Greg Engert of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group

In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands talked with Greg Engert, beverage director and partner at the Neighborhood Restaurant Group. NRG operates many wellknown food and beverage establishments in the D.C. area and beyond. One thing that you’re most likely familiar with is their epic beer festival, Snallygaster, which takes place on Oct. 14 this year. Here is an excerpt of their talk.

UnCapped: This could really be 20 separate episodes.

Greg Engert: Yeah, that’s why when I got here, I was like, “Do you have an agenda for this?” Because we could go all over the place. We’ve been up to a lot of things over the years.

UnCapped: I would venture to guess a lot of people don’t know what the Neighborhood Restaurant Group is, however, I would assume the vast majority of people listening know of at least one entity that NRG owns — probably ChurchKey.

Engert: That’s a good point, because it’s always been a struggle for us to know how much we want to foreground the group versus the entities — because we are a collection of over 20 different independent bars, restaurants, retail outlets, butcher shops, you name it, and each of them has their own specific, individual identity with an amazing team that executes on the ground.

Then we have a broader team that assists with the Neighborhood Restaurant Group in general, including

Neighborhood Restaurant Group

memorable experiences, whether it’s a gigantic beer festival like Snallygaster or a low-ABV bar like Shelter, which is at The Roost, or so many of our local places, I’d really like to believe we just refuse to cut corners in going after things that are memorable.

UnCapped: When you have so many different things, how do you even come up with original concepts anymore? Looking through every location, every restaurant and brewery seems like it has its own unique identity. It’s not like you’re a franchise with different window dressing on the same idea.

We are careful to try to have identities to each business but at the same time, a really cool thread that runs through all of them, from hospitality and service and always creating memorable experiences.

Even on the beer properties: Shelter may focus on low-ABV beers, Sovereign may focus on Belgium and Belgium-inspired beers, but both of them serve 50 drafts, temperature controlled in the proper glassware, with the proper dish machines that make sure the glasses come out chlorine-free, lipstick-free every single time. These kinds of things run throughout.

myself. So a lot of people are like, “What’s NRG?” And I say, “ChurchKey,” and they’re like, “Oh, I know that.” Or Snallygaster. “Oh, I’ve been to that.”

UnCapped: Snallygaster was going to be my second pick for the beer world as the next well-known NRG property.

Engert: Another thing is next to all the beer stuff we do is all the restaurants, like Iron Gate and Vermilion. We’re about to reopen Columbia Firehouse as a whole new concept called Josephine in Old Town [Alexandria, Virginia] that’s more like a French brasserie. It is a really cool company that we’ve been growing for a long time.

I think one of the best things about our company is no matter what, we strive to create these really

Engert: For sure. If we have opportunities and ideas of things to do, we always choose the thing that’s much harder to do. We very rarely, if ever, replicate a concept, which, frankly, is a better way to be efficient, run a business, make more money. That’s never been the reason why we’re in the business. We’re in the business because we love coming up with unique, incredible, singular experiences that we can offer. That’s what really drives us.

It’s nice in hindsight. When I look at our roster, it all looks perfect, but believe me, it’s not. Coming up with these ideas, sometimes we don’t know what we’re gonna do, and inspiration hits us at the last minute.

If you look at our menus and some of our logo design, you start to see the thread that runs between them. People start to see the parallels in spite of the differences.

UnCapped: Was ChurchKey the first company?

Engert: No, we actually began as a company back in 1997. Evening Star Cafe was our first restaurant, still going strong, some 26 years later.

UnCapped: That’s crazy. That’s not a norm.

Engert: No, it’s not. For better or worse, we hold onto our properties for a very long time. Vermilion’s another one; that’s been around since 2004, I want to say.

This excerpt has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at fnppodcasts.com/uncapped. Got UnCapped news? Email csands@newspost.com.