A new Wingstop is set to open at 1839 7th St NW in Shaw on October 14, moving into a storefront inside The Shay that has cycled through a strikingly varied lineup of tenants over the past decade. The buffalo-style chicken wing chain, which traces its roots to Garland, Texas, will become just the second Wingstop location within Washington, D.C. proper.
The news was first reported by PoPville, which noted the opening date and location inside The Shay development. Before Wingstop, the address most recently housed Stop Smack’n, a Black-owned Southern comfort food restaurant founded by D.C. natives DeAndre Green, Stanley Childs, and Chef Larry Cooper. That restaurant launched a crowdfunding campaign in February 2024 after struggling with dropping sales and rising operating debts, according to WUSA9. Stop Smack’n began as a home-based operation during the pandemic before opening its permanent Shaw location in July 2021.
A Storefront With a Storied Past
Before Stop Smack’n, the same address was home to mixologist Derek Brown’s notable oyster bar Eat the Rich, which opened in October 2013, along with high-profile pop-up concepts like Miracle on 7th Street, per historical reporting cited alongside the property’s record. Eat the Rich opened as part of a cluster of cocktail-focused venues that helped fuel Shaw’s initial nightlife surge along the corridor.
The Shay itself is a mixed-use development built by JBG, featuring 242 residential apartment units and roughly 29,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space spread across the 700 and 800 blocks of Florida Avenue NW and 7th Street NW. Residential tenants first moved into the building in late 2015 as part of the broader redevelopment around the Shaw-Howard University Metro station.
Wingstop’s Rapid National Expansion
The Shaw location will mark Wingstop’s second restaurant inside Washington, D.C. proper, joining an existing location at 300 Riggs Road NE in the Fort Totten/Riggs Park neighborhood, according to delivery listings on DoorDash. Wingstop has otherwise built out its presence largely in the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs, a pattern common among national fast-casual chains that often expand into suburban strip centers before establishing central city storefronts…