The empty restaurant at 821 Upshur Street NW

Taqueria del Barrio opened on Upshur Street in 2017 in the space that once hosted local favorite Domku. In the five years since del Barrio opened, owner Anna Bran-Leis worked hard to have the restaurant she loved provide good food and a warm, inviting atmosphere. Now the restaurant is closed, and something new will surely take its place.

Taqueria del Barrio opened at a time when Upshur was hopping — Slim’s Diner was slinging burgers, Petworth Citizen was a great local saloon, Upshur Books was killing it slinging books and community events, Himitsu and Timber Pizza were on top of the charts, and no one had heard of COVID.

Anna Bran-Leis started out her culinary career with food trucks — DC Empanadas — and realized she had a passion. Petworth News got to know Anna when we profiled her as part of our popular Women of Upshur articles series. We got to know a woman who jumped toward hard work, couldn’t be pushed out of her way and made her dream a success.

Taqueria del Barrio owner Anna Bran-Leis

Anna and Carlie Steiner, the co-founder and mixologist at Himitsu, teamed up in 2019 and opened the Dos Mamis bar at 819 Upshur Street NW. Meant to be a fun cocktail bar, Dos Mamis never really hit it off with the neighborhood, and it ended up closing when COVID hit a year later. It never reopened.

Even during COVID, Taqueria del Barrio persevered, offering take-out. And later, as restrictions lifted, the restaurant opened its doors to customers. Never quite as crowded as it was before the pandemic, it kept open and serving. Del Barrio used the sidewalk in front of Dos Mamis for patio space, but nothing happened inside of Dos Mamis.

The Dos Mamis building at 819 Upshur recently sold for at least $1.1 million… what it will become, we’ll have to wait and see. It has a great patio out back but a very small kitchen and small interior, making a full-service restaurant difficult to take over the space without drastic changes. (Years ago, that building, like Timber’s and Cinder’s space, was a small Christian denomination church…)

But at del Barrio, in the months that followed the reopening after Covid, the missing component was Anna. Customers began to dwindle, the outside of the restaurant suffered from an apparent lack of interest in upkeep, and one day a few months ago, with a help wanted sign posted on the front, the doors were locked and didn’t reopen.

We haven’t been able to speak directly with Anna (will update if we do), but understand there may be personal health considerations that ultimately lead to the restaurant closing.

On June 1st, the window decals inside Taqueria del Barrio were taken down, as the building owners worked to clean up the interior. They have no info to share now for what the del Barrio space will become, but with its large seating area and large kitchen and even larger bar, it will definitely get a tenant. Who or what that will be also remains to be seen.

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