Ben's Chili Bowl was founded on August 22, 1958 (Friday),[1] by Ben Ali, a Trinidadian-born immigrant of Indian descent who had studied dentistry at nearby Howard University, and his fiancée, Virginia-born Virginia Rollins. The two were married seven weeks after opening the restaurant.[6][7][8] The building they chose was that of Washington's first silent movie house, the Minnehaha, which was established in 1911.[9] The building is a contributing property to the Greater U Street Historic District.[10] Most of the furniture in the restaurant is original to the 1950s.[11] At the time, U Street was known as "Black Broadway". Many jazz greats of the day, such as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Nat King Cole, would stop by the restaurant when they performed at U Street clubs.
The U Street corridor was devastated by the April 1968 riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.[12] During the riots, black activist Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, asked Ben to keep his restaurant open, and the Alis obtained permission to stay open past curfew. The restaurant fed both the police officers and firefighters working to impose order on the neighborhood, as well as the black activists. The violence and arson reached such an extent that Ben wrote "Soul Brother" in soap on the front window in the hopes that it would stop the angry mobs.[13]
The destruction of so many businesses led to the flight of residents towards the suburbs and the economic decline of the neighborhood through the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. As the area became known for its drug addicts, Ben's Chili Bowl reduced its staff to one employee.[12] Ben and Virginia's son Kamal recalled, "We stayed and had a following, because the Chili Bowl was like the neighborhood barbershop. People would sit here and chat. There was always a family presence and the locals protected us."[13] The restaurant stopped serving pies and cakes, which attracted addicts, while police conducted surveillance on drug dealers from an upstairs window of the building.[6]
The extensive construction of the U Street Metro station across the street from the restaurant, completed in 1991, forced still more U Street businesses to close. However, Ben's Chili Bowl stayed open to feed the construction workers.[11]The Washington Post commented that Ben's Chili Bowl is "probably the only business on this strip that survived both the 1968 riots and the construction phase of the Metro Green Line".[14] The Metro and lower crime rates helped the gradual revitalization and gentrification of the neighborhood. From the early 1990s, business revenues grew by 10% annually, to $1.5 million in 2005, and the number of employees at the restaurant grew as well, to a staff of 20.[13]
The grill inside Ben's Chili Bowl
In the summer of 2007, the owners of Ben's led a coalition of ten small local businesses to broker a deal with a local energy company to convert operations to 100% wind energy.[15] The New York Post quoted Nizam Ali as saying, "We see this as part of being involved in what is good for the neighborhood, what's good for the city....It's a good idea that helps the environment and, it turns out, makes economic sense for all of us."[15]
In 2008, Ben's Chili Bowl opened a second location in the newly built Nationals Park,[16] though it has a more limited selection than the original restaurant.
On October 7, 2009, Ben died at the age of 82.[17] He and his wife, Virginia, had retired from the restaurant business, having passed daily operations of Ben's Chili Bowl to their sons, Kamal and Nizam.[17] Ali's death was mourned in many ways throughout the city, including a written statement by Mayor Adrian Fenty, which read in part: "I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of the founder and namesake of Ben's Chili Bowl, one of the greatest treasures in the District of Columbia. Ben Ali was a man who invested his life in a small business that weathered many storms and became the soul of a neighborhood and the pride of our city."[18]
In 2009, Ben's sons, Nizam and Kamal, opened an upscale restaurant and bar, Ben's Next Door, at 1211 U St, NW, adjacent to the original building.[19] Featuring alcohol (something not available in Ben's), the restaurant's goal is to "complement" Ben's, according to Nizam, who says that the goal is to stay "true to ourselves".[19] The restaurant offers everything on the Ben's Chili Bowl menu from 11am to closing, in addition to its lunch, dinner, and a late-night menu.[20]
Then-U.S. President George W. Bush helping to paint a D.C. school mural of local landmark Ben's Chili Bowl.
The Boston Globe described Ben's diverse customers as "punk-looking kids and fashionable business people and everyone in between".[11] In 2001, Ben and Virginia's son, Kamal, commented on the changes of what types of people were eating at the establishment: "You hear comments. Even the white customers. They want to think they're the only whites who'd been hip enough to go to the Chili Bowl. Now they look around and there are a lot of other whites and they are not so happy about it."[21]
The most famous regular customer is comedian Bill Cosby, who took his future wife to Ben's when they were dating.[9] He recalls that he first became a frequent visitor while serving in the Navy and stationed in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1958 and frequently visited the U Street jazz clubs.[22] Cosby recalls that during some of his visits with Camille, who was then a student at the University of Maryland, he would "eat as many as six half-smokes at a time."[22] Cosby returned to Ben's in 1985 to hold a press conference in the restaurant to celebrate the success of his television series, The Cosby Show.[11] He continues to stop by Ben's while in town for servings of half-smokes. A sign posted in the restaurant proclaimed that Bill Cosby is the only person who eats for free at Ben's Chili Bowl.[23] On November 3, 2008, a new sign was posted to add "the Obama family".[24] Starting in 2012 a large mural featuring Cosby adorned the building, but was removed in January 2017 amid sexual assault allegations against the comedian.[25]
The Washington Post asserts, "By the late 1990s, no D.C. politician would dream of running for office without dropping into Ben's."[6]Anthony A. Williams appeared at Ben's immediately after his successful mayoral election.[27][28]
However, celebrities at Ben's are not limited to American citizens. In 1998, former DC mayor Marion Barry described having traveled to Ghana and meeting the Mayor of Accra, an alumnus of Howard University, whose greeting was, "Glad to have you in Accra. Is Ben's Chili Bowl still there?"[29] And when French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni visited Washington, D.C., in March 2010, they reportedly each had two of Ben's half smokes during their visit to the restaurant.[30]
Scenes from films including The Pelican Brief[31] and State of Play[32] have been filmed in the restaurant, and it has been in "dozens of TV shows."[33] The short film Breakfast At Ben's was filmed almost entirely in the restaurant.[34] The documentary Traveling While Black, a virtual reality project about racism, makes use of the restaurant as the main filming location in 2019. Additionally, it has been used in novels[which?] as the setting for fictional meetings—especially meetings that involve individuals from "different sides of the law"—as it was in George Pelecanos's King Suckerman.[35]
Ben and Virginia Ali were inducted into the D.C. Hall of Fame, and in 1999, the alley adjacent to the restaurant was renamed "Ben Ali Way".[13] On the occasion of Ben Ali's 2009 death, D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty released a statement calling the restaurant "one of the greatest treasures in the District of Columbia".[36]
Reviews
A mural is painted on the western wall of the restaurant.
