President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama made their first culinary foray into Adams Morgan yesterday evening, joining supporters who won his re-election campaign’s “Dinner With Barack” contest at Mintwood Place on Columbia Road.

Around 4:30 p.m. the first signs of the impending presidential visit were on display: MPD officers closed down a stretch of Columbia Road and a large tent was erected outside the restaurant. By 5:30 p.m., a bus offloaded the winning donors in front of Mintwood Place, and minutes later crowds were pushed to the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road. Just after 6:15 p.m., Obama’s motorcade came down Calvert Street and into the heart of Adams Morgan, eliciting loud cheers from the throngs of assembled on-lookers.

The Obamas were joined at dinner by three contest winners and their guests. A White House pool report described them as David Garcia, an associate music professor at the University of North Carolina; Ben Oakleaf, a wildfire smoke jumper from Idaho; and Latasha Scurry, an assistant high school principal in Florida. The last “Dinner With Barack” meals took place at Lincoln, Boundary Road, Scion, and Liberty Tavern.

While the Obamas have eaten in plenty of D.C. restaurants over the years—ranging from Ben’s Chili Bowl to Komi—this is the first time the president has returned to Adams Morgan since he played basketball with Mayor Adrian Fenty at the Marie Reed Community Learning Center shortly before his inauguration in 2009. It also marks a recent uptick in his visit to local restaurants: in June he ate barbecue at Kenny’s BBQ Smokehouse on Capitol Hill, while in May he talked small business with the owners of Taylor Gourmet at their 14th Street NW location. Many of the restaurants that Obama has visited have benefited from increased business, known locally as the “Obama bump.”

Former President George W. Bush was more modest in his trips out of the White House, eating once at Cactus Cantina on Wisconsin Avenue in 2003.