Prime Rib Real Estate

I caught the end of the 6 O’Clock news on WJLA last night, the last few seconds of a piece on Tom Sarris’ Orleans House. I couldn’t hear what the anchors were saying, but I knew the place was only newsworthy if it was shutting down. I called up the Rosslyn landmark immediately.

Sure enough: “We’re closing on January 15,” said the woman answering the phone.

It’s being being torn down to make room for a another high-rise, she said. She sounded sad.

This hits me where I live. Or, well, lived.

I went to Orleans House before my prom in 1979. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I clearly remember being at that restaurant that night in a white tux, ordering prime rib (the “Mammoth Cut”) and eating jello from a huge salad bar shaped like a boat, and, though everybody in our foursome (all of whom I saw at a party in Centreville last Saturday, coincidentally) was either 16 or 17 years old, ordering a few bottles of wine. I also recall that the wine was Lancers, a mass-marketed brand in the ’70s, and that it came in a brownish clay decanter, just like in the ads, and that it cost $8 a bottle. I’d never ordered wine before.

I remember thinking this was the high life.

Before hanging up, I told the sad-sounding lady from Orleans House that I’ll miss the place. I think what I meant was: I miss 1979. Everything but the white tux…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 4:36 pm and is filed under History, In Memoriam, Real Estate, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.