The landmark Washington restaurant Blackie's served up its last steaks to more than 100 loyal customers yesterday, amid a fizz of toasts and nostalgia for the dining spot that fed the city's power brokers for more than 50 years.
For the past week, a steady stream of fans of the venerable steakhouse have traipsed through its antique-filled, dimly lighted rooms in hopes of soaking up a bit of its ambiance -- walls lined with photos of celebrity guests such as singer Bobby Darin -- one more time.
Last night, the ceilings brimmed with festive gold and black balloons and the champagne flowed for the restaurant's final New Year's Eve. Co-owner Margaret Auger, the founder's daughter-in-law, had donned a strapless red ball gown for the occasion but choked up when she addressed the waiters and kitchen staff. "You are family," she said.
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Out in the dining room, Tom Nutwell, 84, a retired Navy program manager from Alexandria, was anticipating his last slice of the signature prime rib.
"I've been coming here since the '50s," Nutwell reminisced. "Back then, it was always real crowded. You came in and knew half the people that were in here."
Family members of the restaurant's late founder -- Ulysses G. "Blackie" Auger Sr. -- sold the establishment and the Washington Marriott hotel he built above it, as well as nearby Lulu's Club Mardi Gras, in November. They want to focus on hotel development, but described the decision to sell as "gut-wrenching."
"It's home, and it's selling the home that we all grew up in," said Blackie Auger's daughter, Dina Auger Economides. "It's very bittersweet . . . but we are walking toward the future."
In decades gone by, when it was known as Blackie's House of Beef, the place at 22nd and M streets NW was the restaurant of choice for Capitol Hill heavyweights. The glory days were a heady time when plots were hatched and deals struck in corner booths. President Harry S. Truman came to dine. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, held court. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey even stood at the doorway and greeted customers like a maitre d'.
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"Can you imagine a vice president of the United States now coming in and working your front desk?" marveled Lulu Auger, 81, Blackie Auger's wife of 59 years.
Then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was another regular, showing up every Wednesday night with his close friend Clyde Tolson. The owners always sent over a bottle of cognac.
"He was always like, 'Just do your job and leave me alone,' " recalled waiter Manoochehr Pourhashemi, wriggling his eyebrows with the air of a man who has seen a lot in his 46 years serving at the steakhouse. "He was with his guest" -- Tolson -- "always. . . . They would have a lovely conversation and enjoy their dinner."
Blackie Auger, a charismatic and blunt-spoken former Army Ranger, had opened his first restaurant in the neighborhood in 1946. He later moved across the street to the current location, filling the restaurant with antiques and stained glass bought on the cheap from various Washington historic buildings facing the wrecking ball. There are carved dragon dining room chairs once owned by Maximilian and wrought iron gates from the estate of Evalyn Walsh McLean, the onetime owner of the Hope Diamond.
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He amassed quite a collection, and Weschler's auction house will sell some of the family's holdings -- mostly Renaissance revival furniture, stained glass and antique bar fixtures -- Tuesday.
Early on, Auger attracted a loyal customer base with a no-frills prix fixe menu for $1.75 that included hefty portions of prime rib, baked potato, peas, salad and cheesecake.
"It was the place to go for years, back in the '50s, '60s and '70s," said Jim Pedas, a Washington businessman who had a farewell dinner with family members there Friday night. "It was a cross section of everybody, sort of a melting pot . . . first of its kind in Washington."
Auger was charming to the customers but demanding behind the scenes, his wife recalled.
"Sometimes he'd been in the kitchen raving, and I'd have to come out and greet the guests," she said.
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The restaurant lost a bit of its allure as the decades wore on yet remained a favorite of tourists, conventioneers and the type of low-profile businessman who still favors sealing a deal over a slab of meat and a highball. It was the site of countless marriage proposals and nervous prom-night feasts through the years.
The Auger children tried to reinvigorate its image in 2000 with a $5 million facelift and new French chef. After that, you could still get a $39 prime rib or New York strip along with finer wines and nouvelle offerings such as Chilean sea bass.
After Auger died from complications from a heart attack in November 2004, the family decided to sell. Son Gregory Auger said the family wants to expand its hotel development business and other real estate holdings. They own a Marriott in Springfield and are building other properties in Winchester and Gettysburg, Pa.
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As heirs do, they put off cleaning out their father's cluttered office above the restaurant until the past two weeks, when they unearthed such historical gems as thank-you notes from then-Sen. John F. Kennedy as well as dearer artifacts, such as a pair of glasses that Gregory Auger lost 43 years ago.
The waiters say they still feel the late Auger's presence in the dining room. His wife thinks he would have approved of the family's decision to sell. But then, amid the final flurry of festivities, she said, "I don't believe he could have done it. It's sentimental and it was too heart wrenching."
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