George's King of Falafel

George’s King of Falafel at 1205 28th Street NW is on the residential block that has developed as a small cluster of international quick-service restaurants in Georgetown’s 28th Street area, adjacent to Das Ethiopian Cuisine at 1201 and within walking distance of the Georgetown University campus. The falafel restaurant in this format occupies the quick-service lunch and dinner market for the Georgetown student population, the neighborhood residents, and the visiting diners who find the address through the neighborhood’s informal food culture.

The falafel format at George’s operates in the Middle Eastern street food tradition: fresh-fried falafel in a warm pita or wrapped in flatbread, with the hummus, tahini, pickled vegetables, fresh tomatoes, and the hot sauce that the customer wants alongside the chickpea base. The falafel quality in this format is determined primarily by whether it is fried to order or held from a previous batch; the freshly fried falafel has the crispy exterior and the soft herb-green interior that the preparation requires, while falafel that has been sitting loses the textural contrast that makes it satisfying.

The shawarma program at George’s provides the meat alternative to the falafel for the customer who wants the flatbread wrap format with slow-roasted and shaved meat. The shawarma, which is marinated lamb, chicken, or beef stacked on a vertical rotisserie and carved as it cooks, produces the specific flavor that the long rotisserie cooking and the rendering fat create on the outer layer of the meat stack.

The 28th Street Georgetown address is accessible from the N Street and O Street cross streets and from the Georgetown University campus direction. Hours run from 10am most days and 11am on Sunday. The 28th Street Georgetown address at 1205 is in the residential area between the M Street commercial corridor and the O Street residential cross-street, accessible to the Georgetown University campus from the north and to the M Street retail district from the south. The quick-service Middle Eastern restaurant at this address serves the student population looking for a filling and inexpensive lunch as well as the Georgetown resident who lives in the surrounding blocks and wants the reliable neighborhood lunch option. The falafel format is among the more affordable food options in Georgetown’s generally expensive restaurant landscape, which makes it an important address for the Georgetown community member who values quality food at an accessible price point. The Middle Eastern immigrant community that has operated restaurants in Washington since the mid-twentieth century has contributed to the city’s food landscape a cuisine that is simultaneously deeply familiar to the large Arab and Persian diaspora community and accessible to the American diner who encounters it through the falafel wrap and the hummus preparation. George’s King of Falafel at 1205 28th Street represents this tradition in the Georgetown residential block, where the quick-service format serves the practical daily food needs of the surrounding community. Hours run from 10am most days and 11am Sunday.