Not too many months ago, the area around the Pentagon City Metro station was a forest and a swamp. Now it's a bazaar. Macy's has opened. Nordstrom too. And last month, just a few yards away, a new Roy Rogers Family Restaurant began life.
But the arrival of the new Roy's puzzled Dennis Scott, who works in the neighborhood. He happened past Roy's front door on the day before its grand opening. When he peeked inside, he discovered that a training session was in progress.
As Dennis watched, cooks were preparing chicken by the armload and french fries by the zillion. Then counterpersons were serving the food as they would when real customers were on hand. Then five or six supervisors were offering suggestions and criticism.
And then all the food was thrown away.
Dennis estimates that, in the few minutes he watched, enough food was prepared to serve 50 people. All it would have taken would have been a little foresight, either to arrange for some hungry homeless people to be on hand or to find a shelter for the homeless that would accept "practice" Rogerian food. But no. Into the trash cans it all went.
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As you might suspect in this court-conscious age, fear of lawsuits is behind it all.
According to Rick Sneed, a spokesman for Marriott Corp. (which is Roy Rogers's parent), the company would be legally responsible if any of the "practice food" spoiled on the way to a shelter for the homeless and someone became seriously ill or was fatally poisoned.
Some recent case law has exempted preparers in cases where a shelter comes and picks up the food and it spoils in transit, Rick said. However, Marriott attorneys do not believe those recent rulings are strong enough to warrant the risk, Rick said. Bottom line: Roy Rogers "practice food" goes in the dumper.
Rick said Marriott is trying to work out a way to give shelters for the homeless unprepared bulk food that is nearing its expiration date. However, that program is not yet in place.
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Rick didn't mention this, but another factor that prevents companies from giving away "practice food" is health regulations. Food that has been served cannot legally be bundled up, carted away and served a second time somewhere else -- even if it has been cooked carefully, and even if it's of the highest quality.
That is why, for example, you can't legally pick up the 300 pounds of beautiful, uneaten beef Wellington from your office Christmas party, hop in a cab and leave it on Mitch Snyder's doorstep. As health authorities will tell you, food spoils surprisingly quickly. Even a couple of hours on a sideboard can "do in" cooked meat and dairy-based products.
So the risks are real. But so is the need -- and the opportunity.
If you can't bring the food to the needy, why not bring the needy to the food? Roy Rogers could sidestep the legal and health risks by hiring a van and bringing some homeless people to "practice day" at each about-to-open restaurant.
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Serve the "practice food" in the storage room or on the loading dock if the homeless people might get in the way of the training session or the cleanliness of the place. But find a way. A whole lot of hungry people would be less so, for a few hours, at least. And other restaurants might be inspired to copy.
Here's another near-a-subway-station story. But this one has nothing to do with burgers. It has to do with careless bravado -- and stupidity.
At the Q Street entrance to the Dupont Circle station, a ledge wraps around the three escalators. It's a great place to camp and shoot the breeze.
But it's also a great place to lose your balance and tumble down onto the escalators. In the case of Q Street, down is a long, long way. That set of escalators is among the longest and steepest in the Metro system. Besides, there's no railing around the Q Street ledge.
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The long and the short of it: If you fall off the ledge, you will fall a relatively far piece. Your head won't get any harder during the journey.
Please, Q Street ledge-sitters. Live to fight another day. Sit on the park benches instead.
Nibbling the hand that feeds me . . . .
Scott W. Peters of Potomac offers a big "Huh?" to the slogan that appears on the side of Washington Post newspaper racks. The slogan reads: "Use any combination of coins. Do not use pennies."
From H. Milton Chase of Arlington:
Now that Harvard scientists claim that oat bran has no effect on cholesterol, can we say they are cereal killers?
Pritty ditty from Reuben Lozner of Chevy Chase:
My wife's birthday gift I remember still
Once when she gave it to me
And again when I received the bill.