In 2004, the James Beard Foundation named Ben's one of the "down-home eateries that have carved out a special place on the American culinary landscape".[37]Michael Stern, a writer specializing in U.S. regional foods, penned a 2008 review raving "The half-smoke is sensational!" and "Ben's serves one of the best sweet potato pies anywhere", and describing the chili as "sensational stuff: thick, peppery, full-flavored and positively addictive".[38] In January 2009, food magazine Bon Appétit named Ben's one of the country's ten "Best Chili Spots", asserting, "No reasonable discussion of great chili joints can take place without mention of this U Street institution."[39] In a 2016 The Washington Post restaurant review, Ben's received one star and the food was described as "awful."[40]
U Street station is a rapid transit station on the Green Line of the Washington Metro in the U Street neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Shaw is a neighborhood of Washington, D.C., located in the Northwest quadrant. Shaw is a major entertainment and retail hub, and much of the neighborhood is designated as a historic district, including the smaller Blagden Alley-Naylor Court Historic District. Shaw and the U Street Corridor have historically have been the city's hub for African-American social, cultural, and economic life.
The U Street Corridor or Greater U Street, sometimes known as Cardozo/Shaw, is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in Northwest D.C. Centered along U Street, the neighborhood is one of Washington's most popular nightlife and entertainment districts, as well as one of the most significant African American heritage districts in the country.
Adrian Malik Fenty is an American politician who served as the mayor of the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2011.
A half-smoke is a type of hot dog found in Washington, D.C., and the surrounding region. Larger, spicier, and with more coarsely-ground meat than a regular hot dog, the sausage is often half-pork and half-beef, smoked, and served with herbs, onion, and chili sauce.
Komi was a restaurant in Washington, D.C. operated by Chef Johnny Monis, serving Italian cuisine and Greek cuisine.
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Mahaboob Ben Ali, known as Ben Ali, was an Indo-Trinidadian American businessman and restaurateur. Ali co-founded Ben's Chili Bowl, a landmark restaurant located on U Street in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Virginia Ali, in 1958. Ben's Chili Bowl has since attracted presidents, celebrities and politicians.
Peter Chang is a Chinese chef specializing in Sichuan cuisine who is known for his restaurants in Virginia and other states in the Southeastern United States.
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Robert Wiedmaier is a West German-born, Belgian American chef. He owns multiple restaurants in and around Washington, D.C. and is known for creating dishes involving Belgian cuisine, specifically mussels.
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Pineapple & Pearls is a restaurant located on Barracks Row in Washington, D.C., serving a fixed-price multi-course dinner. The Washington Post gave the restaurant a four-star review, writing that Aaron Silverman, the chef and owner, "...pushes the fine-dining cause in only exquisite directions." Pineapple & Pearls was a semifinalist in the Outstanding Restaurant category of the James Beard Foundation Awards in 2024.
Fabio Trabocchi is an Italian chef and restaurateur based in Washington, D.C., where his restaurant Fiola earned a Michelin Star. Before opening his own restaurants, Trabocchi ran kitchens in London, Virginia, and New York, winning a James Beard Foundation Award in 2006.
The Dabney is a restaurant located in Blagden Alley, in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Chef-owner Jeremiah Langhorne opened the restaurant in 2015, focusing on Mid-Atlantic cuisine. The Dabney was named one of the Best New Restaurants of 2016 by Bon Appétit magazine, it was a awarded a Michelin Star in 2017, and Chef Langhorne won the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic in 2018.
Roberto Donna is an Italian chef and restaurateur in Washington D.C.
Virginia Ali is an American business owner known for co-founding Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington, D.C.
Victor Albisu is an American chef and restaurateur. He has created fine-dining Latin American restaurants Del Campo and Poca Madre in D.C. and the fast-casual chain of taquerias Taco Bamba, featuring traditional as well as inventive house-special tacos often influenced by other culinary traditions. Opened in 2013 in the Falls Church, Virginia, shopping center where Albisu’s mother has a Latin market, as of June 2024 Taco Bamba has 15 locations in the D.C. area and nearby states. In 2015, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington named Albisu chef of the year, and in 2016 and 2020, he was a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation Award for best chef in the Mid-Atlantic region.
References
1 2 Ali, Virginia R. (April 3, 1988). "Burned Into the Future; Before April 4, 1968, Washington was a tranquil but segregated town. After the riots, everything changed. Six Washingtonians look back". The Washington Post. p. W28.
↑ Wilgoren, Debbi (August 21, 2003). "The Bottomless Bowl of U Street; A Neighborhood Institution Prepares to Celebrate 45 Years of Chili -- and Change". The Washington Post.
↑ "Fenty Remembers Ben Ali". District of Columbia Mayor's Office. October 8, 2009. Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
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