Ben’s Chili Bowl, Washington, D.C.
What began 50 years ago as an informal eatery in segregated Washington, D.C., today attracts visitors from around the world. It survived economic blight from race riots, drug wars and construction of a nearby subway station. Throughout good times and tough times, Ben’s Chili Bowl attracted customers from all walks of life: rich and poor, judge and junkie – and just days before his inauguration, President Barack Obama.
The story of Ben’s Chili Bowl’s began with Ben Ali and Virginia Rollins. Ali came from Trinidad at age 18 and attended five universities in nine years. A fall down an elevator shaft broke his back and ended his dream of being a dentist. He tried several jobs until he found his calling at Ann’s Hot Dogs.
His fiancée, Virginia Rollins, grew up on a 150-acre Virginia farm. She was a bank teller on what was then Washington’s “Black Broadway” when she met Ali. A week before the couple married, they opened Ben’s Chili Bowl in what had been a pool hall. Today, two of their three sons operate the restaurant and a bar, “Ben’s Next Door,” which opened last fall.
“Imagine starting with nothing, but now it’s a landmark,” says Virginia Ali, who recalls the riots that followed Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination as “dangerous and frightful.” Five years of construction on a subway line nearly crippled the business, but Ben’s Chili Bowl is now the heart of revitalized, historic U Street.
“We’ve been so fortunate,” she says. “We were here when other businesses couldn’t manage.”
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