After more than two years of ownership, Tony Kornheiser has closed down his Northwest D.C. restaurant, Chatter.
Kornheiser announced the decision on Friday during “The Tony Kornheiser Show” podcast, which he hosts from a studio inside the restaurant.
“Chatter is closing for renovations and remodeling,” Kornheiser said in the episode, titled “Check Please.” “Whether or not it reopens I am not certain at the moment. I hope it reopens. But we are probably going to move on and do the show from a less-public area.
“I would say that I have enjoyed doing this show in front of live bodies more than anything I’ve ever done. The show’s gonna be fine and certain, selected people can come and watch it but’s going to be an entirely different circumstance.”
Kornheiser told Eater DC Friday afternoon that the restaurant needed to repair its plumbing, air conditioning and heating systems.
“We had a lot of fun doing it,” Kornheiser said. “We were not restaurateurs ourselves. We had a pretty old building that needed a lot of work. We just sort of decided that we’re not going to keep going forward by throwing more money into it. I was thrilled to own it. I was thrilled to do a podcast there. But it was just time.
Everybody just decided it was time to move on.”
Chatter also hosted podcasts for former WTEM radio personalities Kevin Sheehan and Andy Polin.
No current records show pending or issued building permits filed to renovate the Wisconsin Avenue venue, per the Washington Business Journal.
The “Pardon the Interruption” co-host and former Washington Post columnist announced on his podcast in January 2017 that he would purchase the Friendship Heights establishment then known as Chad’s (previously Chadwick’s) along with TV host Maury Povich, former University of Maryland men’s basketball coach Gary Williams and local businessman Alan Bubes.
“It is a very welcoming place. It really is sort of like Cheers,” Kornheiser said at the time. “So we have purchased this place, and we’re going to rename it, we’re going to fix it up. It is shopworn . . . We’re going to do a lot of things here, and we’re going to improve it.”
Article Written by Jake Russell at the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/06/28/tony-kornheiser-announces-closure-his-dc-restaurant-chatter/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e767a568828a
Photo Courtesy of Washington Post