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VOL.31, NO.4
She built more than a restaurant
I N S I D E …
PHOTO BY GREG WAGNER
SEE SPECIAL INSERT Housing & Homecare Options following page 22
ARTS & STYLE
From farm to table
Virginia Ali and her late husband, Ben Ali, co-founded Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street NW in 1958. She has been actively involved in its operations for more than 60 years. The landmark restaurant remains a neighborhood hub, and has spawned two additional locations and two other restaurants around the metro area.
Ali grew up on a farm in rural Virginia and attended segregated schools. Her family moved to Washington, D.C., in the 1950s, and she took a job as a commercial bank teller on the thriving U Street corridor, known then as Black Broadway. She remembers the week Ben Ali, a Howard University student who grew up
in Puerto Rico, visited the bank three days in a row, gave her his phone number and told her to call him. “I thought he was cute, but that wasn’t something I was going to do in late 1956.” Impatient for a response, he called her at work.
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Happy ever after is only half the story in Into the Woods at Ford’s Theatre; plus, Bob Levey on mandatory retirement age, and books that shine a light on page 35 social justice.
“He said, ‘This is Ben Ali. Why didn’t you call me?’” Ali remembered. “I said, ‘Because I don’t know you,’ and he said, ‘What would you like to know?’ “And then he told me about his entire life,” See VIRGINIA ALI, page 37
TECHNOLOGY
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FITNESS & HEALTH 7 k Do disinfectants make us sick? k Foods that burn more calories SPOTLIGHT ON AGING k Newsletter for D.C. seniors
20
LAW & MONEY 23 k Live like British royalty — frugally LEISURE & TRAVEL 30 k A classic Maine fishing village k Visiting exotic Sumatra ADVERTISER DIRECTORY 13342537
By Margaret Foster Every day, Virginia Rollins Ali, 85, stops by the landmark restaurant she and her late husband, Ben, opened on D.C.’s U Street in 1958. She walks from table to table, greeting the regulars, tourists, athletes, politicians and movie stars who visit Ben’s Chili Bowl for a half-smoke, chili cheese fries or a milkshake. Most of the time she gives them a hug. “You’d think she’s known them for 100 years, but they just met,” Ali’s daughter-inlaw Vida said. “That’s the spirit of the Bowl.” Over the past 60 years, Ali has done every kind of work at the restaurant, including cooking on the grill, hiring employees, organizing events, and greeting customers. She still actively works in that community relations role at the Bowl. It was Ali’s success in building a community that brought her to the attention of Seabury Resources for Aging. The nonprofit, which provides housing, care management, meals and more for older adults in the D.C. metro area, will be honoring Ali at its 95th anniversary celebration in May. “We’re honoring older adults who have made significant contributions to the community and continue to do so,” said Kate Lewis, chief advancement officer at Seabury. “We encourage our people to stay engaged, and she certainly is that.”
APRIL 2019
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