(The Burger Bash 2015 Grand Champion, two in a row for Tracy’s Willow team).
I told you last year it would not be the last time I wrote about Willow. In a way, it is always going to be with us. Heather talked about it at Front Page the other night, that the one-year anniversary of the ending of ten years of hi-jinx and fine dining. So, it is time to shed the dark clothes of mourning and move on.
Maybe. Brian, Tracy O’Grady’s spouse, wrote some nice words on the formal last night of business. That is when I had the honor of sliding off the bar and crashing to the floor in a clumsy attempt to dismount after some well-considered remarks. It had been quite the afternoon, what with the Big Pink ritual of closing the pool that Sunday evening, then cabbing it back to the raucous crowd celebrating the end of an era.
But of course, that was not the end of it, and why for me, today is the official one-year Anniversary.
The next day I was limping my way through work and got a call from Old Jim, who demanded that I drop what I was doing and swing by for a drink. Cleverly, I asked: “Where?”
“Willow,” he growled, and hung up.
I beat cheeks over there as fast as I could hobble. Heather was cleaning out the last of the liquor behind the bar, and dispensing free beer. It was very eerie and almost felt like a reprieve, though of course it wasn’t.
The place is still empty a full year after Willow’s end, and I have to wonder whether having a great restaurant paying some rent is better than having a soul-less, empty space, generating nothing and employing no one.
That afternoon there was the bittersweet talk about some of the great moments- the two victories in the DC Burger Bash, back-to-back, and the Buffalo Nights with the fabled Beef-on-Weck Sandwiches. I can still do the litany that went along with them:
“Locally raised, hormone-free, humanely-slaughtered round of beef, slow-cooked to perfection and thinly sliced, piled high on Kate Jansen’s home-baked Kemmelweck rolls topped with fennel and sea-salt.”
I would order two on the last Friday of the month. One to eat there at Willow, and soak up some of the booze, and the other to serve as multiple meals over the rest of the weekend.
So, along with the sadness that goes along with the loss of a pivotal social institution, there is also the memories of all the people who made the place to vibrantly alive.
It was a decade that may have been the best of our lives, or certainly the strangest with new beginnings, wars in distant places, unlikely Presidents and wild economic swings.
Don’t get me wrong: I like Lyon Hall and The Front Page just fine. Both are nice bars with friendly staff and excellent bar-flies. We have gained some traction at the FP and George the owner has even given us a formal nickname from the place we normally sit: “The South Side.”
That last day when alcohol still flowed over the grand old Willow bar was a strange and surreal afternoon. Some customers appeared, not knowing that the place was closed, and for a change, the inmates were running the asylum. We had a grand time drinking with Tracey and Heather and me behind the bar.
I would be in the place two more times, once for the pre-auction inspection of the furnishings and equipment, and then a morning to haul away the treasures on which I had successfully bid.
Though familiar, the suite was a husk from which the life had flown. Willow’s closure was about something larger than that. It also closed a chapter in our lives
Chanteuse Mary and Old Jim retired and moved to Vegas. Bartenders became attorneys. Relationships began and ended there, and a parade of professional drink consultants traded places behind the bar, only to float away again.
Of course the food was great- inspired, in fact, but it was the people that made the place the best bar I have ever patronized.
Deborah, Tex, Peter, Big Jim, Sammy, Marvin, Jasper, Brett, Angela, Tinkerbelle, Holly, Liz-with-an-S, Serena, Heather…all of them blurring into a boozy blur of figures on the other side of the bar. There was often a free drink for the regulars if one was needed.
The Roberts, both exceptional line cooks who masterfully interpreted Tracy’s culinary vision. All those hard working servers- Marc the Frenchman being one of my favorite people, who was always willing to share a Gallic laugh in his native tongue.
Not to mention the characters on our side of the heavy wooden bar left over from the raffish days when the place was called Gaffney’s and the place was a dive.
Mac Showers, Old Jim & Chanteuse Mary. John-with Old Jim. Chanteuse Mary. Jon-without, Barrister Jerry, The Mikes- short and long haired versions- and the Rays, the Heathers, The Lovely Bea and Placid Jamie, the Missile Twins, wild-haired JPeter, Senior Executive Jerry, the Master Chief and JeanMarie and Jake and Celia. Jeeze.
What a cast of characters and grand pals.
But there is something to keep in mind: Tracy and Brian are still in the business. They are running Campono’s, an Italian-style place down by the Kennedy Center. If you haven’t tried Tracy’s quinoa cakes you don’t know what you’re missing. Don’t just take the reviews in the Washington Post as gospel- stop on by and try them yourself. Or that awesome not Italian Panini sandwich, featuring imported Italian meats, and cheese , or the new Turkey Reuben Panani or the veggie Mushroom Melt or the Palermo Reuben Panini or the tuna sub with artichokes, arugula and eggs.
You get the idea.
Campono’s: 600 New Hampshire Ave, NW, directly across the street from The Kennedy Center.
In the meantime, we have to bloom where we are planted. Hope to see you for a cocktail at the South Side of the Front Page bar, or maybe we can grab a bite at Campono’s before going to the show across the street.
As John Belushi’s character in the film Animal House declared: “It ain’t over until we say it is over!”
Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303