Dine With Queens

Want to have dinner with the queen? Wait. Let me rephrase that: Would you like to have dinner with queens?

What’s been described as a “band of roving drag queens” will travel in fabulous style—aboard the Queen Force One van—as they work the local restaurant scene tonight to help raise money for folks who live with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other diseases. The queens’ visit is part of Dining Out for Life, an annual areawide event in which dozens of restaurants agree to donate between 25 and 100 percent of their sales to Food & Friends, a D.C.-based nonprofit that provides nutritionally appropriate meals and groceries for the 1,200-plus people who qualify for the free service.

The queens are restricting their prancings to eight restaurants, most of them in Dupont Circle—see the itinerary below—but you don’t have to. This year, 150 restaurants have agreed to participate in Dining Out for Life, including several that are donating 100 percent of sales: Addie’s Restaurant, Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant, and Ristorante Tosca.

Who are the queens? They include Food & Friends Executive Director Craig Shniderman, two makeup artists with M·A·C cosmetics, and three honest-to-goodness queens: Queen Bambi, Queen Bon-Bon, and Queen Kalua.

The itinerary is after the jump.

5 p.m.: Jack’s Restaurant and Bar, 1527 17th Street, NW
5:20 p.m.: Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse, 1609 17th Street, NW
5:40 p.m.: Dupont Italian Kitchen, 1637 17th Street, NW
6 p.m.: Hank’s Oyster Bar, 1624 Q Street, NW
6:20 p.m.: Floriana Mercury Grill, 1602 17th Street, NW
6:40 p.m.: Cafe Luna/Skewers, 1633 P Street, NW
7:10 p.m.: Coppi’s Organic, 1414 U Street, NW
7:40 p.m.: Perry’s, 1811 Columbia Road NW
8:00 p.m.: Return to Annie’s, where the queens will tear into some meat for dinner.