Inauguration Reservations

It's a Mixed Blessing For Area Restaurants

Barack Obama's inauguration offers Washington restaurants two reasons to celebrate. The millions of cold and hungry revelers represent a chance to impress visitors from around the globe and to make up for a lackluster holiday season.

That is, if the restaurants actually manage to feed them.

Every local business is bracing for the crowds. But for restaurants, where even a normal night can require an intricate dance of planning and ordering, the inauguration poses thorny challenges.

Traffic snarls and ever-changing security restrictions will prevent daily deliveries of fresh produce, meat and celebratory champagne, just as demand peaks. Ordering in advance won't necessarily help. Most restaurants don't have the space to store enough extra supplies. Besides, chefs know five-day-old fish isn't exactly going to wow the crowds.

"Too many patrons is a good problem to have in times like these," said Paul Walker, general manager at Clyde's in Penn Quarter. "But we've got to make sure we have the beer."

And the chicken wings. On an average day, the 560-seat restaurant serves 250 pounds of wings and 600 pounds of french fries to tourists, sports fans and moviegoers. This weekend, when the restaurant will be open 18 hours a day, it expects to triple that tally and to serve 3,000 patrons per day.

Restaurants make money by keeping kitchens small and stocking only what they need: The smaller the kitchen, the more room there is for paying guests.

Clyde's is next door to Verizon Center, so the staff has experience with large crowds. In a regular week, Clyde's has food delivered every day except Sunday. But next Monday is a holiday. On Inauguration Day, Tuesday, the roads will be closed. That means Clyde's kitchen needs 3,000 pounds of chicken wings, about 3 1/2 tons of french fries and everything else it serves to be delivered Saturday if it's going to make it through the big day.

Clyde's solution was to get special permission to station a 16-foot refrigerated truck on its loading dock for extra storage. Other chefs don't have that option. Oyamel's Joe Raffa and Cafe Atlantico's Terri Cutrino have persuaded their suppliers to deliver on Sunday and before dawn Monday, when they hope traffic will still flow. "If we get deliveries on Monday, it should be sufficient," said Cutrino, who is scheduled to work from 4 a.m. to midnight on Tuesday. "If for some reason that changes, it will be a whole different story."

Restaurateurs also are concerned about how to manage the crowds. Clyde's decided not to accept reservations for this weekend, figuring it will be difficult for diners to judge how long it will take them to get from place to place. The ThinkFood Group, which owns Cafe Atlantico, Oyamel, Zaytinya and Jaleo, is sticking to its usual policy: Reservations are accepted, and tables are held for 15 minutes. "It's a delicate balance. We felt like if people didn't have a destination, they'd be more fearful to walk in somewhere," Cutrino said. As of press time, Cafe Atlantico was booked for dinner over the weekend but had availability during breakfast, lunch and off-peak hours.

Change has been the only constant in inaugural planning. Restaurateurs say the Secret Service has gone out of its way to accommodate them. But the government has been hesitant to announce specific logistics for security reasons. And many plans remain in flux as the number of forecasted attendees swells and dips.

That has made it tricky for Teaism, a chain of cafes with two locations on the parade route. At the Lafayette Square cafe, deliveries already have been delayed because trucks are being stopped and searched. But the bigger problem, says co-owner Linda Neumann, is the pedestrian checkpoint that will be set up Tuesday in Penn Quarter.

The Secret Service plans to lock down and sweep the zone inside the checkpoint with bomb-sniffing dogs on the morning of the inauguration. Neumann originally was informed that the sweep would take place from 5 to 8 a.m. Because Metro will start running at 4 a.m., that would allow Teaism staff members to arrive before the area is sealed. Later, there was talk that the area would be sealed from 4 to 7 a.m., making it impossible for the staff to arrive before opening time. Neumann is now planning to set up air mattresses in the company office upstairs so staffers can sleep over the night before, just in case. "It's never been this up in the air," Neumann said. "It wasn't like this in the past."

Some restaurants have had an early taste of the madness to come. When the president-elect arrived at his transition office last week, the Secret Service shut down a block of D Street NW, preventing customers from entering and leaving the popular Indian restaurant Rasika. At its sister restaurant, the Oval Room, lunch business has been slow while the Obamas have been staying at the Hay-Adams Hotel nearby. "People think we're closed," said owner Ashok Bajaj. "It's not good for business. In tough times like these, it's awful."

According to the latest information, Friday is the last day the Oval Room will be allowed to receive deliveries. But Bajaj remains optimistic that all will go smoothly on Inauguration Day: "It always works out."

Ellen Gray, co-owner of Equinox, next to the Oval Room, is also confident. But she's taking no chances. "I've been feeding the cops. They're eating organic farmed beef burgers," she said. "I don't look at them as an obstacle. I see them as an opportunity."