# The pop-up that took 10 years to find a door

> Alex McCoy on turning a six-month D.C. cult hit into a 25-seat Georgetown room, and why small is the plan.
- Title: The pop-up that took 10 years to find a door · Eater
- Summary: Alex McCoy on turning a six-month D.C. cult hit into a 25-seat Georgetown room, and why small is the plan. A tiny room with the owners cooking in it is not a…
- Keywords: restaurants, washington dc, thai food, natural wine, hospitality, food, culture, pop-up, took, years, find, door
- Source: Eater — https://eater.com/pre-shift/985977/alfies-dc-pop-up-pre-shift
- Author: Liz Provencher
- Published: 2026-09-14T14:30:41+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: restaurants, washington dc, thai food, natural wine, hospitality, food, culture
## A decade to a front door
Justin Ahn and Alex McCoy opened Alfie's as a D.C. pop-up in 2016. It ran a few months, then went roving for years. The permanent Georgetown room only arrived in 2026.
## It began as a rehearsal
A doomed restaurant space down the street from their Petworth build-out was offered to them until demolition. They took it to train staff and test menus during construction.

> It's yours until your space is ready or our project starts.
## The rehearsal outran the show
The quiet-neighborhood side project became a cult sensation, booked months out. Vogue wrote about it. Bon Appetit called it one of the best new restaurants in America.
## Then the real space fell through
They closed the pop-up in 2017 and the Petworth lease never worked out. The concept they had proved had nowhere to live.
## Years on the road
Alfie's became a traveling act: New York, D.C., London, with the biggest runs alongside their friends at Carousel. Hunting for a venue the whole time.
## Europe rewrote the brand
McCoy credits the overseas stretch with turning a scrappy pop-up into a defined concept. The road was not a delay, it was the development phase.

> It was the time in Europe that really evolved the brand into what it is now.
## Post-COVID math stopped working
Labor and operating costs climbed, and restaurants answered with fewer servers, less table service, and QR codes. McCoy watched the economics stop adding up.

> The math isn't mathing, you know?
## Copy Paris, not the chain
His answer was the European hole-in-the-wall: one place, one or two people, the chef actually in it, instead of a chef with six restaurants.

> Not only was that the heart and soul of what Alfie's always was, but it felt to me to be the way forward.
## An alley off M Street
They found a gritty 25-seat spot in a Georgetown alleyway where you step down and dodge cars. To McCoy it was the most European corner of D.C. and an instant yes.

> This encapsulates the vibe and the ambiance and the feeling and the energy of what we're trying to do.
## Three people, ninety percent
Ahn, McCoy, and sous chef Ian make up nearly the whole staff. The pop-up mindset did not get left behind in the move.

> It's very much still a pop-up mindset.
## Thirty orders of curry
Twenty-five seats means small batches and a chalkboard menu rewritten around what arrives. Five good seabream from the fishmonger go straight on, no staff retraining needed.
## Thai ethos, Mid-Atlantic haul
Thailand's market culture is the brand's rule, applied to what grows and swims nearby: rockfish, soft shell crab, foraged Eastern Shore asparagus, morels.
## Wine from 20 minutes away
Most wines by the glass are Virginian, with over 2,000 local producers by the bottle. Bottles mostly run $35 to $75 so nobody dreads the check or plays it safe.

> I want people to come in and just get lost in the experience.
## Nineteen lockers, 700 bookings
The wine club sells 19 racks at $150 a month, with curated bottles at half the usual restaurant markup. The first reservation drop pulled 700 bookings.

> We're very much the antithesis of that.
## Key takeaway

A tiny room with the owners cooking in it is not a compromise, it is the business model that still works.