FREE RIDE

Days Are Numbered for Rosslyn's Prime Rib Hub

IF WAS NEVER A QUESTION of whether the 43-year-old Orleans House restaurant in Rosslyn would close, but when.

The squatty white brick structure at the corner of Wilson Boulevard and N. Lynn Street is surrounded by towering office buildings, and the restaurant, known for offering up plenty of prime rib and its signature steamboat-shaped salad bar, has to make way for a new high-rise tower — the tallest in the area — approved earlier in the year.

As the Sun Gazette reports, the Orleans House's last day will be Dec. 31. So you have until the end of the year to steam into that salad bar.

Here's a decade-old description of the smorgasbord from The Post's then-restaurant critic Phyllis C. Richman:

Crowded onto the huge cart of ice are nearly 30 salad fixings, six dressings plus some psychedelic-red vinegar and oil and stacks of bread. You start with a mid-sized glass plate and face two bowls of lettuce nearly the size of bathtubs. As you pile on the usual shredded carrots, mushy tomatoes, finely sliced peppers and onions, broccoli and cauliflower, you come to a few show-stoppers. Hominy, small, brown pea beans, chopped, cooked kale and pickled green tomatoes slow down the line for gawkers. ... Besides, once you bury your vegetable mound in thick, creamy dressing, everything melds into a generic salad taste anyway.
That salad bar and the restaurant's overall quality/price ratio are what's kept people going over the years, for better or worse.

And all of Orleans House's kitschy decorations? They'll be auctioned off on eBay early next year.

» "Historic Rosslyn Restaurant Sets Dec. 31 Closing" [Sun Gazette]
» "Rosslyn Central Place" [Arlington County]
» "JBG’s Proposed Central Place" [Rosslyn Business Improvement District]

EARLIER:
» "Officials Approve Plan to Rid Rosslyn of Prime Rib" [Free Ride/Express]
» "Tom Sarris' Orleans House" [WaPo 1996 Dining Guide]

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COMMENTS (2)

  • This is terrible news! The Orleans House has been our restaurant of choice for anniversaries, birthdays, and other special occasions for years. Their prime rib is some of the best around, and that salad bar is unequalled! It's really a shame that it has to make way for another bland high-rise, but I guess that's what they call "progress."

    By Rich , Posted November 5, 2007 8:38 AM

  • That's awful - I've seen so many people go into that restaurant, every day. It's got to be an institution. Sure, there's "progress", but that doesn't mean tear down every piece of land that's not a high-rise. This is just yet another example of why the Rosslyn area such a cold, bleak place.

    By Brendan , Posted November 5, 2007 12:48 PM
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