Booeymonger

The deli at 3265 Prospect Street NW has been there since 1975, and the sandwiches have been more or less the same since then. Booeymonger is not a concept or a brand or a culinary statement. It is a deli that makes large sandwiches in a neighborhood that has otherwise trended steadily toward higher prices and more elaborate presentations. The longevity is the thing. For fifty years, the Prospect Street address has served Georgetown students, residents, tourists, and the working population of the surrounding blocks, and the model has not required adjustment.

The sandwiches are the menu. They are overstuffed, built on bread that can handle the weight, and priced in a register that Georgetown restaurants rarely occupy. A full sandwich from Booeymonger is a meal. The menu has the range that a deli needs: hot and cold options, breakfast sandwiches served all morning, club sandwiches, reubens, and turkey and roast beef combinations that have been in rotation long enough to be described as classics without any irony. Breakfast items extend through the morning for those who arrive before the lunch rush.

The Prospect Street location is one of the original Georgetown addresses. Prospect Street runs above M Street on the ridge that defines the upper edge of the Georgetown commercial district, which means the deli sits in a residential context that gives it a neighborhood clientele distinct from the M Street tourist traffic. Georgetown University students use it regularly; the university is a short walk up the hill. Long-term residents of the surrounding blocks are the other anchor of the regular crowd.

The interior is functional rather than designed. The counter is at the front, the seating is behind it, and the menu board is large enough to read from the door. There is nothing about the room that has been updated for contemporary restaurant aesthetics, and that is the correct choice for what Booeymonger is. A deli that has served the neighborhood for fifty years does not need to look like it was renovated last year.

Open daily from 7am to 9pm. The Prospect Street location has limited street parking on the surrounding blocks; the address is accessible from the upper Georgetown residential streets. For a first visit, a full sandwich and a cup of soup covers the baseline of what Booeymonger has been doing for five decades. The deli has survived several decades of Georgetown rent increases and neighborhood transformations by doing the same thing it has always done. The Prospect Street block is residential in character, which gives the shop a local clientele that returns on schedules rather than on impulse. The sandwich names on the menu board have an informality that reflects the shop’s refusal to position itself as anything other than what it is. For fifty years, that has been the correct choice. The brunch trade on weekends is driven by nearby residents who want a substantial sandwich and coffee without the M Street crowds. The sandwiches travel well for picnics on the Prospect Street steps or in Georgetown Waterfront Park.