Juneberry Garage, a 2024 addition to Northwest DC’s Shepherd Park, is a cool spot with a casual, retro-Americana vibe. The brains and bucks behind Juneberry are a group of restaurateurs1 who met at the University of Michigan. The restaurant occupies a historic building in a bucolic, parklike setting on the campus of the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The old Walter Reed Army Medical Center closed in 2011, with its medical functions moving to the Bethesda Naval Hospital. The 110-acre site is being redeveloped into “The Parks at Walter Reed,” a mixed-use neighborhood featuring luxury housing and retail, including a recently-opened Whole Foods, with more stores a-comin’. Several majestic Walter Reed buildings are being refurbished as townhomes and condos. The area feels sparse now, but smells like potential.
The Juneberry Garage, building 82 on the old Walter Reed campus, began its life in 1940 as a post exchange and gas station. In the 70s, the Garage was used as a shop where recovering veterans could hang out and work on their cars. Thankfully, the Juneberry owners meticulously preserved the building. The original bay doors are still in place and open during the warm months. Indoors, the space is furnished with pristine vintage furniture, maintaining its retro-cool vibe. Juneberry’s pink and blue-themed website and menu evoke this same vintage aesthetic.
Maintaining Building 82’s history as a convivial gathering spot, Juneberry Garage has expansive indoor and outdoor seating, a whimsical drink menu including an eponymously-named signature soda2, and food offerings aplenty, including Tavern-style pizza. Presumably for efficiency, Juneberry has patio patrons scan a QR code3 on the table instead of ordering from a human. Juneberry must have lightning-fast WiFi because a guy appears with a table’s drinks a millisecond after one clicks the ‘purchase’ button.
Natch, DishingPizza ordered a Tavern pizza. Before digging into the gory pizza details, a few words about Tavern-style pizza. Originating in Midwest taverns in the 30s or 40s, a paper-thin cracker-like crust differentiates Tavern-style from merely thin crust pizza. Tavern-style pizza is round and “party cut” into square pieces4. Topped with a mozzarella-provolone mix and seasoned tomato sauce, Tavern pizza’s raison d’être is to encourage more drinking. The rigid, small pizza pieces require just one hand, so the other can hold a glass. In fact, bars used to give away the pizza to patrons to encourage them to drink more5.
The Juneberry Garage Tavern pizza is true to form — a crispy, ultrathin crust, savory tomato sauce, and ample cheese. On its own, the pizza is meh, but it pairs perfectly with beer or a cocktail. The Tavern-style inventors knew what they were doing.
Passover recently ended, a Jewish holiday involving Israelite slaves escaping from Egypt without enough time for their bread to rise. From DishingPizza‘s perspective, matzah pizza is the best thing about Passover6, but it’s always a relief to return to real pizza. The same can be said about Tavern-style pizza, which isn’t so far-removed from matzah pizza, or communion wafer pizza, for that matter.
This unsubstantial Tavern pizza may require DishingPizza to rethink its price per square inch calculation. Until now, DishingPizza has resisted a cubic inch calculation, arguing that the height of the pizza shouldn’t matter in the cost calculation. Juneberry Garage charges $16 for a 14″ pizza. Although it’s a reasonable $0.10 per square inch, the pricing feels way high for what you get. DishingPizza will visit again, but will uncharacteristically order a burger, a sandwich, or a salad from Juneberry’s plentiful menu.
After a long, cold winter in the DMV, an unseasonably warm evening with the sweet scents of flowering trees is a gift. Spending an evening like this at the Juneberry Garage is magical. Go with friends, go have fun, go enjoy the terrific scene. Just don’t go expecting great pizza.
Juneberry Garage
6810 Cameron Dr NW, Washington, DC
Type: Tavern
Pizza quality: 🍕🍕
Overall experience: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pie (14″ round): $16.00
Pie price per square inch: $0.10
- They also own Ivy & Coney in Shaw and the Midlands beer garden in Park Heights. ↩︎
- According to the Juneberry website, “Our neighborhood restaurant and bar is named for the Juneberry tree, native to the Mid-Atlantic region, producing spring blossoms and sweet, edible berries that we have incorporated into our signature soda.” ↩︎
- The cumbersome QR code ordering thing seems like an unwelcome COVID-era hangover, yet Juneberry Garage is a post-COVID creation. ↩︎
- For the mathematicians in the crowd, yeah, okay, cutting a round pizza into squares doesn’t quite work. The square cut leaves some odd, small triangular edge pieces. ↩︎
- DishingPizza agrees that, for historical accuracy, Juneberry Garage should give away its Tavern-style pizza. Sadly, there are no freebies in a joint with $13 cocktails and $9 draft beers. ↩︎
- With chocolate caramel matzah a very close second. ↩︎