Reception
Shallal had said he would keep Busboys running even if just broke even, but it proved a success from the beginning, even without committing an advertising budget. C-SPAN, NBC News and ABC's "Good Morning America" all filmed segments inside the restaurant within the restaurant's first few months. Kevin Zeese, manager of Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential campaign and director of Democracy Rising, related to The Hill, "Boom! It just became an incredibly important landmark for the community. It definitely has a progressive feel to it; it's in the 'hood, not disjointed from the community like the National Press Club and Capitol Hill are." Shallal said of the restaurant's popularity, "I've opened many restaurants, this is the first time that people came in and got it right away."
The Busboys clientele has included Nader, Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, Harry Belafonte, Amiri Baraka, Rep. Maxine Waters, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Anthony Shadid and Dave Meggyesy, a former St. Louis Cardinals linebacker who quit the NFL in protest of the Vietnam War. Additionally, onetime Washington Wizards center Etan Thomas has performed his poetry at Busboys. Minnesota Senator, Al Franken spoke in Busboys and Poets' Langston Room, Howard Zinn, Alice Walker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her daughter, actor Matt Dillon, modern hip hop artist Keri Hilson and other celebs have either ate or hosted an event.
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)