MediterraneanGrocery Wholesalers in Washington, DC

Cinco de Mayo is this Friday, and many will be celebrating.

The holiday celebrates Mexico's victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 and has grown tremendously in the United States. Many restaurants across the country offer deals to celebrate Mexican foot and drink.

No matter how you plan to celebrate, you can discover deals and events in the Washington area.

Cinco de Mayo in the D.C. Area: What to Do Friday

Baja Tap (Northwest D.C.): The Adams Morgan newcomer will offer $10 El Silencio Mezcal limeade, $9 Baja Margaritas, plus $6 tequilas and coronas, along with a DJ, ice luge and photo booth. The rooftop will open at noon.

Blue Rock (Washington, Virginia): Celebrate at Blue Rock’s tasting room and outdoor patio with queso con carne and margarita milk punch. Live music will start at 6 p.m.

Destino (Northeast, D.C.): Swing by Destino on Cinco de Mayo for happy hour that offers $3 off all of their classic cocktails. Other specials include $10 margs, $10 palomas, $9 micheladas, $11 mayahuels and $11 mezcal negronis.

Diablo's Cantina (MGM National Harbor, Maryland): Party on the patio from 5-8 p.m. with a taco truck, margarita bar and tequila tasting stations. A live DJ will kick up the party after 8 p.m.

dLeña (Northwest, D.C.): Enjoy live mariachi music at the restaurant from 7 to 10 p.m. and happy hour specials at the bar from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Specials include $7 margaritas.

Hotel Hive Rooftop (Northwest, D.C.): Enjoy live music, unlimited drinks, giveaways and a taco bar from 5 to 9 p.m. Tickets start at $50.

Las Gemelas (Northeast, D.C.): Experience a "Margarita Tap Takeover" this Friday where all the restaurant taps will be replaced with batch margaritas. Prices are $10 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Mi Casa (Northwest, D.C.): Mi Casa will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo all day long with their Fiesta de Bebidas program. Swing by for 90 minutes of unlimited drinks for $34.99 with the purchase of an entree.

Mi Vida 14th Street (Northwest, D.C.): Join a Mexican fiesta on Cinco de Mayo from 3 to 6 p.m. for a complimentary El Tesoro tequila tasting as well as Hornitos tequila margarita specials like the spicy watermelon “Cielo Rojo” for $8 or the orange-flavored “La Buena Vida” for $10. There will also be complimentary light bites.

Sandlot Anacostia (Southeast D.C.): Enjoy tequila specials, food trucks and games starting at 4 p.m.

SUMMIT Rooftop (Northwest, D.C.): Enjoy $15 passion fruit margaritas and $50 pitchers on Conrad D.C.’s rooftop bar with views of downtown D.C., the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument.

Taffer's Tavern (Through May 31, Northwest, D.C.): Celebrate Cinco De Mayo at Taffer's Tavern with a new fiesta flight and spring menu. Customers can sample four recipes: Blueberry Bliss, Boca Morada, Mangorita and Salt Air Margarita.

Wilson Hardware (Arlington, Virginia): Join them for dinner or happy hour for discounted tacos and $5 margaritas until 9 p.m. Wilson Hardware will be hosting an all-night party the rest of the evening for Cinco de Mayo. The DJ will start spinning at 6 p.m. and continue until close for an all-night dance party.

Happening Saturday

Arlington Margarita & Mimosa Fest (Saturday): Drop in to three bars — Arlington Rooftop, Mexicali Blues and Ragtime — for drink specials. Bar crawl tickets cost $20-$25.99 before fees.

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On May 30, Foo Fighters will headline the opening night of a new Washington D.C. venue called the Atlantis, an intimate 450-capacity room opened by independent promoter I.M.P., which also owns and operates area venues the 9:30 Club and the Anthem and operates the Lincoln Theatre and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

The venue kicks off the season with a robust opening lineup that includes Maggie Rogers, Parliament Funkadelic, Yo La Tengo, Darius Rucker, Joan Jett, Tove Lo, Jeff Tweedy, Tank and the Bangas, Portugal. The Man, and Billy Idol, among others (full lineup below).

The new club was accidentally announced by D.C.-area native Dave Grohl in September of 2021, when Foo Fighters played the re-opening night of the long-running 9:30 Club after months of pandemic shutdown. He said I.M.P. was going to open a new, smaller venue fashioned as a near replica of the original 9:30 Club, where he got his start. He gave no additional details but added, “We’ll probably be the band that opens that place, too, right?”

The Atlantis opens on May 30th, 2023 – the anniversary of the 9:30 Club’s opening in 1980.

