
Dolcezza Gelato & Coffee, whose D.C. expansion was derailed by the pandemic in 2020, is back in expansion mode, with a new location opening on H Street in Northeast and at least one other planed for this year.
The H Street location will also bring something new to its menu: soft-serve gelato.
The retail store expansion is a bright spot for Dolcezza, which lost its wholesale business last summer when a third-party manufacturing facility in Baltimore was hit with a listeria recall. While its products were not directly linked to the outbreak, all products distributed from that plant were recalled.
For Dolcezza, that included products distributed to 3,000 grocery stores that had to be destroyed. It closed down its wholesale business as a result.
The new Dolcezza retail store, at 600 H Street in Northeast, opens sometime in mid-March on the ground floor of The Apollo apartment building. In addition to seating in the shop, it will also spill over with tables in the Apollo’s lobby.
It will be the sixth location, with others at City Center, Dupont Circle, inside the Hirshhorn Museum, The Mosaic District in Fairfax and Bethesda Row. Owners Violeta Edelman and Robb Duncan said a seventh location will open by the end of the year, but did not identify the spot.
The H Street shop’s soft serves will start with two flavors, pistachio and dulce de Leche. Dolcezza makes its own pistachio butter from scratch. Others coming include sabayon, lemon meringue and chocolate. Its gelato menu at all locations includes 20 flavors.
All of its gelatos are made with locally sourced ingredients daily at its factory in the Union Market District, using what it calls “old-world methods.”
Dolcezza Gelato, whose first location opened in 2018, was in expansion mode before the pandemic hit. In 2020, it closed some locations, and said at the time it would likely say goodbye to its patrons.
“The early 2020s were wild for ours and so many other local businesses. But now thankfully we’re back to explosive double-digit growth and excited to be celebrating the first opening in six years,” Edelman said.
When it reopened its Dupont Circle location in March 2021, it declared grand reopening day “Survival Day.”
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