September 10, 2004
An Obituary: Yurchenko's Au Pied du Cochon
DCist is a big fan of Five Guys burgers. We're sure there are healthier things out there for you, but damn they're good. (Feel free to chime with your favorite burgers in town.)
But the historian in us makes us feel sort of sad with the arrival of Five Guys in Georgetown for a piece of Cold War history has been lost: The Vitaly Yurchenko Memorial Bathroom. It was at the old Au Pied du Cochon, the charming French bistro with crummy food and rude wait staff, where in 1985, a KGB spy who defected to the United States, escaped his CIA handler and redefected to the Soviet Union.
Vitaly Yurchenko left to use the restroom, climbed out the window to Dumbarton Street and proceeded up Wisconsin Avenue to the Soviet Embassy. Another account has him escaping though the kitchen and ending up at the State Department, which confuses DCist.
Regardless, there has always been Cold War charm associated with the old Au Pied du Cochon, and that is now gone. When DCist recently visited the restrooms, they seemed to be brand new and windowless. But we're happy that the old bar and lighting fixtures have remained.
As for Yurchenko today, he works as a security guard at a Moscow bank.
Although peanut allergies are no laughing matter, we chuckled with the wording of a sign posted on Five Guys' front doors warning not to take peanuts out onto Wisconsin Avenue because of the "possibility of severe allergic reaction in neighborhood children." Though children do reside in Georgetown (e.g. Sen. John Edwards' kids, who live over on P Street), we think there is more of a threat to visiting children than to kiddies of the neighborhood's elite who eat food off the sidewalk.

Well, you can still find that cold war charm at Yenching Palace up in Cleveland Park. It's been probably a decade since I've been there, but it's hard to imagine that they've "suddenly" gotten around to removing the story of the restaurant's role in the Cuban missile crisis in '62.
The peanut allegy warning sign must be a new Five Guys policy. I spotted the same sign last weekend at the King Street location in Alexandria.