“We’ve been doing our smallest shows in other peoples’ venues for too many years now,” said Seth Hurwitz, chairman of I.M.P. “We needed a place that’s ours. This will be where we help introduce new artists to the world.”

Tickets for the inaugural run of shows will be $44 each, non-transferrable, and will be sold via a lottery-style process. To thwart scalping, The Atlantis is utilizing Ticketmaster Request for the inaugural run of shows, which is open now at TheAtlantis.com and will run through Friday, April 7 at 11:59pm ET. Fans will learn next week if their ticket requests have been fulfilled. If a ticketholder is unable to make the show, a fan-to-fan face-value ticket exchange option will be available.

The Atlantis will be booked by Zhubin Aghamolla, who also books the Anthem and Merriweather Post Pavilion, and Sam Hurwitz has been named the new venue’s general manager.

May 30 Foo Fighters

May 31 The Walkmen

June 2 Hot Chip

June 3 Rainbow Kitten Surprise

June 4 Modern English

June 5 Franz Ferdinand

June 6 Pixies

June 9 Tank and the Bangas

June 10 Yo La Tengo

June 16 Marc Roberge of O.A.R.

June 17 Hannibal Buress + Eshu Tune

June 19 Sylvan Esso

June 20 Darius Rucker

June 24 Rodrigo y Gabriela

June 25 X

June 28 Jeff Tweedy

July 2 Barenaked Ladies

July 6 Tegan and Sara

July 7 The Head and The Heart J

uly 15 The Magnetic Fields

July 20 Clutch

July 21 Jenny Lewis

July 23 The Struts

July 27 Third Eye Blind

July 28 Portugal. The Man

July 29 Living Colour

July 30 Iron & Wine

Aug. 5 Gogol Bordello

Aug. 6 Bush

Aug. 8 Shakey Graves

Aug. 10 Drive-By Truckers

Aug. 14 Parliament Funkadelic feat. George Clinton

Aug. 17 Thievery Corporation

Aug. 27 Joan Jett Aug.

28 Gary Clark Jr.

Sept. 2 Ben Gibbard

Sept. 6 Luna

Sept. 9 Bartees Strange

Sept. 13 Spoon

Sept. 15 Tove Lo

Sept. 17 Billy Idol

Sept. 21 Bastille

Sept. 22 Matt and Kim

Sept. 29 Maggie Rogers

District officials have spent months figuring out how to counter negative economic trends spurred by emptied offices downtown. But their efforts to repopulate the area are set to get a big boost from the University of Southern California — which on Wednesday unveiled its East Coast campus, in the heart of D.C.’s business district.

USC’s “Capital Campus” will transform the 60,000-square-foot, crescent-shaped building at 1771 N St. NW, previously occupied by the National Association of Broadcasters, into a home base for students and graduates of the Los Angeles-based university. The official opening places USC among a growing array of universities with hubs in the District, giving students a chance to capitalize on political and policy-based career opportunities that have become synonymous with Washington.

USC President Carol Folt says the hub could draw nearly 1,000 of the university’s students to D.C. each academic term, potentially tripling or quadrupling the university’s presence in the city. For D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who toured the facility with Folt on Tuesday, that prospect fits squarely into her administration’s plan to “reimagine” sectors of downtown that have long been associated with large office buildings and the working professionals within.

“Students want to be in Washington, they want to be on great campuses, they want to be in-person learning,” Bowser said, adding that she recently heard from Howard University’s president about the school’s growing pipeline for enrollment. “So we think that community is thriving.”

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While D.C.-area workers who can do their jobs from home have shown little enthusiasm about returning to the office, USC students willing to travel across the country typically do so in the spirit of face-to-face learning, Folt said.

“They don’t want to be off in an apartment doing that; they want to be here,” she added.

USC spent $49.4 million on the property and occupies all seven floors, Folt said. While some students have already begun taking advantage of the space, much of the building is still being configured, she said: USC plans to build an auditorium and additional teaching spaces, including a potential broadcast studio for journalism students.

On Tuesday, Folt showed off the building’s fourth floor, which features a multipurpose design for meetings and workshops as well as individual student work. The building’s other floors are still being configured, and it probably will be a year before the building’s full array of programming is available, she said. USC programs and classes that were previously taught in spaces along Pennsylvania Avenue will relocate immediately.

“We did something kind of unusual: Jump first, and now we’re developing programs,” Folt said. “Some of these decisions will be made as we build it out. But it will be open for business right away.”

Plans for USC to acquire the hub came together quickly in the fall when the university’s alumni network helped facilitate the conversation between Folt and city officials. In addition to policy and politics, USC thinks D.C. offers unique learning opportunities in the realms of urban planning and medicine, as well as the more obvious connections to government, think tanks and research institutions, Folt said.

