Change of Ownership Coming to St. Elmo's Coffee Pub in Del Ray

There is a change of ownership coming to St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub. Owner Nora Partlow is planning to sell her business to Culinary Concepts LLC, which is owned by Larry and Christine Ponzi.

The Ponzis are longtime Alexandria residents who own the Cafe Pizzaiolo restaurants in Shirlington Village and on Fern Street.

“You won’t see any drastic changes — it’s important for us that people know that St. Elmo’s is not going away,” Larry Ponzi said Wednesday of the proposed ownership, which should be completed this summer. Partlow is selling her business to the Ponzis, who will take over the lease.

St. Elmo’s, located in the heart of Del Ray at 2300 Mt. Vernon Ave., is a community gathering spot featuring local art and live music and was started in 1996 by Partlow and her former business partner, Scott Mitchell. In addition to coffees and teas, the pub serves up sandwiches, pastries and other items. The Ponzis plan to stock St. Elmo’s with special sandwiches and salads that will be unique to St. Elmo’s, from their Market to Market business, located at 116 E. Del Ray Ave.

“We’re very excited about it,” Ponzi said. “We’ll slowly make some minor improvements. We don’t want to lose the feel of St. Elmo’s.”

The Ponzis don’t see any big changes or shakeup in staff at the coffee shop but they are planning to add craft beer and wine to the menu, they propose in their change of ownership application to the City.

“It is no secret that rents continue to rise in Del Ray as in other strong neighborhoods in the DMV area and although St. Elmos is a successful and well loved institution the revenues without the sale of alcoholic beverages make it hard to turn a profit in the new marketplace as well as the new lease in place,” the Ponzis say in their change of ownership application to Alexandria.

“As many corporate entities are interested to buy the St. Elmos business and change it to their own brand, we wish to preserve this homegrown neighborhood gem and we have an agreement with Nora Partlow to make this happen,” they say in the application. “This is a major factor in Nora’s wish to sell the business to us, as she knows us well from both living in the neighborhood and patronizing the business for the past 20 years as well as operating next to her at Market to Market for the past four years.”

“Since there are many other businesses on The Avenue that sell alcohol we do not believe this will increase our traffic or patronage (covers) rather we believe this will raise our check average and therefore give us stronger revenues to make a sustainable business into the future.”

PHOTO of St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub from Web site