So, it was the second to last Friday at Willow, and the place was rocking. Heather was working her ass off, rushing around, trying to take care of the needs of the crowd on the patio out front. Jasper was helping out and Frankie and Marvin were shoveling craft beer and wine and cocktails over the bar.

Old Jim growled: “if Tracy had done the Persian-carpet-going-out-of-business thing a couple years ago Willow might not have gone out of business at all. There were a ton of people who came by just to experience the place for the last time.”

Liz-with-an-S and Jake and Celia and John-with and a host of others were bellied up to the bar. Heather flew past and gave the regulars each a

Heather agreed to have Liz-S do a triumphant guest stint behind the bar on Saturday, so with the rain making the pool time problematic, we could be in for a liquid afternoon.

The Amen Corner swirled with rumination about the “why” of it all.

One of the tenants in the building that towers above us does a blog- her name is Mary Logan, and she is the president of a thing called The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. I am generally in favor of that, so long as they don’t instrument me.

She has a couple theories, along with a gratuitous mischaracterization of our crowd. She seems to think we are from the Madison, the retirement home across Fairfax Drive where Mac Showers lived. A reasonable enough mistake, I suppose, given that both Jim and I have stopped getting haircuts and we are in jeans most of the time, unlike the always-dapper Jon-without in his crisp white shirts and hand-knotted bow ties.

Mary thinks that Willow became an unintended consequence of change, which appears to be the only social constant these days. She notes that the entire office building across Utah Street was vacated earlier this year when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife offices were directed to move to the less expensive concrete ghetto of Skyline.

New restaurants in the neighborhood have opened that, at least for the moment, seem more enticing to some. Food truck traffic continues to grow for the lunch trade. And the owner of the building she shares with Willow doubled the rent- something so astronomical as to be obscene.

.

To me, the doubling of the rent is indeed curious and counter-intuitive. I mean, half of obscene is better than 100% of nothing, right? I have no idea who could make a profit on a business that has to make a minimum of $1,800 a day just to open the doors, right?

But I took a long pull on my vodka and diet tonic and looked over at Jim. “I have a theory,” I announced owlishly. “There is another restaurant in the building, right? Uncle Julio’s Rio Grande is a Mexican-themed place that does a bustling trade with a large staff and patio. They don’t claim to be a fine dining establishment, specializing in margaritas-chips-salsa-fajitas-and beans. But they do a brisk trade, and it is possible the landlords think that if they can pay, then Willow can too.”

“They are fucked up if they think another plastic Mexican place is what the neighborhood needs,” he said, slamming his empty Budweiser on the thick mahogany bar.

“I heard that their food quality and quantity had gone down this year- maybe because of a similar jack in their rent,” said Liz-S.

Jon-without decided to have another drink or two, and grew expansive as we talked about the unintended consequences of public policy. “In Arlington, we have the usual “sustainable” “Green” crowd of do-gooders. They hang their hat on the County Master Plan, passed long ago in the days when Metro was the next big thing.”

“Yeah, you remember the big scheme to build light rail on Columbia Pike that didn’t go anywhere?”

“Yeah, that died a merciful death when the voters realized the actual price tag was going to be scraping a billion dollars. It would have taken four lanes of auto traffic and squeezed it down to two, add bike lanes no onw uses and put a light rail in the middle. It would have crippled the corridor leading in and out of town for hapless commuters not fortunate enough to have the bucks to live in Arlington.”

“There is more too it,” I said grimly. “I have been talking to Tracy about the intricacies of the restaurant business, and there is more to it. The Master Plan authorizes high-rise development in the three blocks on either side of the Metro Orange Line. As a part of any new development, the County insists on “mixed use” construction, and the new buildings normally have two restaurant spaces mandated by the County for the builders.”

“No wonder the places open and close like mayflies,” said John-with. “they have intentionally saturated the market.”

“It is the miracle of Central Planning,” growled Jim. “It just doesn’t work because the bureaucrats aren’t a third as smart as they think they are.”

“So, higher rents because of fewer tenants, fewer customers because the Feds moved out, and that, in the end, those are the things that killed a really nice restaurant.”

“Bastards,” said Jim. “I am glad I am moving to Vegas.”

And that started a long discussion about what we are going to do when Tracy closes the doors next Saturday. There were not real good options. The consensus was that Mad Fox out in Falls Church was a possibility, and Lyon Hall up in Clarendon another, since they are pretty empty during the week, and we might be able to take over part of the bar.

We decided to talk about options the next night. At Willow. While we can.

Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

Twitter: @jayare303