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“The mayor was talking to me about all these things, the envisioning of this as a college town in the middle of this democracy, but also such a commitment to the people that live here,” Folt said. “Not to say there aren’t other great East Coast cities, but this is the one where you could combine it all.”

Fred Ryan, publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, is on the USC Board of Trustees.

USC buys home for a new campus in Washington

Bowser’s “Comeback Plan” for the District, which details the city’s economic strategy over the next several years, outlines how the District could increase the footprint of universities in the downtown corridor to reduce vacancies. In addition to the District’s own collection of universities, several other major schools have leased space in or around downtown. Among them are Princeton University, Arizona State University and Texas A&M University.

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Johns Hopkins University will soon move its School of Advanced International Studies to the former Newseum building, which it purchased in 2020.

While students probably will cycle in and out of semester-long programs, local leaders say they’ll try to persuade more USC graduates to plant roots in the District. USC frequently partners with other universities to help students find places to live, and Bowser and Folt said they would continue to explore options for student housing and residences.

“Being on the second wave of universities in D.C. I think helps us be able to build that right,” Folt said.

Leona Agouridis, director of the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District that encompasses the USC campus, said drawing more students to the area increases the likelihood that some will seek out permanent jobs downtown, hopefully boosting the office market as well as the city’s goals to increase the downtown population.

Proposals on how to resurrect downtown probably will evolve in the coming weeks and months, Agouridis said — but one thing has become clear: “We’re not going to be an area that’s all office spaces in the future.”

“The really good thing is that there’s alignment on the need to do something,” she said. “And that’s what you need in order to make a big change.”

Black excellence was on full display as some of the nation’s top Black reporters, policymakers and celebrities packed into the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. late Saturday for theGrio’s Washington, DC Gala.

Following the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, the “Byron Allen Presents The Washington, DC Gala” saw the museum filled with guests, journalists and celebrities dressed to the nines, enjoying drinks and dancing to the tracks of DJ Ty Alexander.

Hosted by Byron Allen, whose Allen Media Group owns the Black news site, and My Black is Beautiful, the invite-only event featured a special performance by Diana Ross.

The crowd went wild as Ross came on stage, wearing a show-stopping orange bejeweled and feathered dress with a matching fan, belting hit after hit, including the popular “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

Gayle King of CBS News was awarded the Journalist Icon Award. King, who co-hosts “CBS Mornings,” is the editor-at-large of Oprah Daily and also hosts the weekly SiriusXM show “Gayle King in the House.”

A three-time Emmy Award winner, King is also a recipient of the 39th Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism and a member of the 2018 Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame class.

“Gayle King and Diana Ross are both American treasures, and I can’t think of a better way to honor their excellence than by hosting this event at The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture,” Allen said in a statement. “I created the Washington, DC Gala to be a spectacular celebration, informative, and a great deal of fun.”

Meanwhile, guests like Grammy’s CEO Harvey Mason Jr. mingled with guests. Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson (D) – one of the so-called “Tennessee Three” who rose to national prominence after being expelled from the state legislature – was spotted dancing to Ross. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) were also among the guests of the evening.

Roy Wood Jr., the comedian from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, also made an appearance at the party.

A one-hour television special, “The Washington, DC Gala,” will air on Monday on theGrio Television Network. It will highlight some of the night’s biggest moments, including interviews with politicians and celebrities.

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Posted: Apr 30, 2023 / 05:07 PM EST / Updated: Apr 30, 2023 / 05:22 PM EST

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WISH) — Purdue University’s leader has announced an initiative to give the Indiana college a greater presence in Washington, D.C.

It’s called [email protected].

The initiative was designed to bring to the District of Columbia “unique strengths in national security, tech diplomacy, semiconductor talent and other policy research, as well as the C-SPAN archives and the largest STEM undergraduate enrollment among America’s leading research universities,” a news release from the university said.

[email protected] will be in a co-working space at 1301 K St. N.W., a 12-story office building known as One Franklin Square.

The site will house the university’s semiconductor and microelectronics program, the Purdue Applied Research Institute, the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, Purdue Policy Research Institute, and Purdue’s federal relations team, the release said.

The initiative also calls on “building a stronger talent pipeline” for the C-SPAN Boilers Go to D.C. program.

The news release did not include any information on the initiative’s cost.

Statement

“As the most consequential public university in America, Purdue has a special responsibility to bring all that Boilermakers have to offer to the capital. Through [email protected], we will both strengthen the impact of existing programs in D.C. and deploy new ones that bring many more faculty and students to national public service.”

Purdue University President Mung Chiang