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***see update to the update below***
保持传统活着
Remember Fran O’Brien’s? In April, milbloggers and my friend Buzz Patterson rallied to support the restaurant in Washington, D.C. that provided free weekly steak dinners to wounded soldiers staying at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
A reader sends a brief update reported in the “华盛顿邮报” yesterday. They’re moving to McLean, Va.:
Fran O’Brien’s Stadium Steak House was a favorite hangout for Washington power brokers, but it earned its lasting reputation by treating severely wounded soldiers to steaks every Friday night.
Garry Trudeau featured the dinners in his Doonesbury comic strip. [View here.]
In April the restaurant, which occupied the basement of the Capital Hilton at the corner of 16th and L streets NW, lost its lease after a disagreement with hotel management. Next month, it will reopen as Fran O’Brien’s of McLean.
Owner Marty O’Brien, son of the late Redskins offensive lineman Fran O’Brien, plans to reinstate the meals for soldiers. The distance from Walter Reed Army Medical Center won’t be a problem, he said. He plans to provide transportation for the soldiers and their families.
He hasn’t figured out when the dinners will resume. “I haven’t gotten into the whole scene yet,” he said. “But I’ve talked to a few of the original guys and they’re happy about it.”
Perhaps there will be a way to help the restaurant defray the transportation costs when the steak dinners are up and running again?
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Speaking of our troops at Walter Reed, another reader e-mails that there’s a call out for donations of personal products:
Stars and Stripes reports that donations are needed for wounded troops who are patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The hospital’s Family Assistance Center is seeking shoes, gloves and winter jackets, postage stamps, prepaid phone cards, weightlifting gloves (for wheelchair patients), trousers with snaps or zips along the legs, razors, and prepaid gas or grocery cards. The Center requests that no cash or used items be donated. Donations can be sent to: Walter Reed Army Medical Center; Medical Family Assistance Center; Bldg. 2, 3rd Floor, Room 3E01; 6900 Georgia Ave, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20307-5001.
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Just got this statement from Andi of Andi’s World, who led the battle to save Fran O’Brien’s:
The Real Deal!!
Fran O’Brien’s Stadium Steakhouse in Washington, DC used to host what has famously become known as the Friday Night Dinners – free steak dinners provided to severely injured troops recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and their family members.
The Washington Post reported on Dec. 11th that Fran O’Brien’s will reopen next month in McLean. While the “reopening” part may be true, the Washington Post report is erroneous in that new solo owner Marty O’Brien will NOT be reinstating the Friday Night Dinners that everyone has become familiar with.
Here’s why: There’s nothing to reinstate. The dinners have continued seamlessly since the demise of Fran O’Brien’s at the Capital Hilton.
The dinners were started NOT by Fran O’Brien or his son Marty, the former co-owner, but by former co-owner Hal Koster and his buddy, Jim Mayer, who works for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
立即订购Hal Koster’s friend, Jim Mayer is a Vietnam veteran himself and is known around town as “the Milkshake Man” because he greets newly injured troops with a milkshake to break the ice when he first meets them. Jim asked Hal three years ago if he would host a couple of troops for dinner in order to get them out of the hospital for an evening.
The dinners took off because Jim Mayer and Hal Koster teamed up and put their hearts and souls into the dinners for the troops, and their families.
After Fran O’Brien’s lease dispute ended this May, with an unfavorable outcome for Fran’s, Hal Koster and Jim Mayer kept the Friday Night Dinners going, almost-single handedly. Out of a job himself, Mr. Koster figured the one thing he could do was to keep the dinners going, regardless of whether he had his own restaurant or not.
Hal enlisted his support network of peer volunteers and business owners such as the Exchange Restaurant, The Hamilton Crown Plaza, The Capitol Hill Club and others. These businesses host dinners on a rotating basis. The dinners have never stopped, and continue to offer something special for our wounded heroes and their families to look forward to each week.
Since Fran’s O’Brien’s was forced to close its doors at the Capital Hilton in May, folks associated with the dinners have not seen nor heard from Marty O’Brien in months. The last Friday Night Dinner Marty attended was in May. Hal has taken on the task of picking up the troops at the hospital himself, with the transportation provided by various volunteers and groups.
As word spread about the dinners, so did the offer of donations to help fund them. So, Hal started the Aleethia Foundation.
No one is sure if the “New” Fran O’Brien’s is trying to get business publicity and/or possibly donations out of their former tie to the Friday Night Dinners. Supporters of the REAL Friday Night Dinners won’t let that happen on the backs of our wounded heroes!!!
The TRUE Friday Night Dinners are run by the guys who actually started them, and never let them falter. Donations can be sent to the Aleethia Foundation.
To be clear: a “new” Fran O’Brien’s may be reopening at some point, but the Friday Night Dinners, as we know them, will not be held there.
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以前：
