I Can’t Stand Ben’s Chili Bowl

On August 23, 2013, Ben’s Chili Bowl, a living monument to black restaurant success in Washington, D.C., celebrated its 55th anniversary. So what! True, if bricks were jewels, pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and topaz would adorn the building that houses Ben’s on U Street Northwest.

Moreover, if every table, chair, counter and grill in that building were angel’s voices, they would sing anthems to the Ali family that only gods and goddesses could cheer.
Needless to say, once you walk into Ben’s, the aroma of chili and burgers makes you smile. But when you leave, you want to say farewell to sadness forever.

But though it is a shrine to persistence and perseverance, I have a bone to pick with Virginia Ali and her family. Virginia and her husband, Ben, founded the establishment in 1958. It serves the best chili burgers, chili half-smokes, chili hotdogs and chili cheese fries east and west of the Atlantic Ocean.

What, I wonder, would happen if the pharaohs of Egypt, the emperors of Rome and the kings of the Ashanti Empire ruled their domains today? Would they dictate laws demanding their peoples take a trip once a month to that Mecca of chili dogs and fries? And would punishment for violating those laws include 20 lashes with rawhide whips laced with stones and broken glass – or even worse, cutting out the tongues of the infidels who disobey the laws?

Regardless of the punishment I would have to suffer for violating such laws, I may have to cease eating at Ben’s if my complaint is not addressed immediately.

When I first started eating at Ben’s around 1972, ninety-five percent of Ben’s customers were black. When I went in, I was always at the front of the line, because there were not enough whites who frequented the place to make vanilla for a chocolate-vanilla milkshake. I could sit in a booth, bob my head to James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” or Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” booming from the jukebox and laugh as one of the employees hustled a wino out the door just before he puked on the street.

One day, while I was downin’ a chili cheese dog with fries and a grape soda, I stared when a D.C. police officer walked into the joint and the knuckleheads high on booze and drugs turned their backs to the door and pulled their hats down over their heads so the officer would not notice them shaking and slobberin’ all over the place. Little did they know that the officer could have cared less about them: He was too busy savoring the sizzling taste of a Ben’s chili cheeseburger to arrest those fools.

Ahhh! Those were the good ole days! But ever since Ben’s became famous, ever since they survived the metro subway construction and were chosen to serve their delicious burgers at Washington Nationals and Washington Redskins’ games and were frequented by the likes of President Obama and the Rev. Jesse Jackson – ever since the neighborhood became gentrified and whites and Asians began eating at Ben’s in, it seems, like millions – my life has become a living hell.

Whereas once I could get at the front of the line to buy my dogs and burgers, now I have to get at the back of the line – behind the caucasians and Asians. Now I don’t mean to demean my white and yellow brothers and sisters – I mean, can’t we all just get along. But I was here first. I mean, I and other blacks were eating at Ben’s long before many of them could poop in their diapers. Besides, I thought one of the goals of the civil rights movement was to get blacks from the back of the bus to the front of the bus.

Ben’s has moved on to the front of the bus, but they didn’t take me with them. At Ben’s, I have gone from the back of the bus, to the front of the bus and back to the back of the bus again. What use is the civil rights movement if I have to always get at the back of the line and wait 10, 15 or 20 minutes to get served my burgers and fries?

This is what happens when you become a hugely successful black business – when you become a celebrity, well-known and well-respected entrepreneurs winning awards and gaining worldwide recognition. Yet, sadly, as a consequence of such success, Ben’s has forgotten about me, I mean, about the little people that have made Ben’s great. And that’s why I can’t stand Ben’s Chili Bowl!

Well, I’m sick and tired of it and I won’t take it anymore. Therefore, I demand that the Ali family stop allowing this unequal, unjustified, illegal, inequitable, unethical, unwarranted, unreasonable, inexcusable and inappropriate practice of forcing me to go to the back of the line. If this injustice is not remedied immediately, I will protest by not eating at Ben’s and carry a sign in front of the establishment urging customer’s to boycott the business for malfeasance of the public trust.

I know I may have to suffer to get my rights. Nonetheless, I am willing to endure being ridiculed by ignorant bystanders, laughed at by Ben’s unsympathetic employees, beaten by cold-hearted police officers, bitten by vicious police dogs, fire hosed by irate D.C. firefighters, urinated on by stinkin’ cats and almost run over by vengeful metro bus drivers. But my mind is made up.

Right now, Ben’s Chili Bowl is the Microsoft of small black restaurant businesses in D.C. Bill and Melinda Gates, if they lived in an alternate, heavenly world, would be known as Ben and Virginia Ali.
But don’t be fooled. Even though on Monday of next week, I’ll stop by Ben’s for a chili cheeseburger and fries, and on Thursday I’ll buy a chili half-smoke and chili cheese fries, and on Sunday I’ll down a chili hotdog with lemonade, I still can’t stand Ben’s Chili Bowl.

As a result, sometime during that week, I recommend that the Ali family put a sign on the front door and the front counter, in 30-point bold Universal font, which says “Blacks served first. Whites and Asians, please move to the back of the line.”