Alethia Tanner Park Finally Has a Kitchen, and Every Taco Helps Pay for the Park

The small pavilion in the southwest corner of Alethia Tanner Park was built for one job. When NoMa BID and the NoMa Parks Foundation worked with the District to design the park, they included a structure meant to host a future food and beverage operator. It was built with the infrastructure already roughed in, so a tenant would only need to finish the space. For years nobody cooked there. Since mid-September 2026, a takeout window at 227 Harry Thomas Way NE has been serving breakfast tacos all day.

The window is Tommy's Tacos. The menu is good, but the lease is what sets it apart. A share of each sale goes back into maintaining and running the park around it.

A building that waited for its tenant

NoMa BID picked chef Thomas Stacy to run the pavilion in July 2025. The announcement PoPville published said a grand opening was expected later that year. The window actually opened about 14 months after the selection. PoPville reported it open the week of September 21, 2026.

Stacy's background is unusual for a taco window. Washingtonian's opening story traces his path from Uchi in Houston to Pineapple & Pearls in DC. It also covers ReikiNa, the 10-course tasting-menu supper club he ran out of his own apartment. He told Washingtonian he had wanted to open a Tex-Mex spot for at least a decade. When he heard the BID was looking for a food operator for the park, he saw his chance.

How a taco helps pay for a lawn

NoMa BID called the arrangement a first-of-its-kind partnership in DC. The lease sends part of every sale straight into upkeep for Alethia Tanner Park. Maura Brophy, the BID's president and CEO, described it in the announcement:

"This model is a win-win. It brings delicious, high-quality food to the park, supports a local entrepreneur, and provides additional funding for the upkeep of one of NoMa's most popular public spaces."

That money helps keep up a 2.5-acre park. According to NoMa BID, the park has a lawn, a playground, a dog park, cafe seating, gardens, a boardwalk meadow and connections to the Metropolitan Branch Trail. The city owns the park, the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation manages it, and Eckington Parks & Arts maintains the dog park. The taco window now adds a stream of income from sales to that arrangement.

What comes out of the window

Stacy told Washingtonian the food is "not meant to be a super artisan, James Beard thing. I'm making pedestrian breakfast tacos with really good sides and salsas." Here's what that looks like on the menu, according to Washingtonian:

• Breakfast tacos, $4.75 each: bacon, egg and queso; chorizo, egg and crispy tater tots; or migas. Each one comes with its own salsa, from a mild salsa roja to a jalapeño ranch crema.
• Lunch and dinner tacos, $5.50 to $6.75: fajita-style beef, chicken, shrimp, and a pepper-and-onion vegetarian option.
• The carnitas: pork belly smoked over mesquite and stewed in Jarritos orange soda, which Stacy calls his labor of love.
• Sides: house queso and esquites with blistered corn, chipotle aioli, pickled habanero-spiced onions and cotija.
• Drinks: margaritas on the rocks or frozen, micheladas, Senate beer, and the YooHoo YeeHaw, a frozen mix of Yoo-hoo, vanilla vodka and Kahlúa.

Washingtonian also reported that everything on the menu is made without seed oils. Stacy's tortillas come from a local manufacturer that makes them to his recipe. He has one request for customers. Put the salsa on the taco.

There's no indoor seating. You order at the window and eat on a 50-seat patio. The Infatuation's October 8 listing gives the hours as 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Because all the seats are outside, check the window's Instagram before you go on a cold evening.

The block the patio looks out on

The window fills a gap on a stretch that already gets steady daily use. Within a short walk of the patio:

Washingtonian reported in March that Williams officially took over She Loves Me on January 8. Until September, this corridor had places to climb, shop and buy flowers, but nowhere to sit down with a drink and a plate of food in the park. The last row of the table shows that the next gap is taking even longer to fill.

The brewpub still on the clock

Right Proper Brewing's own page describes its Eckington location as being "across from the Bouldering Project and near Alethia Tanner Park and the Metropolitan Branch Trail." The project has run on a longer timeline than the taco window:

1. December 2023. Eater DC reported that co-founders Leah and Thor Cheston were planning an Eckington brewpub, their third DC location, with a fall 2024 target. Eater described a 5,500-square-foot, 180-seat brewpub with a small brewing system, a full kitchen and a cheese counter.
2. January 2026. A D.C. Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration weekly issuance report listed a Class C Tavern record for Right Proper Eckington, with a status of "New Const."
3. February 2026. DC Beer reported that the original Shaw brewpub would close March 1, after more than 12 years. The Eckington opening had been delayed and was hoped for in summer 2026.
4. Now. Right Proper's page says construction was expected to start in mid-2026 and gives an opening target of the end of 2026. It also says hiring applications would open in fall 2026.

The brewery's current plans include a five-barrel brewing system you can see from the street and a scratch kitchen. In the meantime, the company runs its Brookland Kitchen at 716 Monroe St. NE and its Brookland Taproom at 920 Girard St. NE. In April 2026, PoPville reported that the kitchen was opening in the former Brookland Pint space. When the Eckington brewpub opens, the corridor will have a full indoor restaurant across from a park whose kitchen helps maintain the park itself.

After October 29

The park's fall calendar wraps up at the end of October. NoMa BID scheduled PumpkinPalooza at Alethia Tanner Park for Wednesday, October 28, starting at 4 p.m. The plan included free pick-your-own pumpkins, a costume parade for people and pets, alpacas, a movie, and a Red Bear Brewing beer garden. Tommy's Tacos was on the food vendor list with Timber Pizza and Lattimore's Funnel Cakes. The rain date is Thursday, October 29, from 4 to 8 p.m.

The same Thursday is the last NoMa Farmers Market of the season, running 4 to 8 p.m. on Third Street NE. After that, the BID's events calendar doesn't list another Alethia Tanner Park event until spring 2027. If you're collecting stamps on the BID's Metropolitan Beer Trail passport, it covers 14 DC brewpubs and bars and runs through December 31. Through the winter, the pavilion will be the park's main draw, with its patio facing the dog park and the trail.

At Carmen Fontecilla Group, we pay attention to how a block's businesses, parks and long-delayed openings come together over time, because that's part of what makes a home on Harry Thomas Way or Eckington Place worth owning. If you're curious how this corridor fits into your plans, we'd be glad to talk. Request a personalized market consultation.