Walk by the old location for what was once a storied Capitol Hill watering hole and all to be seen is plyboards covering a work site. Check out the bar’s old website, hawkanddoveonline.com, and it’s a free online poker site.

The Hawk ’n’ Dove closed in October after 44 years under Stuart Long’s leadership.

Capitol Hill restaurateur Xavier Cervera, who owns Molly Malone’s, the Chesapeake Room, Senart’s Oyster and Chop House, Boxcar Tavern, Lola’s Barracks Row and the recently opened Pacifico Cantina, bought the bar with plans to renovate it into a bistro.

Media reports and rumors had the reconfigured Hawk ’n’ Dove taking flight this spring. But the plyboards remain.

Former patrons have mixed emotions about the reopening.

“I just hope they don’t try to make it trendy, expensive, or turn it into something it never was. That whole row of bars up and down Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast was a good place where you could show up in sneakers and a shirt for a relaxed time. I hope it remains the sort of place that an intern can afford but a Congressman doesn’t mind going to from time to time,” said Amanda Foster, a former staffer at the Democratic Leadership Council.

James Williams, a former Hawk ’n’ Dove bartender who now pours at the Tune Inn, said the buzz about when the new place would open has shifted a few times. “First it was June, and now it’s September,” Williams said.

“They just painted the place,” Williams said of the Hawk ’n’ Dove.

“That was an old building, and it took them so long. It was built way back in the ’50s, and they’re dealing with a whole lot of building codes,” he added. “They’re keeping it sealed. You can only take a glance. They still have boards in the window. Maybe in about a month or two we’ll know more.”

According to Barracks Row Entertainment, there never was a delay, and the bar always planned to open in fall 2012.