open a very long time ago,” she said.
The county licensing office did not have proper records for the property, causing the delay. That was strange, Salomeh Afshar said, because Santa Fe Cafe occupied the space for years.
“If it was being used as a commercial property for all these years, there should be records there,” she said. “It wasn’t like there was nothing there and we built this whole thing.”
Besides the records problems, obtaining county permits in general can take “a very long time” — sometimes years, said Mrs. Thompson, an engineering technician in the county permit department who withheld her first name to protect her job. Obtaining a “Use and Occupancy” permit can take a few months just for a first review.
But after months of uncertainty, issues with the licensing office appear to be resolved, Salomeh Afshar said. The owners have installed the internal sprinkler system and are now just waiting for the water to be turned on — their only holdup before the bar can finally open.
The Afshars bought the property in February. Most of the renovations took place over the summer, which included putting in a new bar, creating a kitchen area, changing the lighting, installing new windows and building an awning for the entrance, Stiefvater said.
Once Terrapin Turf opens, Salomeh Afshar hopes to cater to the diversity of the university and city community. She plans to make it a “place for everyone” by hosting a wide variety of entertainment, including DJs, local band performances and other live music and dance shows. There won’t be a formal dance floor, but there will be large TVs where patrons can watch Maryland sports games, she said.
“[We’ll] just keep it hot and happening and different, so you’re not seeing the same people every night,” Afshar said. “Not just, ‘Here’s some booze’ — a lot more than that.”
She hopes to create an atmosphere similar to the bars in Washington. The Afshars owned a bar in Georgetown, called Saloun, for more than 20 years before shutting its doors last fall because of climbing rent prices.
A sophomore, who requested anonymity because he is under 21, questioned how strict Terrapin Turf would be about enforcing underage drinking restrictions. Looney’s Pub, which opened last October and has an ID scanner, is known to be “extremely strict” about fake IDs, he said.
Saloun had few problems with underage drinking compared to other establishments in the area, said John Wiebenson, Georgetown Business Improvement District operations director.
“Every once in a while, they served a minor; to say they’re never going to serve a minor is probably impossible, but they weren’t in the top 20,” Wiebenson said. “I didn’t really have too many complaints or problems about them opposed to other folks who were known for underage drinking.”
Terrapin Turf will cater mostly to an over-21 crowd but will hold some 18-plus nights, Salomeh Afshar said. On those nights especially, the bar will take more precautions to keep out underage drinkers, including distributing wristbands and increasing security. Afshar said the owners want to avoid problems like those that occurred at the Thirsty Turtle, a former bar on Route 1 that was connected to a stabbing in October 2010 involving several underage students.
“You don’t want to have a crazy place with people puking and fighting all over the place,” Afshar said. “We just want to have a cool, fun, safe venue that everyone can have fun at and the community can be proud of.”
Now that the sprinkler licensing issues have been resolved, Terrapin Turf will open in the next few weeks, most likely in January when students are still on winter break, Afshar said. This way, the owners can have a “test run” without a barrage of students on the first few days, she said. She wants everything to be “flawless” — but after months of delay, the owners just want to open, Afshar said.
“It’s been a long time coming, and we’re ready to be there,” Afshar said. “We’re super excited.”
