An IHOP restaurant is returning to the Shops at Park Village in mid-summer 2024.
IHOP first came to the Shops in 2008, becoming the first national sit-down restaurant to open in DC’s Ward 8. However, as the case with many others, that dining spot shuttered in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
WC Smith, which owns the Shops, and IHOP’s corporate office committed to revive the restaurant there. IHOP selected Joseph Knight, an area manager for IHOPs in New Jersey, to be the franchisee and operate the restaurant.
Knight noted that IHOP was his favorite restaurant growing up, and worked there in high school and college before becoming a full-time employee.
WC Smith’s history with the Shops at Park Village dates to the early 1990s, when the company rehabilitated an existing shopping center at the location. Nearly 10 years later, the company undertook a complete reincarnation of the shopping center, as it acquired and revamped the former Camp Simms National Guard site. In 2007, the company brought a Giant grocery store to the Shops, the first full-service supermarket to open in Ward 8.
After it opened in 2008, the IHOP became a neighborhood meeting spot for area residents, politicians and community leaders.
At the Shops the revived IHOP will join a Dunkin, which is slated to open in late 2024, two banks, a Chipotle restaurant, and other retailers.
