Ward 6 council member Charles Allen was on hand to cut the ribbon for the restaurant, which is employing about 130 DC residents, including many whom live very close by in Southwest or Southeast.

It opens daily at 11 am, and stays open until 1 am Fridays and Saturdays and midnight the rest of the week.

Here's a few quick photos of the festivities, with the full batch in this gallery.

With construction underway on the Canal Park ice rink, scheduled to officially open for the season on Nov. 14, this would seem to be a good time frame for a retooling.

In the meantime, over on Half Street just south of the Metro entrance at M Street, Buffalo Wild Wings is looking close to opening. A worker told me that staff training is expected to start this week, with November 17 being the *targeted* opening date. Though, of course (all together now), We Shall See.

UPDATE: It actually looks like Nov. 16 will be the grand opening (the date I heard many moons ago), with this mailing providing the big hint but also according to sources In the Know.

(PS: There are tentative thoughts about a JDLand happy hour in the coming weeks, probably at BWW. More as the schedule becomes clear.)

* 'CAPERS: Excerpts from the one-woman play "'Capers," about how residents of Capper/Carrollsburg dealt with the housing project's demolition, is being performed tonight (Oct. 15) at 7 pm at 400 M St. SE, hosted by the Arthur Capper Carollsburg Community Village. You can also catch the entire play four nights next week at the Forum Theatre in Silver Spring.

* DSS BARRY CEREMONY: The Display Ship Barry isn't actually leaving just yet, but on Saturday Oct. 17 the Navy is holding a departure ceremony at 10 am inside the fences of the Navy Yard. See the announcement for details, including how to get into the base if you wish to attend. It was announced in February that the ship will be dismantled and removed from its home along the Anacostia Riverwalk.

* WATCH. BOX.: A "watch box" (guard shack) that stood as part of the sentry post at the Navy Yard's 8th Street entrance from 1853ish until 1905ish and was passed through by Abraham Lincoln just hours before his assassination has been restored and formally ribbon-cut on Oct. 8 after its return earlier this year from a 110-year stay at Indian Head. (Though unfortunately it's on display on a portion of the grounds that most of us will never see.)

* SODOSOPA: South Park took on gentrification last week, with the new neighborhood of SoDoSoPa, the Lofts at SoDoSoPa, and the Residences at the Lofts at SoDoSoPa. And there was this: "What this town needs is a Whole Foods. It will instantly validate us as a town that cares about stuff." (And yet you people still refuse to adopt my new name for this neighborhood, Near Capitol Ballpark River Yards, #NeCaBaRY.)

* BRIDGE BEFORE AND AFTER: DDOT's historic photos Tumblr recently included a shot from 1966 of the early construction of the downriver 11th Street Bridge span. And I realized I have a photo taken from a very similar location as the span was dismantled in 2012 and its offspring was built. (The piers remain in the water, though, as the potential underpinnings of the 11th Street Bridge Park.)

The menu shows a lineup of Indian food, with a buffet at all times as well as chicken tikka, kabobs, lamp chops, biryani, and karahi. And nan, of course.

I do not know the hours (not seeing a phone number to call on the menu posted in the window), so if anyone feels like heading over there for lunch and coming back with a report, you'll get a JDLand Gold Star. UPDATE: The BID says the hours are 10 am to 10 pm daily.

(I'll update here as I get more info, but didn't want this dish to be served cold, as it were. Also, the "Muy Pronto" sign in the Las Placitas window is pretty funny.)

If you never went to Levi's, you may not know that it's not exactly a spacious interior, so be prepared for more of a carryout option than fine sit-down dining.

It will be named District Winery, and is to "feature the most popular components" of the Brooklyn version--it will be a full-service restaurant, and will also have a wine tasting area, a private events space with an open-air terrace, and, "of course, an impressive collection of wines, crafted and aged onsite." The Brooklyn operation is also apparently a quite popular venue for weddings.

