Cafe Blog

September 21st, 2009

Nine members from the Washington DC Jazz and Blues Meetup group attended the performance by Buck Hill with smalltrio. Here are their reviews:

"This was a lot of fun! A funky, earth conscious - Lebanese cafe (delicious food), a fantastic bunch of folks, and great traditional jazz! I enjoyed the night and the ambiance -- hope to see Buck again and the New Deal Cafe!"

"Good food, good music and nice evening with a great group of people."

August 28th, 2009

The Matemai Mbira Group from Zimbabwe lights up the cafe!

June 22nd, 2009

Dear New Deal Cafe Members, Friends, Patrons, and Residents,

I am pleased to report that the New Deal Cafe Cooperative signed a new agreement for Chef Karim to manage and operate the cafe! (Yea! Yea! Yea!) The board, Karim & Maria, and the lawyers turned our general terms of agreement into a legal agreement. We met today and signed the agreement around 3:30 PM. Chef Karim is back in town!

The general terms of agreement were only four pages of bulleted items. It had taken us about two weeks to iron out the general terms before the meeting. Again, we have to thank Ronnie Scotkin and Ed Hickey for helping moderate the discussions that led to the agreement on terms. Now almost two weeks have passed Maria made the announcement on June 7 at the Special Membership Meeting of the New Deal Cafe Cooperative that the New Deal Cafe and Chef Karim had signed general terms of agreement that morning.

Since then the contract was shuttled back and forth between the lawyers and their clients. Last Friday I met with Karim and Maria to go over the entire document (now 22 pages double-spaced) and we agreed to about twenty wording clarifications, marking up the document as we went. After our lawyers talked once more, we finally reached agreement on all points.

Throughout this time, he board of directors was kept involved and represented by Terri Rutledge and myself. Terri has been a major factor in making the agreement come to fruition, contributing insight, knowledge, and perseverance. In addition, Terri, Barbara Stevens, Joe Harris, and all the many, many volunteers deserve our thanks for providing a temporary menu of famous New Deal Chili, sandwiches, subs and pizza from Generous Joe’s, and desserts from Chef Lou for customers, and for keeping the music and arts alive at the cafe over the past four weeks.

We hope the growing pains of our first year together are now over for good and that members and patrons can enjoy the cafe's cooperative spirit with Karim at the helm once again. We have put in place several procedures to insure clear communication between the parties and other procedures to resolve any differences that may arise. The financial part of the agreement is better for both parties too.

Karim and his employees came in this afternoon an have already started preparing for an opening in two or three days. We can't wait for Karim to reopen with the full Mediterranean cuisine everyone has come to enjoy. Both parties (party?) are happy that this month long process is over. While the cafe will open on Wednesday or Thursday (we'll keep you posted), we are scheduling the official grand reopening to coincide with the Crazy Quilt Music Festival to occur this Saturday, June 27, starting at 10AM. Once again, thanks for your patience in this transition, and welcome back Karim & Maria!

Sincerely,
Bill Wilkerson
NDC Secretary

June 15th, 2009

Dear Members & Patrons of the New Deal Cafe,

We want to bring you up to date on the status of the reopening of the New Deal Cafe under Chef Karim. After Maria announced at the Special Membership Meeting last week that we had signed general terms of agreement, the legal beagles have been working to hammer out a formal agreement based on the general terms. We expect to sign a final agreement with Karim and Maria in the very near future.

Today, we are awaiting Karim's lawyer's response to Version 4 of the draft agreement, consisting of some 23 pages with the typical "whereas's" and "therefore's" and 73 sections or subsections (at last count) describing financial arrangements, bar operation, and other miscellaneous provisions. We have met with Karim and Maria three times at the Marriott Hotel to discuss earlier drafts.

We do not have any serious sticking points left, subject to Karim's lawyer's review of the last 5 pages. Therefore, I predict that tomorrow, Tuesday, or soon thereafter, we will sign the agreement and Karim can immediately get started to reopen the restaurant. He says he needs three days to clean up and do prep work. If all goes as expected, that would put the cafe reopening this coming weekend. Yeah!

Several people deserve a huge amount of credit for making the agreement happen when all seemed irreconcilable. First, Ronnie Scotkin and her husband Ed Hickey offered to act as intermediaries. Known by both parties, their offer turned a chance meeting between me and Karim into a reopening of negotiations after a two week impasse. Ronnie and Ed spent several days in marathon sessions with both parties, consulted with each party individually, and let us use their patio to achieve a "Treaty of Versailles."

Second, Terri Rutledge of the board was instrumental in recognizing early on in the negotiations, when both parties were rather distrustful of each other, that both sides had a lot to gain from reaching a compromise. She undertook a lonely and difficult effort to convince all her fellow board members to forget very strongly held emotional feelings and reservations, and got us to focus on the practical concerns of getting the cafe reopened with a professional manager, Chef Karim. She kept the board's faith in the negotiations from faltering time and again under very difficult circumstances and at significant personal sacrifice.

Third, the volunteers, who kept the cafe open during the negotiations deserve thanks for providing food, drink, music, and income. The volunteers were organized by Barbara Stevens, Terri, and Joe Harris. Terri and Barbara devised a limited but tasty menu, and oversaw the kitchen. The volunteers consisted of Barbara and Ray Stevens, Terri Rutledge, Chris and Barbara Logan, Don Comis, Joe Harris (and Hillary), Peter May, Andre Cutair, Connie Davis, Ellen Carter, Ginger Chapman, Mike Stark, Lisa Voith, Kristin Stenson, Barbara Simon, Sue Massey, Susan Jones, Dorian Winterfeld, Amethyst Dwyer, Ursi Tooley, Maia Tooley, Joyce Krieger, and a few others I apologize to if I've forgotten.

Fourth, thanks go to the members and patrons who expressed concern about the closing of the cafe for demonstrating once again why the cafe is so resilient when times seem most dire. The community simply supports the cafe as a community fixture more than any other restaurant could ever expect. The board thanks those who either supported the board and trusted its judgment even when legal concerns prevented the release of information, as well as those who challenged the decision to close and tried to influence the situation for a good outcome. I'm sure Karim and Maria share many of these same feelings of appreciation.

Finally, we thank our customers for their patience and understanding. We hope for a final conclusion to this latest episode tomorrow or soon thereafter. I will let you know when we have a final agreement. We anticipate that the cafe music will proceed this week as scheduled. See the calendar for more details.

Sincerely,
Bill Wilkerson, NDC Secretary

June 7th, 2009

Dear Members, Patrons, and Friends,

We all wish to thank our friends and supporters for their concern and good wishes over the past few weeks. We would ask that you join us in working towards our shared dream of the success of the New Deal Cafe. We hope to see you at the Special Membership Meeting at the cafe on Sunday, June 7, 2009, at 7 pm.

Sincerely,
Karim, Maria, Bill, Don, Peter and Terri