DCist: New Book Celebrates Ben's Chili Bowl's 50th Anniversary

funfriends

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:37:42 -0500

some of the nicest people you've ever met? did you grow up in a sweatshop, go to school in a prison and get a job as an airline ticketing agent? if not, then you are mistaken about having met some of the nicest people "ever" at Ben's Chili Bowl.

mdove11

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:11:18 -0500

The CP kicks in on the idea: http://washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=36021

easyt72000

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:28:30 -0500

Does anyone know when Trouble Funk will be playing at Sunday's concert? Thanks!

monkeyrotica

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:21:15 -0500

Well, Mojotron hated the place, as well as a bunch of clowns in Penn Quarter. Anyway, like Ben's, AV was an unpretentious, love-it-or-hate-it kinda place in a town that feeds on pretentiousness. You gotta go with what sells.

will585

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:47:22 -0500

What people didnt lime the AV? I am aghast at the thought. I never had a problem with the AV. But then I didnt go in there expecting and demanding it be anything other then what it was. Thats the way I apporach Ben's also. If you want upscale fancy hotdogs got someplace else. If you want just a reguler plain old hot dog get it off a cart or cook it yourself. If you want something that has been making people happy for 50 years then go to Ben's. If you dont like it fine but dont question while others do, we just do. Maybe we should shirts that say: " It's a Ben's Thing. You Wouldnt Understand."

monkeyrotica

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:39:41 -0500

Jeebus, don't get started on AV. There's so much hate in this town for AV, you'd think the place was run by Mussolini's grandkids. Hillman - Ben's got the special tax credit; their DC taxes went from $435k to $1.1 mil in 2005. God knows what they're paying now. Good for Ben's, not so good for every other small business that's getting screwed to the floor on taxes. The Council only budgeted a measly $11 mil in credits to small business, the backbone of downtown commerce. Thanks to this fiscal shortsightedness, the only businesses that can prosper downtown are chain restaurants, high-end boutiques, and $16 burger joints. My dreams of a Korean fried chicken shop/colonic irrigation clinic have been dashed. Again. What am I gonna do with all this kimchi?

will585

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:18:23 -0500

Hear Hear Mdove. Thats the best reason I have read yet for celbrating Ben's. Growing in the DC area its wonderful to see a company surive that long. Hopefully it wont ever disapear like the AV did.

Fluxgirl

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:29:20 -0500

Big deal, floor sweeping hot dogs with chili.

ellejae

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:24:58 -0500

Amen, mdove11.

mdove11

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:14:05 -0500

Really? We are that jaded that we have to go after Ben's? I see Ben's as just what it is: a late night hot dog joint. It happens to be open late, which is something of a rarity in this city, especially prior to the last 4 years, so it did a lot of business. I'd say half the "mythic" reputation could have been attributed to just that. When I moved here, I lived on 13th and U and it was simply the only place to go late, so it became a go-to location. But to be honest, one of the main reasons I kept coming back was the super kind service. Service I don't think I or you could have mustered (no pun intended) in the face of the drunk-ass, d-bag clientele. It's hardly the best food in town. I had to give it up after growing my Ben's 15 (living around the corner will do that), but let's not forget the reason it is being celebrated. 50 years. On U St. The perseverance to keep the doors open and the business going over that time is remarkable and commendable. No other business in that area can boast such a record. In a city that seems to only respect the establishments and histories of the buildings on the Mall, we should celebrate this true landmark of our (speaking for me, and probably many of you) adopted home. I lift my cherry milkshake to you, Ben Ali and Virginia: quite an achievement.

Disco Stu

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:38:24 -0500

Blast! You've done it again, Monkey E! Hillman, welcome back. You're right, moderation. I would just chalk it up to Ben's being beloved.

Hillman

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:14:34 -0500

Ben's is what it is. Those that claim it's horrible should just eat elsewhere (but they do have a good point about the filthy bathrooms). Those that claim it's some sort of Holy Site should really get out more. But what ever happened to that special tax dispensation the city was going to give Ben's? Did that ever happen? If so, can any business apply for that, or is it only for special people?

boondoggle

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:41:50 -0500

Tourist: Hey, this isn't faux dive. This is a dive. Moe: You're a long way from home, yuppie boy. I'll start a tab. -- monkeyrotica: Jazz historians are actually more interested in the rich variety of scat singing in the U st corridor, not the scat to which you refer.

monkeyrotica

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:18:56 -0500

I believe what's being referred to above as "anal-piss inducing" is what's know in the common tongue as "buttcoffee." The condition is typified by one's lower intestinal tract essentially becoming a "percolator" twenty minutes after consuming a particularly greasy meal. Within half an hour, you're in the bathroom and your hind quarters have become a "cappuccino machine" blowing hot black liquid and steaming, bubbling froth. This phenomena is not limited to dive-ier joints like Ben's, but crosses all cuilinary styles and pricepoints. The year is 2002. The place: Galatoire's in the French Quarter. The meal: eggs sardou, brabant potatoes, crabmeat maison, all washed down with hot lashings of cafe brulot. I didn't even make it back to the hotel. Ahi tuna tartare and cavatelli at the Four Seasons? I'm sure I broke Maurice Green's record 60m bathroom sprint. And my colon still hasn't forgiven me for eating an entire Peter Luger porterhouse for two. Point is, into every life, some diarrhea must fall. Just remember that your bowels aren't organs, they're muscles. You gotta work 'em out. All this will be documented and copiously illustrated with woodcuts in the second installment of my Sea of Pee tetralogy, Chronicle of a Poop Foretold. It's the odyssey of an anonymous online troll who decides to eat and defecate in every Waffle House on the I-95 corridor. Jack Black has already optioned it, but I always saw Chris Burke playing Monkeyrotica.

monkeyrotica

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:17:54 -0500

Disco Stu

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:56:09 -0500

Oh, and the only thing close to Ben's that I can think of off the top of my head, when it comes to greasy goodness, is Mario's in Clarendon. That grill too, has goodness soaked then that you only get the authentic way. on the ergonoics... on. not one. See? I make no sense all the time.

