Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 8, 1995 TAG: 9511080083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Chalk up another one for the white-collar crowd on Roanoke's City Market.
One of the last beer joints in the historic district is shutting down its grease-popping grill and moving around the block.
The Capitol Restaurant, a haven for drinkers of cheap drafts since the 1950s, expects to reopen on Jefferson Street next month with imported beers and a trendy decor.
A legion of blue-collar men and women will be without the smoky old cafe that's been as much a community center for the down-and-out as it's been a restaurant. They don't know where they'll go.
"See, when they move out, there won't be many beer joints left," lamented retired construction worker Norris Hartman, 53. "You could come here, get a cold beer, bring your girlfriend."
What's a loss for him is reason to celebrate for upscale market shopkeepers and restaurateurs. They don't disguise their contempt for the grizzled old men who hunch over the tables in the Capitol's worn booths and start sipping their Old Milwaukees before most people in nearby offices have finished their cafe lattes.
They speak of a heavy grease smell that emanates from the Capitol, at 311 Market St. S.E., and of staggering, vomiting drunks who give the market a bad name.
Customers at the more expensive Carlos Brazilian International Cuisine, across the street, vie for window tables so they can watch what goes on. ``They say, `Oh, we're not going to have anything to see''' when the Capitol goes, said owner Ilma Amaral.
"Sometimes it's awful," she said of what her customers witness. "You can see people throwing up."
Malik Hasan, one of the Capitol's Palestinian proprietors, is calling his new place at 303 S. Jefferson St. the Mount of Olives Bar and Grill, after his father's olive grove in Jerusalem. "The reputation of the Capitol wasn't that good," he said.
Some of his customers have been coming for 40 years. Some have fallen in love and been married there. He once watched a man die of a heart attack in one of the booths. "He sat down for five minutes and he ordered a Budweiser, and he started coughing and coughing. His face turned red like this," Hasan said, picking up a red ashtray. The man was due for a bypass the following week.
Normally, the only day Hasan closes is Thanksgiving, but another time he and his wife couldn't get back to town from Washington. Customers started calling one of their sons at home, begging him to open the doors. The Hasans hurried home and reopened at 4 p.m. to make them happy.
Most of his waitresses are older women. He says he won't lay off anyone, but the older employees will work back in the kitchen at the new restaurant, not out on the floor. "You know, cleaners," he said. "Waitresses and waiters, I'm going to hire."
Hasan's landlord, Juvenile Court Judge Philip Trompeter, whose family has owned the property since his grandfather opened a bakery there many years ago, is renovating that southernmost end of his block of Market Street. Besides Hasan, his other tenants there have included the Hot Dog Queen, Vanucci's Italian Cuisine and an adult bookstore.
Hasan's hamburgers now go for $1.75, his hot dogs for 99 cents. At the Mount of Olives Bar and Grill, he's aiming for a more affluent crowd. He will serve Heineken among his beers, lamb kebabs, stuffed grape leaves and other Middle Eastern food. He's decorating the modern space with ceramic tiles, putting in a $3,000 ventilation system and using old mahogany doors to build new counters.
Hasan is at least the third owner of the Capitol. Harry and Maria Triantafilles opened it in 1953, naming it after a restaurant they had owned in Massachusetts. George and Georgia Peroulas bought the business in 1964 and sold it to Hasan in 1987.
The Peroulases' 40-year-old son, also named George, grew up around the farmers, electricians, plumbers - "the people who built downtown" - and who were drawn to the Capitol's blue plate specials. He said they felt uncomfortable in fancier places "because they had grease or oil on their pants."
Once, there were beer joints and Ma-and-Pa restaurants all over the Market - the New Market Lunch, Dixie Lunch, Arcade Lunch, Belmont Cafe. Peroulas worries about the Market's tourist prices driving away the less affluent. "You exclude your blue-collars," he said, "then where do those people go?"
A 50-year-old dishwasher from another downtown restaurant said he and other Capitol patrons won't like being out on a main drag like Jefferson. "They might feel they're looked down upon, being in with the more well-to-do crowds."
Another customer said Tuesday morning that he's been coming to the Capitol for lunch since his stepdad brought him in at the age of 5. Now 27, he said he doesn't like to get dressed up to go relax at a snootier bar. "I may not live over in South Roanoke," said the man, wearing a T-shirt, but I make just as much money as them. I just don't flaunt it."
Hasan says he won't exclude anyone at the Mount of Olives Bar and Grill, which used to be Scottie's convenience store, but he knows his higher prices will drive many old customers away.
"You know, they come to me and say, 'Are we going to be allowed over there?' I feel kind of bad."
by CNB