Any vinyl junkie who’s done some crate digging will eventually hit upon a peculiar subgenre of the private press recording industry: the restaurant record. Recorded by a dining establishment’s house band or simply the document of a lounge act performing at a most likely shag-carpeted family restaurant, these records feature the endearing vocal stylings of inspired amateurs. At least one of these records comes from your very own backyard, if you live in Burleith.
La Niçoise was originally located at 1721 Wisconsin Avenue NW, the current address of a Ledo’s Pizza franchise. Founder Jean-Louis Martin opened the restaurant in 1969. Martin, who passed away in 1988, was a resident of McLean but was born in Nice. Before opening La Niçoise, he worked at two other long-gone French restaurants, Jacqueline’s (formerly at 1921 Pennsylvania Avenue NW) and Sans Souci (formerly at 726 17th Street NW — and now a McDonalds).
Benjamin Tice Smith told me about his experiences there before the National Cathedral School prom in an undisclosed year: “We were a pretty snarky bunch but were completely won over by the fact that the waiters in the floorshow were making jokes about drinking Dubonnet…in French!” In 1972, then-Washington Post food critic Donald Dresden wrote that, “When the kitchen closes at night, Christian, the chef, trades his wire whisk for a guitar and joins his partners on a small stage where they sing highly amusing songs for the patrons in an amalgam of French and English. One of them, ‘The Big Bamboo,’ is gamey — delightfully so. ‘We get away with it because we are French,’ says [co-owner] Raymond.”
But what about the food? Dresden found it “superb French Provencal.” But in a 1978 roundup of the area’s French cuisine, Phyllis Richman was less impressed. “The one thing they do well … is roller skate.” La Niçoise’s floorshow continued to be listed in the Washington Post’s “Cabaret” listings through the mid-90s, but the restaurant is long gone. In D.C.’s increasingly competitive restaurant market, new eateries may struggle to establish their identity. Will some culinary entrepreneur bring live entertainment back to the dining room?
