Photo by Daquella manera on Flickr.

Neighborhood restaurants can be the foundation of a community. In Anacostia, plans to bring popular local chain Busboys & Poets to the area are moving forward, while residents remember one sub shop that was the “spot to come to” before closing a generation ago.

In recent years, restauranteur and mayoral candidate Andy Shallal has hinted he intends to open a Busboys & Poets in Anacostia. In response, residents launched a marketing campaign to woo the restaurant.

At last night’s Washington City Paper debate, Shallal publicly confirmed he is in negotiations for 2 possible locations in Anacostia: the former American Furniture store at 2004 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE, and the city-owned Big K lot in the 2200 block of MLK. Community sources say Shallal is exploring “franchising” the Busboys & Poets brand to a black-owned management group that would run the restaurant in the former furniture store.

A block away, long-time resident Melvin Holloway stands on the corner of the lot at the junction of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Pleasant Street, and Maple View Place SE and points to a sign.

Miles Long in 1984. Photo from the Anacostia Community Museum Archives.

“See: March 27, 1961,” he says, singling out a date on the side of the neon sign’s illuminating shell. “That’s about when the Miles Long opened. It closed, probably, in the late ‘70s. But their memory is still strong.”

The reverence that still exists in the hearts and stomachs of Anacostians for the Miles Long, decades after its closing, is a testament to the yearning both long-time and newer arrivals have for landmark neighborhood eateries. When discussing Anacostia in recent years with my Uncle Gary, who worked for Goodyear on Railroad Avenue in the 1970s, he always mentions the Miles Long.

Melvin Holloway stands in front of the former Miles Long. Photo by author.

According to Holloway, Miles Long “was the spot to come to at night, the spot to come to when it opened up early in the morning, and anytime in between. You could smell the fried onions they’d put on the steak sandwiches blocks away.”

The Miles Long building had a brief second life in 2012 when a couple from Bethesda opened Mama’s Kitchen, a pizzeria that the Washington Post highlighted as one of the first sit-down restaurants to open in the area in years. Since then, Mama’s Kitchen moved to 2028 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and became Mama’s BBQ, Blues & Pizza.

A neighborhood dining scene is slowly returning. In recent years, Uniontown Bar & Grill opened at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and W Street. On Good Hope Road, Nurish Food & Drink recently opened in the Anacostia Arts Center, housed in the old Woolworth building and down the street from local mainstay Tony’s Place.

Changes are coming for hungry Anacostians. Time will tell what neighborhood eatery future generations will get to remember.