Bidding Goodbye to a Room With a View
Key Bridge Marriott Closing Its Popular Top-Floor Restaurant

By Jamie Stockwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 29, 2006

After 26 years of enthusiastically serving thousands of customers, waiter Boan Minh was visibly saddened Sunday, just days before his longtime employer, a restaurant atop the Key Bridge Marriott, was scheduled to close.

"What can you do?" he asked, gazing outside at the restaurant's unobstructed view of Washington, the monuments and the Potomac River. "I can do nothing. We've been here a long time. It's very sad."

JW's View Steakhouse, atop the 47-year-old Key Bridge Marriott, has hosted countless wedding receptions, graduation parties and other special celebrations over years. But come July 4, after the last of the annual fireworks display on the National Mall fades from the night sky, the restaurant will close its doors.

To many, the restaurant's closing signals the end of an era, the loss of an intimate, friendly space where the waiters treated customers like family -- a place where diners could escape hurried city life and enjoy a fine, relaxing meal and a spectacular view.

The rooftop restaurant originally opened as the Chaparrall Restaurant in 1970; it became the View Restaurant in 1980 and changed to JW's in the mid-1990s.

After years of analyzing the hotel's space and needs, officials concluded that the 582-room hotel needed more meeting space rather than a high-end restaurant. In addition, more and more restaurants are opening in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, giving diners more options and siphoning away JW's clientele, they said.

Still, the restaurant's impending closing is "a bittersweet moment for the hotel," said Carol Chu, director of marketing and sales for the hotel.

The new space is scheduled to reopen in December -- after a $5 million renovation -- as the 4,000-square-foot Capitol View Ballroom, Chu said.

"We came to the decision to convert the space into a ballroom, but we're grieving as a hotel because the staff has been with us for so long. . . . We keep going back and forth on the spectrum of emotions," she said.

Longtime customers are feeling the same way. For years, friends Carolyn Lane and Bishop Buckley have come each Sunday to linger at a table near the window, one of dozens along the restaurant's walls that provide stunning views of Georgetown University, kayakers and boaters on the Potomac, and joggers on the Key Bridge.

You could set your watch by their arrival each week; the two have missed few Sundays over the last five years. Together they sit, read the newspaper and chat over brunch and sparkling wine. Lane, 48, and Buckley, 60, know many of the restaurant's waiters and waitresses by name and have been invited to their birthday parties and other celebrations over the years.

"There is going to be a void to fill," Buckley said Sunday, as he and Lane looked out the floor-to-ceiling window for perhaps the last time.

"When I find an organization that does good work, I'll keep going," Buckley continued. "If a restaurant remembers me, I'll go back. And that's why I really like it here. They remember my name."

Lane and Bishop easily spend half the day at the restaurant, lingering over the sumptuous buffet spread, which includes everything from fresh ahi tuna to lamb chops to sushi to made-to-order omelets and cheesecake and other desserts.

Lane and Bishop, who have watched the seasons change year after year from their weekly perch on the 13th floor, haven't decided where they will dine now.

Nor can scores of other regulars, such as Cindy Cinnamon, 37, who celebrated her wedding and reception at the hotel and restaurant in 1998. Cinnamon now lives in Germantown, but she and her family continue to make several trips a year to the restaurant.

"It's terrible that we won't be able to come up here any time we want," Cinnamon said, with her 6-year-old daughter, Delaney, standing next to her. "Even on a bad day, the view is beautiful."

Angela Cabell, 36, and her husband have made it a tradition to spend the night at the hotel every year on their anniversary. They also eat at the restaurant most weekends, traveling from their home in Woodbridge. And their daughter celebrated her Sweet 16 birthday last year at the restaurant, arriving with her friends in a stretch limo.

"They treat you like family here," she said. "We come here for a lot of special occasions, and so it's very sad for us. They're all family, and they're also like our family. That's what I've always really loved."

Most of the wait staff are immigrants and hail from countries such as Vietnam, Morocco and Britain. Others are from the District, like cook Rodney Motley, 31, who has worked at the hotel for 16 years.

"It's very sad to be leaving," said Motley, who plans to open a restaurant in Capitol Heights next month.

On Sunday, as diners milled about the buffet area balancing small plates filled with food, Sharon K. Lockwood, the hotel's general manager, stopped at Lane and Buckley's table.

She told the couple that the hotel has decided to keep the space open for Sunday brunches after the renovations are complete -- at least on weekends when no other special events are planned.

"You are? Really?" asked Lane, a wide smile spreading across her face. "That's great."

Still, Lane said after Lockwood walked away, it won't be the same without the staff. Chu said the staff will be absorbed by the hotel chain, with several of them assigned to the Key Bridge Marriott's other two restaurants. Others will move to other Marriott hotels, she said.

"It won't be the same because the staff will be broken up," Lane said, referring to waiters like Minh who have worked at the restaurant since they moved to the United States.

At about 2 p.m. Sunday, as the brunch was winding down, two paintings were taken off a wall and sold to a regular diner, leaving behind a rectangular patch of bright wallpaper. The rest of the wall was faded by comparison. Buckley and Lane watched, their plates empty before them.

"Well," Buckley sighed, turning from the wall to the view before him. "We at least have one more visit."

A party honoring the staff and regular customers will be held at the restaurant tonight, Carol Chu said. Tickets are $50 per person, and a portion of the proceeds will go to a charity for children.