For the Anacostia location slated to open in about a year, Shallal is planning a large piece about Frederick Douglass. The other restaurants feature mural tributes to Paul Robeson, Howard Zinn, Countee Cullen and Pearl Bailey (that last one not created by Shallal). Hughes’s life and work are the founding inspirations for Shallal’s enterprise. The Langston Room of the flagship 14th and V Streets NW Busboys shows off his “Peace and Struggle” salute to activist heroes through the ages, topped by verses from Langston Hughes (“Let America be America again….).

Shallal usually conceives and executes the murals himself, in his distinctive collage style. Andy Shall explains his mural-in-progress. The big surprise, every time, is the original mural that dominates the performance space/secondary dining room of each location. Shallal’s formula is familiar but never dull - eclectic cuisine served in politics-and-poetry-friendly environments tucked into swank new condo or apartment developments. is the sixth link in the local restaurant chain since 2005, with the seventh already being forged in Anacostia. This new Busboys and Poets in Takoma D.C. “We are sold out like crazy for the opening event Saturday,” a Valentine’s Day party with jazz and poetry. “I get halfway into these murals and I think, ‘What have I gotten myself into!’” Shallal said cheerfully. An inspection was scheduled for later in the day. In other rooms, workers were in the final stages of pulling the restaurant together.

He used a flattened cardboard box as a palette, and looked slightly deadline-haunted. We found Andy Shallal, owner of Busboys and Poets, daubing paint on the wall of the forthcoming addition to his progressive restaurant empire Wednesday morning.

Busboy and poets takoma park