tallula

my friends and i have a little dinner club - we try and get out once a month and try one of the restuarants on our list. tonight it's time for april's dinner, and we're heading to tallula, the newish restuarant in clarendon. tallula is owned by the same peeps behind rustico, buzz and evening star cafe. i've heard great things about the new space - especially the new eat bar concept they have at the bar. i really love that they've incorporated the EAT sign into their restaurant. it's almost as if a little bit of whitey's lives on.

what, you've never heard of whitey's? that's really a shame. but it just highlights the growing problem in arlington. clarendon used to be fun and a bit quirky. now it's ruled by chains - cheesecake factory, la tasca, crate and barrel. thanks, but i can go to the mall if i want that. i liked have a fun neighborhoodly (is that even a word?) to go to. now the whole ballston-rosslyn corridor is full of high rises and chains. and even courthouse, which i thought would hold out, is becoming a victim - dr. dremos is set to close in the fall and a brand new high rise will go up in it's place.

anyways, back to whitey's. growing up around here, i used to go with my parents all the time. it was a total dive bar and was located where tallula is now. they were famous for their broasted chicken. it's like fried chicken but not as greasy. yeah, it was that good. and they also had these super greasy beer battered onion rings. it was always packed when we went and i'm sure the bar scene was happening. tragically whitey's closed in 2003 so i never got to experience the place as a bar. oh well.

in searching for information about whitey's i stumbled upon some old going out gurus chats from 2003 in which they discuss the closing of the neighborhood spot. when things slow down here i might just have to go through some of the archives and see what was popular back then. maybe fritz made some other bets that he backed out on. no, was that just me?