Joynt interviewing Dan Rather at Nathans during a Q & A Cafe session

Nathans Restaurant, a veritable Georgetown institution located at the intersection of M Street and Wisconsin Ave, will be closing this Sunday.  Owner Carol Joynt has been publicly struggling with her landlords recently, and announced the closing on her blog yesterday:

After 40 years of serving millions of happy and loyal customers, and opening its doors 365 days of every year, Nathans will close at last call on Sunday, July 12. This ends an era of delicious, interesting and often outrageous moments at what Zagat called “the quintessential Georgetown saloon.”

We hope over the next week you will find the time to come in and enjoy a last drink and meal with us. We wish we could give it away, but economic reality is that we need your dollars. Also, if I may, I ask you to please be generous with the staff.

I do this with a heavy heart and much gratitude toward Nathans staff and customers.

Nathans was founded in 1969 by Carol’s husband, Howard.  When he passed away in 1997, Carol took over the restaurant (as well as a huge amount of debt).

In 2001, Carol, who had worked as a producer for Larry King Live before taking over the restaurant, started hosting the weekly “Q & A Cafe” series which allowed prominent Washingtonians and politicians come to Nathans and be interviewed alongside diners.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm and is filed under News, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.