For Business Owners, It's Like a Death in the Family

By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Most of the 14 shops that operated inside Eastern Market's South Hall have been owned by the same families for generations. The owners are well known to residents who walk to the market for coffee, fresh meat, seafood, baked goods, fresh-cut flowers or artwork -- or simply to people watch.

Yesterday, after an early morning fire raced through the South Hall, shop owners and many of more than 60 vendors who operate outside the red-brick building gathered to contemplate the future. The outside vendors are anxiously waiting to resume operations this weekend, while businesses inside the market wonder when -- or whether -- they will be able to reopen.

Most consider themselves part of an extended Capitol Hill family and had trouble accepting the fire's devastation. Some tried to console crying customers. Others worried about their workers. By 11 a.m., a few had gathered in Tunnicliff's restaurant, across the street, for glasses of beer or wine to help numb the pain.

Neighborhood Butcher

Many Capitol Hill residents think of Melvin Inman Sr., 55, owner of Market Poultry, as the neighborhood butcher. For 32 years, he has sold them fresh chicken, turkey, quail, duck and eggs. When the fire began, his freezer was stocked with $4,000 worth of poultry.

As Inman talked about his life at the market, he was interrupted by a steady stream of customers. There were kind words and hugs.

"We're not going to worry about this. We're going to pray and keep moving," Inman said. "It stymies your growth a little, but we're a neighborhood. The response from this community has brought me to tears. It's been overwhelming."

Inman's business has been a family affair. His son, Melvin Jr., 34, grew up behind the counter weighing chicken parts and waiting on customers. Inman's brother-in-law Edward Minor and a nephew, J.R. Roberson, also worked in the shop. All of them put in nearly 70 hours a week, even more before Thanksgiving.

Inman, often wearing a Washington Redskins jersey, could be seen wielding a cleaver, gutting and cutting up poultry and chucking unused parts in the nearest waste bucket behind the counter.

Inman was grateful that when the fire began yesterday, the business was not stocked for a holiday. "Thank God it wasn't Thanksgiving," he said.

Yesterday, Lois Porter, 87, of Capitol Hill hugged Inman and kissed him on the cheek.

"These guys down here are like family," Porter said. "When I went through my chemotherapy, he was there for me. He's more than a butcher."

The Market Lunch

"This has been [like] a death in my family," said Tom Glasgow, owner of the Market Lunch. "I'm still in a state of disbelief."

Glasgow's restaurant, which opened 30 years ago, has become a popular destination. On weekdays, congressional aides and people who work nearby would pop in for a quick lunch. On weekend mornings, the line of people waiting to buy the grill's popular crab cake sandwiches and blueberry pancakes often stretched outside.

Glasgow said that although he lost everything, he considers himself lucky. He has a $10 million liability insurance policy. Still, he is concerned about the fire's effect on those who depend on him.

"My seven employees are unemployed." he said. "I'm unemployed, and I have a son going to college next year."

After hearing the news, one of Glasgow's employees, Nicole Krautz, showed up at the market to comfort her boss.

"I'm just worried about the people who have been here so long and don't know anything else. This is a family," Krautz said.

Krautz lives with Josh Howell, who works at Union Meats Co., another market shop. Howell said his job was more than just a paycheck. It was his life. Now it's gone.

Seafood and Baked Goods

Sitting on the brick wall across the street from the market, Charles Glasgow Jr. shook his head.

"I'm thinking of what I'm going to do for a living now," said Glasgow, 52.

Charles and Richard Glasgow, Tom's brothers, ran Southern Maryland Seafood Co., which their father, Charles, bought in 1941. The sons sold fresh salmon, swordfish, bluefish, rockfish, tuna, crabmeat and oysters to seafood lovers who did not want to venture down to the wharf in Southwest.

The company has five full-time employees.

Glasgow said he had "hundreds" of pieces of seafood in a cooler in the market and wondered when owners would be allowed to remove the food. "Otherwise, I'd hate to be around here later this week when that smell gets out."

While the Glasgow brothers operated the seafood company, Richard Glasgow's wife, Jenny, owned the Fine Sweete Shoppe, at the other end of the South Hall, which sold fresh-baked breads, cookies, cupcakes and pies.

"This is horrible, simply horrible, to not only our family but to our Capitol Hill family," she said.

Fancy Dairy Products

Ray Bowers stood outside Eastern Market at 2:30 a.m. yesterday, watching flames shoot out of the roof. "It was hard watching it. I still can't believe it," he said later.

Bowers's father opened Bowers Fancy Dairy Products in 1963, and, until yesterday, shoppers could stop at the counter to sample one of 50 domestic or imported cheeses.

Ray Bower and his son Michael ran the shop with two part-time employees who have been with them for years. Bowers is most concerned about his employees.

"It's like being told your marriage of 44 years has ended," Bowers said. "It's hard to swallow."

Handmade Jewelry and Art

Nikki Dean, 33, Lakisha Dickson, 29, and Quest Skinner, 29, have designed and sold jewelry on weekends at the market for years. Like many other vendors who set up shop outside of the market on Seventh Street or North Carolina Avenue SE, the women did not lose any possessions in the fire.

But they said they were worried about the future of the market and the employees who worked inside. Skinner calls them "my family."

Skinner said she quit a job as an entertainer eight years ago to sell jewelry full time at the market.

"This was the beginning of my black entrepreneur dream. It's now interrupted," Skinner said as she sipped on a glass of merlot in Tunnicliff's and tried to relax.

"It's a vintage market. It's like stepping into old Europe. Now it looks like it's condemned overnight," she said.

Dickson said she often sold 25 to 100 pieces of jewelry or art on weekends. "When I came here and saw the windows were burned out, I just couldn't believe it. I still just can't believe it."

While working at the market, Skinner said, she has met several members of Congress, including Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), whom she called two of her "regulars."

"It's the one place in the city where urban meets suburban, but we all got along. It was truly a family," Skinner said. "I had customers telling their children to call me Auntie Quest."

Staff writer Elissa Silverman contributed to this report.