D.C. Real Estate Agent Interviews Andy Shallal: Owner of Busboys and Poets

As a Real Estate Agent in D.C., VA, and MD, in addition to selling houses and helping people find their home, I feel it is my duty to connect to the neighborhood around me.  In this interview, I speak with Andy Shallal, owner of Busboys and Poets.  This is Part One of a Two Part interview.  (All photos and pictures are courtesy of Busboys and Poets website, www.busboysandpoets.com).  
  

Kevin:  Andy, would you mind saying something about yourself before we get into the interview? 

Andy:  Well, I have been in the restaurant business (officially in D.C.) since 1987.  Before that I was actually in the medical field.  I went to Howard University’s College of Medicine and then dropped out.  After that I worked at the National Institute of Health (NIH) focusing on leukemia research.  

Kevin:  What was the impetus for you to move from medicine to owning your own restaurant?

Andy:  It’s good work.  The medical field does a lot of admirable things.  But frankly, I just got bored with it.  Once I became aware of that fact, I returned to something very familiar to me.

Kevin:  Restaurants.

Andy:  Yes.  As a child my family owned and managed a small restaurant.  I really enjoyed it.  Surprisingly, my father discouraged his children from getting into the business.  He wanted us to become something more “professional.”  Well, I did that, and you saw how that turned out. 

Kevin:  So you stayed true to your interests.

Andy:  Yeah.  I’ve always had an affinity for the restaurant business.  I find serving people exhilarating.  I love making people happy.  I decided to come back to the restaurant business.

Kevin:  Where did you grow up?

Andy:  When we first came to America we stayed in D.C., but I grew up in Arlington and Fairfax, Virginia.  Now, I am back in D.C. where I started!

Kevin:  Which Busboys and Poets came first? 

Andy:  The first was the location at 14^th and V. 

Kevin:  Is that also the largest? 

Andy:  No.  The Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville is 9,000 sq. ft.  The second largest is the one on 5^th and K, then 14^th and V, and finally Shirlington, VA, which is about 6,000 square feet. 

Kevin:  Your business is more than a restaurant.  You are a café, bookstore, and frequently offer live spoken word poetry.  Which one of these as an idea came first?

Andy:  I created the business model so the concepts could converge together all at once.  The idea from the beginning was to have this be something much more than simply a good restaurant.  For me, going out to eat is not just an experience to feed your body; it is an opportunity to feed your mind, feed your soul, and a way to connect to the environment around you.  One of my goals with Busboys and Poets was to create a space where people could come and linger, experiencing the layers of the space which are multidimensional depending on what location you go to and what time a day you may go.  I love books.  I love poetry.  I love places to hang out.  Food is the foundation.   Everything is built around the fact that we have excellent food.

Kevin:  How much say do you have in the food?  Do you have a history with cooking?

Andy:  I thoroughly enjoy cooking, and I am personally invested in our food.  If I didn’t own Busboys and Poets, I probably would have become a chef.  I am not as good as some chefs out there now, simply because I haven’t been doing it for a while.  But, I know food very well. 

Kevin:  We’ll come back to the food in a couple of questions.  I want to ask you about your bookstore.

Andy:  Sure.  The bookstore is the “feeding the mind” part of the triangulation (“triangulation” being three angles of the mission:  feeding the body, feeding the mind, and feeding the soul).  Books are very special to me.  Books are important.  Unfortunately, bookstores are a dying breed.  People order their books on the web and never leave the house. 

Kevin:  So what are you trying to emphasize with your bookstore?

Andy:  That a book, a book store, an author speaking at an event, are all more than just books:  it’s about the community around it.  Our bookstore is run by a non-profit called Teaching for Change.  All the books that sell go 100% to the program.  We don’t charge them for the space, we don’t charge them for rent, we don’t charge them for electricity or phones or anything like that.  The take care of the store and make the money.

Kevin:  Where does the money go?

Andy:  Teaching for Change uses the money to provide educational materials for schools to make students more engaged, and more civic-minded. 

Kevin:  If you feel bookstores are a dying art, do you also feel the same way about spoken word poetry?

Andy:  No, I don’t.  I can speak for this area for sure:  spoken word poetry has seen a big resurgence.  I like to think that has something to do with Busboys and Poets.  Poetry is an incredible form of communication.  People use poetry to express many of the issues they hold dear to their heart.  Our poetry program(s) have tremendously grown.  We began with one program a month, from there went to one program a week, and when you begin to count all of our restaurants together we now have 24 poetry events occurring each month.  They are packed.  People  flock to them.  They love it.  People listen, soak it in, and I can see the internal movement occurring inside these people (and inside of myself) as they listen to the artists.  It’s art.  Art is very good at conveying strong messages quickly, sometimes in a subversive manner.

Kevin:  And one could say your food is art as well.  With a menu boasting vegetarian, vegan, non-vegetarian, and gluten-free, are you always updating the menu for each of this categories or did you simply sequester the food from your original menu into these four groupings?

Andy:  We have constantly evolved since we opened.  Busboys is a big four ring circus (laughs), so it has been a challenge keeping the menu small as our restaurants grow in popularity.  We want to offer something for everybody and we want to keep the menu tight.  My wife is a vegetarian on her way to being a vegan.  I am, for the most part, a vegetarian.  So we are slowly making our way towards a healthier approach to eating.  We continue, and will continue, to have other options of course.  We do all of our non-vegetarian items well:  our meats are well sourced.  Most of our vegetables are well sourced.  For the size of Busboys and Poets it’s an impractical goal to want everything to be organic.  That being said, we still do a good job.  For example, in the summer months 1/3 of our vegetables are sourced organic and/or local.  Overall, at least 50% of our food is either organic, local, or both.

(...To continue reading, click PART 2 here....)