Photo by Kevin H.

By now the news is out: D.C. mainstay Ben’s Chili Bowl is opening up a second location on H Street NE. While the City Paper got the scoop in October that owners Nizam and Kamal Ali had purchased a spot at 10th and H streets NE, it wasn’t until this week that they confirmed that the second location would actually be happening.

While plenty of people are excited about the news—shorter lines at the original U Street location! More half-smokes!—I’m going to commit D.C. culinary suicide today and give this development a big ol’ “Meh.” Let me explain.

All told, the burgeoning H Street NE corridor has welcomed some pretty tasty and innovative restaurants over the last year, from Toki Underground to Granville Moore’s. I’d even say that it’s become something of a dining destination. Ben’s Chili Bowl isn’t bad—half-smokes and chili cheese fries are pretty hard to screw up and even harder to hate—but it’s pretty standard fare compared to what it will be competing against.

The original U Street location is made that much more compelling because of its longevity and its story. It’s an institution, but like many institutions, we’ve granted it such exalted status despite some shortcomings in what it’s supposed to do best—food. That’s not to say it doesn’t do what it does well, but that what it does is pretty low on food scale to begin with. Being local and having a long history certainly adds some cachet, but it doesn’t make the food taste any better.

I’ll give the Ali family this, though—they’ve held out on expanding until now. Spare the outpost at Nationals Park, the U Street location remains the only place you can get their food. (Well, they’ve got Ben’s Next Door also, but that’s, well, next door.) For having been in D.C. for as long as they have, they probably could have built themselves a much more significant empire than what they have now. That’s not to say they haven’t tried, but until now they’ve remained a one-shop operation. That’s a nice break from what seems to be the usual operating procedure for successful ventures in D.C.: multiply and expand, and quickly.

Moreover, opening on H Street NE is smart. First off, they’ll certainly attract plenty of bar-goers, just as they do on U Street. But more importantly, H Street has much the same history and appeal as U Street did and does. Ben’s is a known quantity to D.C. residents from all backgrounds, and it will seem like a welcome addition to a commercial corridor that is being turned upside down, for better and for worse.

In short, it’s nice to have the institution come to H Street, but the food that comes along with it is less than exciting. Honestly, I was more excited when a former Ben’s employee announced plans to open a competing joint, possibly on H Street. A new and interesting take on the venerated half-smoke would have been a welcome change, I think.

This is but one humble writer’s perspective, though, and I’m fully prepared to be pelted with chili next time I walk into Ben’s for a half-smoke and catch myself thinking, “This is just OK.”