Oyster po’ boy with coleslaw and fries. (Photo by jjgardner3, used under a Creative Commons license.)

It would be easy at first glance to lump Eatonville in with Busboys and Poets. Both are owned by Andy Shallal, both are located in the U Street neighborhood (in fact, they’re across the street from each other), and both are inspired by famous African-American authors. Resist the temptation to compare, because these are two very different animals.

The restaurant is named after Eatonville, FL, one of the first all African-American towns to be incorporated following the Emancipation Proclamation, and childhood home of Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston. The town was immortalized in her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston has her own connections to D.C., having attended Howard University in the 1920s. Eatonville the restaurant manages to marry the vibrant spirit of U Street while simultaneously channeling its namesake’s southern roots.

The atmosphere is decidedly eclectic — the walls are covered in eye-popping murals of Hurston, rendered in a funky mix of graffiti and bold, folk art styles. Antique chandeliers hang from a pressed tin ceiling, and corner of the bar features a picket fence and rocking chairs. The clientele is equally mixed — a tourist couple, a birthday party of twenty-something girls, an older gentleman dining by himself. It doesn’t seem like all these dissimilar elements should work, but somehow they do.