It's not a person and yet it, still has an incredibly legacy. We're talking about Ben's Chili Bowl on U St. in Northwest, D.C.
Ben's owner sat down with WUSA9 and described at least one lesson she hopes people take away from the restaurant's history, especially during Black History Month.
If the walls of Ben's Chili Bowl could talk, they would tell you a story that goes way behind the recipe of a "Halfsmoke." They could tell you about history…like in 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Riots broke out along the U St. corridor.
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“We were afraid but we had a business to run,” said Ben’s Chili Bowl owner, Virginia Ali.
Ali said Ben’s was the only business in their area asked to remain open as bricks and Molotov cocktails were being thrown outside.
“That was to provide a place to first responders, for police officers, for city officials, even activists anyone to come in and at least get a moment of peace and a moment of something to eat and also to try and find a way to all of the violence that was happening right on in our neighborhood,” Ali told WUSA9.
The walls could tell you about some 10-years before the riots, when an immigrant from Trinidad and his wife of mixed decent opened a business in a flourishing, but still segregated part of Washington, D.C.
“This was the community. That was “Black Broadway” out there,” said Ali.
Pictures on their walls now help tell that story. There’s photos of presidential visits, movie starts, comedians. One shows the D.C. Police Commander who issued Ben’s staff passes so they could work past the 1968 riot curfew.
What started off as a small, minority-owned business has remained a D.C. institution for nearly 60-years.
“It’s a place that people can come and reminisce about the old days and when this community was such a vibrant, classy, but segregated African-American community,” said Ali.
Ali believes Ben's plays a significant role in Black History Month.
“In this little business, we were able to survive the segregation. We were able to survive integration, we were able to survive the riots and the drugs, and then the Construction of the Green Line subway system that was debilitating and we’re still here,” Ali said, “and I think it reinforces that fact that we are a strong people.”
Ben’s Chili Bowl will celebrate their 60th year in Washington, D.C. this summer.
