![]() The restaurant and event space, whose name is an homage to poet Langston Hughes who was a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in the thirties, brought new life to this corner of the U Street Corridor. Shallal, a DC resident for over 40 years, opened his first outpost of Busboys and Poets on 14th and V Streets in 2005. The overall vibe is progressive, artistic, young, and urban. During the election season, local artists’ renderings of Barack Obama’s visage decorated the walls. There is a small bookstore with a decidedly left-leaning selection, and a venue for music shows and poetry slams. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner but also acts as a coffee house in the late morning and afternoons, then a bar before and after the dinner hour. ![]() It is hard to classify Busboys and Poets, as calling it merely “restaurant” would be an oversimplification. One establishment, however, has sought to pay homage to the past while moving these neighborhoods forward.īusboys and Poets, the brainchild of owner Andy Shallal, has become an institution in the zip codes where it has opened, and its arrival has been credited with invigorating neighborhoods that were once down on their luck. ![]() “I don’t have that kind of boycott mentality going on.In Washington DC, where the tides of gentrification often achieve positive results by revitalizing once blighted neighborhoods, it is easy to lose sight of the past. “I plan to go back to Busboys,” Ellis says. No, no one plans on boycotting Busboys & Poets. We want it to continue, but in a manner that fosters open lines of communication and a mutual mindfulness.” To date, it has been a fruitful yet unexamined relationship. ![]() In the interest of strengthening the relationship between Busboys and Poets and the local, active poetry community, we extend the offer to help initiate and sustain a dialogue between you. The letter, not yet sent to Shallal but obtained by TBD, reads, “As poets who have sat in those chairs and booths as well as stood upon that stage, we ask you to consider the ways in which placing a cardboard cutout of Hughes within Busboys and Poets-making of him a character, a mascot, more than a presence-unfortunately does not honor his legacy. To that end, the poet and a group of other Washington writers have penned a fittingly eloquent letter to Shallal, enclosed with a check for $150 - what Shallal said the cutout cost. He wants to make sure that Shallal doesn’t buy another flat Langston, as the business owner told the Post he’d do if the cutout was not returned. “Let’s put it this way - I left it in the poorest part of town. “You’re sitting eating food- who’s cleaning your goddamn dishes? What do you think, that these people are invisible- like fireflies flying around you?”Įllis says he knows where the cutout is. Ellis and others who agree with his protest “are people who talk about social justice and all these wonderful things, and how we should all struggle,” yet, being a busboy is seen as “a shameful thing.” But “there is no shame in work,” says the restaurateur. Shallal says Ellis stole the cutout because the poet resented the reminder that Hughes used to work as a busboy. At Busboys, “there have been political undertones since Day One,” largely related to the perception that Shallal, who is Iraqi, is cashing in on black Americans, past and present. Shallal says Ellis’s theft was about race, class, and shame. The coverage prompted aThe one-dimensional character of the cutout, he says, “was too simple,” and “packed into one moment that everyone can use like ‘I have a dream.’” While Ellis was in town for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference, he says the event “was buzzing about this flatness, him standing at the door as service, still, as service, again.” To Ellis, the cutout symbolized a disrespectful, touristy slant on history, peddled by a business that profits from Hughes’ image and its commitment to the arts. “You would think that an establishment that makes as much money as Busboys would have set in place a reading series with a respectful pay scale for writers,” Ellis said. A week later, a prominent Washington-born poet and photographer, Thomas Sayers Ellis, copped to the theft in the Washington Post, claiming he yanked the Langston in protest of Busboys’ unfair compensation for poets who conduct reading events. Earlier this month, a life-size cardboard standup of Langston Hughes in a busboy uniform went missing from the Busboys & Poets on 14th Street NW.
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