"Restaurant Deals Draw Diners To Downtown DC"
Washington Post, by Ellen McCarthy
November 19, 2001

Tourism Board Entices Area Consumers

By 11:20 last Thursday morning, a line of smartly dressed diners stood outside Georgia Brown's restaurant on 15th Street NW, waiting for tables. The restaurant's staff had not seen such crowds on a weekday in more than a year, nevermind the past two months.

"We're booked for the rest of the week -- absolutely maxed out. This has been an incredible week," said Neal Langermann, executive chef and a partner at Georgia Brown's.

The restaurant was one of dozens of beneficiaries of the District's weeklong fixed-price promotion Restaurant Week, which ended yesterday. The success of the promotion has heartened Washington hospitality industry leaders after some clunky previous efforts since Sept. 11 to get people back downtown and bring relief to small businesses, hotels and restaurants that depend on visitors.

The restaurant promotion was one part of a multi-pronged effort that initially is targeting consumers in the region, not out-of-town tourists. The Washington Convention and Tourism Corp. (WCTC), the District's tourism promotion agency, intends to support its "Holiday Homecoming" campaign with regional advertising. Beginning Dec. 3, the District plans seasonal celebrations, including Christmas lights downtown, along with museum displays, shopping sales and hotel promotions during the critical weeks before the holidays.

The WCTC also plans to launch a national and international campaign to revive tourism in Washington, but it is waiting for consumer confidence in the travel industry to rise first. In all, the organization plans to spend more than $4 million promoting Washington.

Much is riding on these campaigns. The District's economy is tied to hospitality, the largest single industry after government. With 17,000 hotel employees out of work since Sept. 11, occupancy levels well below normal and recent anthrax scares and other security concerns frightening off even suburban visitors, last week's restaurant promotion was a welcome respite from two months of malaise.

About 110 restaurants participated in the promotion, offering three-course lunches and dinners for $20.01 and $30.01, respectively. The idea was modeled after a similar offering in New York.

Tourism groups are hoping that this and other promotions in the coming months will have a slow but sure domino effect, helping not only the targeted industries but also neighboring businesses as well.

The line outside Georgia Brown's did not quite extend around the corner to Lola's Flower Garden on K Street NW, but assistant manager Ike Kanavangelos said the shop had some busy days last week that might have stemmed from the increased attendance at nearby restaurants.

"We've been packed some days and dead on others, but regardless, this is a great location," he said. "For 12 years now we've worked very hard on this store, and we're not going to give it up just because of a rough patch."

In the weeks after the attacks, the WCTC reworked its advertising efforts, which have traditionally targeted out-of-town visitors, to focus on area residents who had been avoiding the downtown area.

The tourist board allotted $200,000 to advertise a weekend of free Metro service in October. Retail shops, museums and restaurants were encouraged to offer promotions and discounts to make the District an attractive destination for locals.

Metro ridership rose 3.7 percent for the weekend. While it was not the rousing, hoped-for response, many District proprietors urged the WCTC to keep on trying.

"The objective was to raise the bar of visitation, just move the needle a little," WCTC spokeswoman Vicki Isley said. The WCTC and the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington sponsored the latest promotion, which both labeled a "complete success," though revenue figures are not yet available.

Not all downtown business owners are celebrating, though. Special promotions have helped support only some types of businesses. Stan Cohen, who runs Al's Magic Shop on Vermont Avenue NW, said that whatever boost his restaurant neighbors have had may be too late to save his business. The shop, which has been on Vermont Avenue for 22 years, is empty for hours at a time, forcing Cohen to lay off his part-time workers and reduce his stock.

"You'd never think that a joke shop like mine would be affected by terrorism," said Cohen, whose shop has been open for 65 years. "But we're hurting just like everyone else, and I'm afraid we're all going to disappear pretty soon."

Ellen Gray, co-owner of Equinox on Connecticut Avenue NW, thinks pessimistic sentiments like Cohen's overstate the severity of the tourist drought.

The phones at Equinox rang almost continuously last week with calls from new and returning patrons eager to take advantage of the promotion prices. By Tuesday, Ellen Gray and her husband, Todd Gray, decided to extend the offer into this week to accommodate those who couldn't be squeezed in.

"We've already booked 780 reservations -- and we're only an 80-seat restaurant," Ellen Gray said. "It's been amazingly busy; it's been great. People who speak of doom and gloom aren't helping things. There are ways to make people love your business and patronize your business in good times and bad."

According to the National Restaurant Association, restaurant sales dropped 5.1 percent from August to September, and 85,000 industry jobs were cut in the past two months.

The District's restaurant association forecasts that Washington area establishments will experience only a 1 percent drop in total revenue from 2000 to 2001, but many restaurateurs that cater to tourists -- who represent a third of all customers at upscale eateries -- said they are seeing much bigger losses.

At the Two Continents Restaurants in Hotel Washington, business remained so slow that manager Adel Khalek was forced to lay off some of his hardest-working staff members, a move that was doubly hard knowing that most would struggle to find new jobs.

"The local restaurants are not hurt as much as us in hotels," Khalek said. "Business fell 80 percent in September. Now, even the 15 to 17 people we have covering breakfast, lunch and dinner is too much. Some of them aren't working full time."

Khalek said participating in Restaurant Week brought in a few more customers than normal, but he did not see the droves that other area establishments reported.

"It's still pretty slow, and I'm still worried about next year," he said. "Usually we have a lot of parties for Christmastime, but that has dropped off. The bookings don't look great for January and February either."

At the Oval Room on Connecticut Avenue, the lunchtime crowd has almost returned to normal in recent weeks, but dinner patrons were relatively scarce. Restaurant manager Larry King said the promotion was the key to bringing suburbanites back to the District last week, filling the dining room completely between 6 and 9 each night.

"Dinner depends on people wanting, choosing, to be in the city," he said. "This week we've served at least 20 percent more dinners than usual. . . . Hopefully this is only a beginning."

Few in the industry believe that the losses incurred by tourism-dependent Washington businesses can be totally recouped through local promotions. Like many District-based proprietors, however, Ellen Gray is grateful for every effort area residents are making to support local businesses.

"I'm so appreciative of how phenomenal our clientele has been to us," she said. "And when I look down the street and see the White House, I can't help but think what a stellar location we have -- I wouldn't want to do it anywhere else."

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