The new pavilion's design will apparently be quite a wood-and-glass look that will echo the nearby Lumber Shed and the Yards Park itself. When I wrote about the rumors back in May, I included some 2009-era imaginings of what the pavilion could look like from when the Yards Park was going through its approvals process, but my understanding is that the design has evolved considerably, with District Winery's input. (No new renderings are being made available just yet, however.)

Forest City says it expects to start construction in the spring of 2016 and that the winery would open in the fall of 2017.

* After a private opening party Thursday night, Due South is now in full operating mode, open in its Lumber Shed spot at 301 Water St. SE for dinner seven days a week plus lunch on weekdays and brunch on weekends. Its complete menu is now in place (which is also available for carryout). The restaurant's web site is now fully formed as well, if you want additional information. Plus, here's Tom Sietsema's review. Hours are 11 am to 10 pm Sunday through Thursday and 11 am to 11 pm Friday and Saturday.

* Right this very minute the doors are opening on the last Truckeroo food truck festival of 2015, at the Fairgrounds at Half and M Streets SE. Free admission, live music, "plenty of shade and picnic tables," and a whole lot of different trucks. And some pretty nice weather for that 12 hours of corn hole the kids will all be playing.

And if I had just walked on that side of the street during a long photo-taking excursion on Sunday that included multiple shots at 8th and L, I would have seen the signs in the window, but at least the high resolution of my camera can now confirm that the signs were/are there.

This spot is one block south of the freeway, and let's call it three blocks south of Las Placitas's existing home, which will eventually become expansion space for Matchbox.

The restaurant will take 5,000 square feet in the building's corner space (seen in the rendering) and will have both indoor and outdoor seating.

Circa also currently has locations in Foggy Bottom, Dupont Circle, and Clarendon, and is part of the Metropolitan Hospitality Group, which also operates three restaurants in Merrifield.

This is the first announcement of any tenants for 99 M (either retail or office space), though Skanska's Rob Ward is quoted by WBJ as saying that they are in talks with a "handful" of prospective office anchors.

Circa serves a full menu (including lunch and brunch) at its other locations, "offering American style cuisine with international flair."

This building is on the north end of the stretch of 1st Street between M and N just north of Nats Park, a strip where the Hampton Inn is wrapping up construction and where Grosvenor's Residence Inn and F1rst residential buildings are getting their vertical construction started.

It's not expected that 99 M will open before late 2017.

UPDATE: Circa Navy Yard now has a Facebook page and a web site.

* SIZZLING EXPRESS CLOSED: The handwriting was no doubt on the wall the instant that Harris Teeter and its vast food bar/carryout options opened up a stone's throw away, but it's still a little sad to see that the Sizzling Express at 4th and M SE closed for good in mid-August. For quite a while it was the only "new" food offering in the neighborhood, having arrived in the ground floor of 300 M at some point in 2001 or 2002. No word on what might someday arrive in its place.

* DUE SOFT: In case you haven't yet ducked into Due South, the neighborhood's newest restaurant, at 3rd and Water, SE, be advised that it has been and is still operating in "fine-tuning mode," with a limited dinner menu and drinks. It expects to become fully operational on Tuesday, Sept. 8, opening daily at 11 am for lunch and dinner along with weekend brunch.

* NOVEMBER WILD WINGS: A little birdie has told me that Buffalo Wild Wings is working toward an opening date of November 2, though we know how I feel about the validity of estimated restaurant opening dates more than about three days in advance. (If you haven't been paying attention, they are coming to Half Street SE just south of the Metro station entrance.)

The southern-themed restaurant is the latest from the Bo Blair empire, he of the Fairgrounds, and Jetties, and the Bayou, which is where Due South executive chef Rusty Holman made his home before moving to the Yards.

It will be just dinner service starting at 5 pm during the first few weeks, with weekday lunch and weekend brunch offerings coming probably in early September.