As President Donald Trump’s “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., nears its 30-day expiration date, many restaurants are feeling the pressure at a time when the city’s dining scene is already facing significant challenges resulting from rising operational costs.
While crime in the district is on the decline, some restaurant owners are concerned that the increased federal presence is a prominent factor for why customers are not turning out.
One owner blames the aggressive immigration enforcement near one of his restaurants.
“What’s happening here is the brown people from Washington, D.C., are scared to come out. That’s exactly what this project has accomplished,” Latin Concepts founder Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld told the Washington Examiner. “The streets are completely empty. Workers are not coming to work because they don’t feel comfortable.”
One of his four restaurants, El Secreto de Rosita, is located on U Street near 16th Street in Northwest Washington. Across the street is a police station, where federal agents gathered before immigration raids. The establishment is also not too far from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement checkpoint, where officers questioned drivers about their legal status.
Fraga-Rosenfeld, who serves Peruvian street food and supports the pro-Palestinian movement, argues ICE agents are the “problem” because they’re “harassing” immigrants.
“We have gone through everything,” he said, naming the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the D.C. sniper attacks in October 2002 as examples of hardships through which his restaurants have had to navigate. He’s been in the industry for over 30 years.
“This time is different. This time, there are no people on the street,” he added. “People are not willing to come out. People are afraid. People are not comfortable. Many people are going back to their countries, people with visas and papers” that were deported from the United States.
The restaurateur didn’t have as much of a problem with the National Guard as he did with ICE, although he believes the presence of military troops is affecting business as well.
Celebrity chef José Andrés recently said as much on social media in a rebuttal to Trump’s claim that the city’s restaurants are booming amid federalization.
“I’ve lived here for 33 years, and it’s a flat out lie that half the restaurants have closed because of safety,” Andrés wrote, “but restaurants will close because you have troops with guns and federal agents harassing people…making people afraid to go out.”
Trump argued crime was the primary reason for why residents and tourists weren’t eating out in the past few years, offering anecdotal evidence to back up his point.
The owner of Butterworth’s, the hangout spot for young conservatives on Capitol Hill, agrees that crime is a major problem not only for businesses but for the public’s safety.
“Crime worries me a lot more than the National Guard hanging out in public parks,” head chef Bart Hutchins told the Washington Examiner, noting complaints about the National Guard “feel disingenuous.”
In his view, lower crime rates open the door for more tourism and people enjoying the night out. He believes restaurant owners would have agreed five years ago that the city needs to vigorously combat crime, adding residents are only upset now because of the current administration.
“People just aren’t happy about who’s fixing it, or maybe even how he’s fixing it,” Hutchins said.
Meanwhile, Trump claimed restaurants “were busier than they’ve been in a long time.” The numbers, however, suggest a different story.
On the same day Trump declared a crime emergency, real-time OpenTable data shows online reservations dropped 16% and fell as much as 31% two days later compared to the same time last year. The low reservation numbers lasted throughout that week.
Business picked up the following week at the start of Summer Restaurant Week, with reservations rising 29% on the first day and increasing to 31% three days later. The bump didn’t last long, despite the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s decision to extend the annual event another week. The second week only saw a 13% high in reservation numbers.
On the first day of September, there was a 14% decrease in reservations. Business slightly picked up later in the week.
Fraga-Rosenfeld estimated El Secreto de Rosita experienced a 30% drop in reservations, although he has noticed substantially more walk-ins in recent weeks. Still, he described Restaurant Week as a “disaster” in his case.
OpenTable data shows this year’s Restaurant Week reservations were about the same during last year’s dining event, which fell on different dates, the New York Times reported after issuing a correction.
The newspaper initially misstated reservations for Restaurant Week 2025, scheduled from Aug. 18 to 24 before the one-week extension, were 24% lower compared to Restaurant Week 2024, held from Aug. 12 to 18. (Trump announced the federal takeover on Aug. 11). Rather, reservations between Aug. 18 and 24 were 24% lower than those on the same dates in 2024.
While some media reports were quick to blame Trump’s crime crackdown for low reservations, Cato Institute economist Ryan Bourne was more skeptical of the claim. In a Substack post, he argued the “year-on-year downturn … was exaggerated by the comparison from an artificially higher baseline in 2024” because last year’s Restaurant Week inflated the numbers.
“The first data from Restaurant Week 2025 (Monday 8/18) shows reservations up on the same date in 2024 (Sunday) by 29 percent,” Bourne wrote in an editor’s note. “This shows that Restaurant Week has a big impact on reservation levels. And if such an uplift was the same for Restaurant Week last year, it implies that the supposed collapse we saw last week was overwhelmingly because of this base effect, not the President’s DC takeover.”
Hutchins was unable to provide a year-over-year estimate of reservations because Butterworth’s didn’t open until October 2024. Having worked in the city’s hospitality industry for about a decade, he said last month’s downturn wasn’t that much different from August in past years.
There are many factors at play that could explain the lower turnout that restaurants experienced last month, including last-minute summer travel plans and the annual back-to-school period. Every year, August often sees a dining lull.
Hutchins attributed the slowdown at Butterworth’s to lawmakers’ summer recess, and now that Congress is back in session, he expects to greet more customers at his French bistro.
Regarding the state of the restaurant scene in D.C. more broadly, establishments are facing higher food costs, labor shortages, decreased spending by customers, and other economic difficulties that can force their closure. About 44% of restaurant owners worried they may have to shutter their businesses by the end of 2025 due to the various pressures, according to a Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington survey released in March.
With the industry in turmoil, restaurants must adapt to stay in business.
Fraga-Rosenfeld said he is proactively “reinventing” his restaurants and giving customers a “unique offer” to eat in public, such as private events or parties. El Secreto de Rosita distinguishes itself from nearby competitors by housing Nabiha, a separate restaurant dedicated to serving Palestinian cuisine.
It remains to be seen how restaurants fare under federal control of D.C. in the near future.
Congress is expected to let Trump’s crime emergency expire on Sept. 10 rather than extend his executive order as anticipated, but Republican lawmakers are considering over a dozen bills designed to tackle the district’s crime and reduce the local government’s autonomy.
In terms of military presence, about 950 members of the D.C. National Guard are expected to remain on active duty in the nation’s capital through Nov. 30. There’s a possibility they may return home earlier. The Army’s order does not apply to the estimated 1,300 troops who were deployed to D.C. by Republican governors.
Extending support to the administration’s efforts, Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered D.C. police officers to cooperate with federal authorities indefinitely regardless of whether Trump’s crime emergency is in effect or not.
In the meantime, Trump said he would consider dining out at a “nice restaurant” instead of eating at the White House for once. Although the Washingtonian urged him to avoid dining at a local restaurant because it could cause a “political maelstrom,” Hutchins felt otherwise and floated Butterworth’s as a potential dining option for Trump.
DC RESTAURANTS SEE DOWNTURN DURING TRUMP’S FEDERAL CRACKDOWN
Since its opening last fall, Butterworth’s has hosted Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials.
Trump “should definitely dine out,” Hutchins said. “There’s a lot of great restaurants in D.C., and a visit from the president is a huge honor. We would be happy to have him.”
