Rachel Kurzius
Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse, a Dupont establishment beloved by D.C.’s gay community, marked its 70th birthday last year, and now it has another cause for celebration: it is one of five restaurants to win the James Beard Foundation’s America’s Classics award, an honor bestowed on regional restaurants with “timeless appeal” and “quality food that reflects the character of their communities.”
“I was thrilled that we had won,” says Scott Paxton, the bar manager who has worked at Annie’s for 19 years. “And kind of saddened, too, that Annie herself wasn’t able to see it.”
Annie was the sister of owner George Katinas, a World War II Army veteran who cooked and hired his sisters to work behind the bar. His son, Paul, now runs the business. Annie’s name was added to the Paramount Steakhouse in the 1960s—Paxton says it’s because everyone had informally started calling the restaurant Annie’s because of her exuberant personality. As her Washington Post obituary from 2013 describes, “She was known for mixing excellent Manhattans, which she stirred with her finger. As she served one customer, she would call out, loud enough to be heard in the street, ‘Who’s next?’”
D.C.-area food critic David Hagedorn wrote a post for the Beard Foundation’s website about what draws so many people to the restaurant, including himself as a freshman at Georgetown in the late 1970s:
One evening, we made the trek to Annie’s. It was a long, narrow space with low lighting. Most of the clientele were men, laughing, drinking, flirting; all of the staff were women. I felt like I had arrived in a place that was all mine, where the air was fresh and clear, even through a cumulus of cigarette smoke. It was freedom, the same feeling I would later experience when I stepped off the plane in Provincetown or the ferry in Fire Island for the first time. More than freedom, it was community … Soon after Paramount opened, it gained a reputation as a safe place for gay men, many of whom worked for the government and risked losing their jobs and going to jail if their sexuality were discovered. In an oft-recounted story from the restaurant’s early days, Annie went up to two men holding hands under the table and told them they were welcome to hold hands above it.
Two other D.C. restaurants have won the America’s Classics award: Ben’s Chili Bowl and the recently-closed CF Folks lunch counter.
In addition to serving up lots of red meat and strong cocktails, Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse serves as the finish line for the annual 17th Street High Heel Race. In the mid 1980s, the restaurant moved to its current location and JR’s took over its original space, which prompted the very first drag queens to run between the two establishments. Paxton says that the community is what has inspired him to stay at the restaurant for going-on two decades.
When he first started, he says, “Annie herself said to me, ‘Listen, if you see somebody walk through the door, you welcome them, because I want them to feel like they’re home,’ and that’s how it’s always been since I’ve been here”