Disco Stu

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:53:41 -0500

Yeah, anal-piss, that makes no sense, SCL. And I should know, I make no sense all the time. True story: I almost ruined a date (maybe, did?) by insisting that she employ proper chili dog eating technique. (Never tilt the dog! That's inviting chaos!) That is, dog and bun are to remain level while head swings on neck to approach bite-from-the-side style... yeah, I've obviously thought too much one the ergonomics of junk food. Don't even get me started on pulled pork. Ian, you put it perfectly. I wonder what the people who can't take Ben's would make of the Florida St Diner...

monkeyrotica

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:42:20 -0500

See, now you gotta be hatin on Chuck Brown? Don't hate! What's this town come to? I tell you, Sailor. This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.

Reid

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:38:35 -0500

I get tired with Ben's because it becomes this sort of token for DC "authenticity". Kind of like Chuck Brown. They're the type of things people (read: White people) claim to like when they've never been there or heard it. Sort of like the reverse of Bill Murray's comment on Tito Puente.

monkeyrotica

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:49:49 -0500

People who turn their nose up at dingy dives need to pickup a copy of George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London." Behind the starched tablecloths and polished facades of most hoity-toity upscale slopshops lies a fetid, sweat-stained hellscape of overworked prep cooks and dishwashers dripping with B.O. and worse. The last thing on their mind is how clean their fingernails are. Yet they continue to peddle the illusion that their food is clean and their service impeccable. And gullible morons continue to buy in at $120 a plate. At least Ben's makes no pretentions about what it is.

monkeyrotica

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:43:16 -0500

You naysayers need to realize that the dirt and the squalor seal in the flavor.

Nate

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:22:20 -0500

re: the comment from Spookiness - I find it very amusing that the Ben's backlash has gotten big enough to even encompass people who have never actually eaten there. That may well win a prize for the Least Useful Opinion of All Time (or at least run a close second to this sentence).

Ian Buckwalter

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:05:27 -0500

I once went to this diner in Beverly Hills. Only it wasn't really a diner. It was a crisp, clean, approximation of a diner filtered through the lens of what the residents of Beverly wished diners would be. Every corner was spotless, every surface gleamed, and that included the heavenly white enamel on the teeth of the uniformly statuesque blonde aspiring actresses who were the waitstaff. The menu was diner fare by way of California cuisine, and while I'm sure it kept me that much farther from an eventual coronary, it was completely lacking in soul. I'm sure the residents of the Hills find it simply adorable, with it's charming silver Airstream facade, and I'm just as sure if they ever went into a real diner, they'd upchuck all over their Armani dinner wear. Similarly, anytime I hear people complain about Ben's, it always seems that they expect it to be something other than what it is. As if they'd like it if it were somehow quieter, more genteel, cleaner, less potentially inducing of gastro-intestinal distress. Wishing, in other words, that it wasn't Ben's. It's loud, the staff can be brusque (though if you're nice to them, you'll find they'll take excellent care of you), the surfaces are encased in a permanent film of grease, and they serve food that may sometimes require an iron stomach to process. And I'll be damned if I haven't enjoyed every visit I've made.

monkeyrotica

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:53:09 -0500

SCL

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:14:35 -0500

The place has a ton of history and is a genuine divey eatery. It's too bad it has the crappiest, most overpriced, anal piss-inducing food in the city.

dank

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:10:15 -0500

It's only been 20 years since they last cleaned the bathroom.

monkeyrotica

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:54:09 -0500

Well, of course as soon as I publish my book on the history of Weenie Beenie, Bennett rushes hers out and gets it premiered while miine is still at the chemist's. Funfriends is either on crack or getting Ben's mixed up with Hard Piles Chili Parlor. With the amount of BS Ben's staff has to put up with from the 2am drunk hiptards, I'm surprised there aren't more killing sprees going on there.

MahoganyShip

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:46:29 -0500

What's wierd about Ben's is that, while their chili is perfectly suited for hot dogs, burgers, fries etc., I think you would shit for a lifetime if you ever actually ate a pure bowl of the stuff.

EdTheRed

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:41:06 -0500

I think funfriends has Ben's confused with Junkpuncher's Chili Bowl over in Arlington.

IntangibleArts

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:40:49 -0500

oh, but it do, spookiness... it do.

spookiness

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:25:32 -0500

I've never been, but I have a hard time believing it could come anywhere near living up to its hype.

Sommer Mathis

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:20:32 -0500

funfriends, are you joking? Some of the nicest people I've ever met work at Ben's. What on earth are you talking about?

funfriends

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:18:21 -0500

i hope there's a chapter on how their employee manual requires that employees have had 1,000 hours of being an asshole to others in order to be qualified to work there.