Early in her career, Gina Chersevani spent two years as a bartender at Clarendon’s erstwhile EatBar on Washington Boulevard, where she “fell in love with the warm community spirit and the passionate local food scene.”
Now the award-winning mixologist is returning to the neighborhood with an outpost of her popular booze and bagel spot, Buffalo & Bergen. This marks the fourth DMV location for the eatery that debuted in D.C.’s Union Market.
The nostalgic concept—a soda counter, deli and cocktail bar—was inspired by “Norma’s,” a Brooklyn soda shop at the intersection of Buffalo Avenue and Bergen Street that conjured many happy childhood memories for Chersevani’s mother. Buffalo & Bergen pays tribute with a menu centering on New York water bagels, brisket Reubens, knishes and other comfort foods, plus an ingenious roster of classic and creative cocktails.
Unique to the Clarendon location will be “special dishes honoring my Sicilian heritage and the legacy of my mom’s Italian ancestors, the Oliveri family,” Chersevani adds. Think fried chicken cutlet bites with fresh herbs, mozzarella and marinara for dipping; and braised swordfish with marinated olives and celery tops.
On the beverage front, Chersevani uses a vintage 1930s Bastian-Blessing soda fountain to mix boozy takes on soda counter classics, as well as inventive concoctions that capitalize on the machine’s nuanced ability to impart different levels of carbonation. Many of her quenchers (both alcoholic and non) incorporate house-made syrups in flavors like pineapple-cardamom, bourbon-vanilla-bean and blueberry-verbena.
The restaurateur returns to her former stomping ground with plenty of cred. In 2010, she earned the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington’s first-ever RAMMY award for Best Beverage/Mixology Program. She is also the cocktail talent behind Union Market’s Suburbia, a restored 1920s vintage airstream trailer serving frozen drinks, and the neighboring Last Call Bar, which pays tribute to classic dive bars of yesteryear. The latter occupies a space in Northeast D.C. that over time has served as a 1940’s cafeteria, a Jewish-owned shop and (according to local lore) possibly a Prohibition-era speakeasy.
In 2019, Chersevani was accepted into the James Beard Foundation’s Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership program. She was also named as one of Imbibe Magazine’s “75 People to Watch.” A proponent of locally grown ingredients and farm-to-bar mixology, the former D.C. resident now lives on a Maryland farm, where she grows vegetables, herbs and flowers, and raises pigs and chickens. Buffalo & Bergen is expected to open in this summer in the former UnCommon Luncheonette space at 1028 North Garfield Street, Arlington.