Lisa Paradise: A half-pork, half-beef sausage,
grilled until perfectly charred and brown
dressed with tangy yellow mustard
and crunchy white onions.
But it's the final touch,
smothering the whole thing in homemade chili
cooked down for hours
to hone the sweet and smoky flavor,
that makes the half-smoke from Ben's Chili Bowl
a legend in Washington, DC.
Washington, DC, is a city rich in history,
but it's this famous nine-block stretch on U Street,
once known as Black Broadway, that has contributed
to some of the city's most defining moments.
And while this block has struggled
through generations of ups and downs,
Ben's Chili Bowl, which first opened its doors
on August 22, 1958, was there through it all.
Leon: It tastes the same way that it did 10 years ago,
and my grandparents say it's the same way
since 20 years ago. It never changes.
Lisa: Inside the small kitchen that has kept
Washingtonians fed for generations is a world of secrets.
So many, in fact, that the family goes
as far as to prep brown paper bags
full of Ben's original spice mix
so that even the chefs remain clueless to the final touches.
Kamal Ali: This magic bag we make every day,
and only the family has this secret.
Some people get their driver's license,
some people get a bar mitzvah,
we get the magic spice mix recipe.
Lisa: This is Kamal Ali,
one of founder Ben and Virginia's three sons,
all of whom left successful careers in their own rights
to help keep the family legacy alive.
What is your mom gonna do to you
if you ever gave away this recipe?
Kamal: Big trouble, big trouble.
I'm not too old to get put over her knee.
[both laugh]
Lisa: And Mama Virginia agrees.
Virginia Ali: [laughs]
Oh, no, we raised them well.
Lisa: The chili sauce begins with
simple, fresh ingredients.
Ground beef topped with roughly chopped white onion,
green peppers, and tomatoes
loaded into a large stockpot.
Kamal: Chain restaurant and other people are making it,
they're gonna have exact measurements and everything.
This is how we do it here.
This is how we do it here at Ben's.
Lisa: You just pour it in, OK.
Kamal: We're just gonna toss in these peppers and onions,
and what we're gonna do is
we're gonna give this a good covering.
Lisa: Once all the ingredients are combined
and covered with liquid, the sauce is left to boil
and bubble for about an hour and a half,
until the meat is cooked and the vegetables
are nice and soft,
ensuring a silky-smooth texture.
When it's cooked down to about half the amount,
the pot is left to simmer for an additional 45 minutes
so that the flavor can really develop.
Kamal: So now it's simmered, all those spices
are getting together in there and having a party.
Lisa: Kamal kicked us out of the kitchen
to add some Ali family secret finishing touches.
But when we came back,
the chili was reduced down to a rich and creamy sauce
that he churns with a metal spoon
to add in some air and positive vibes.
Kamal: We add in some community spirit,
we add in lots of love,
a little bit of Black lives matter this year.
Lisa: Every year.
Kamal: Of course every year.
And we come out with this nice, smooth consistency.
Lisa: After the chili sauce is left to cool
on a bed of ice, it's taken to the production line,
where the iconic half-smoke really comes to life.
Virginia: The half-smoke is unique to Washington,
and it is Washington's signature dish now.
Lisa: It begins with a half-pork, half-beef sausage
cooked on a hot griddle until charred on all sides.
The sausage is placed on a lightly steamed bun
before being doused with yellow mustard,
sprinkled with chopped white onion,
and finished with that famous chili sauce.
Jon: The meat is perfectly seasoned.
They got the bun. Crispy on the outside,
juicy on the inside.
Chili, laced up.
The mustard gives it that little tang.
Good to go.
Mertine Brown: I'm a native Washingtonian.
So you can't live in Washington, DC,
and not come to Ben's.
It's made with love.
This family who built this is a love story,
you know, and it's a African American, Black love story.
Lisa: The love story that built this empire
began with Ben and Virginia Ali over 60 years ago,
when he stopped by the bank she worked at
and decided to chat her up.
Virginia: He had the nerve to ask me to call.
He wrote a little note with his phone number and his name.
Of course I didn't call him.
This was 1957.
You don't call a man you don't know.
And the rest is history.
We had 51 years together before he died, yeah.
Lisa: Quickly into their relationship,
Ben and Virginia decided that
they wanted to own their own business.
Having worked in restaurants to pay his way
through university, the two decided to lean
into a tasty chili recipe Ben had cooked up.
Virginia: We needed an ideal location.
We found that ideal location in this community
on the street called Black Broadway.
Lisa: And just like that, Ben's Chili Bowl was born.
In the early days the newlyweds worked day in and day out
serving the affluent Black community of Black Broadway,
standing as a meeting ground
for some of the biggest names in history.
Everyone from Duke Ellington
to Stokely Carmichael to MLK himself
have swung by for a bite of the half-smoke.
Virginia: Dr. Martin Luther King had
a satellite office at 14th and U.
So whenever he was in town, he'd pop into the Chili Bowl.
We'd have an opportunity to just chat with him
for a few minutes and listen to his dream.
And the March on Washington that took place in 1963,
we were a part of, and we were here to perhaps
prepare food for some of those folks
that came in very early.
So it breaks my heart today to see that we're
still now struggling and fighting for those same
basic human rights
that we fought for so many years ago.
Speaker: This is the revolution!
[crowd cheering]
Lisa: Already active community leaders
in the civil rights movement,
when protests broke out after the assassination of MLK,
Ben's was one of the only businesses allowed to stay open,
feeding protestors as well as first responders
late into the night.
Virginia: Now, Stokely Carmichael told me that
he had a talk with the commander and said,
"We need a place together.
We need a place for the city officials, for even activists,
and for the first responders to be able to come in
and feel safe and have something to eat."
Roach Brown: It was a meeting place
for the civil rights movement,
for entertainers, celebrities.
No matter what was going on
in the country or around the world,
Ben's had his hand on the pulse of the community.
It was a usual place for unusual people to come,
and everybody could be usual.
You know what I mean?
And meetings would've been held in some of these booths,
meetings that impacted people's lives all over the country.
Lisa: Destruction from the protests
caused residents to flee the area.
And this community continued to face
detrimental setbacks over the decades,
from drug trafficking into the Black community in the '70s
to a disruptive metro construction throughout the '80s
and large-scale gentrification through the '90s,
all of which over time effectively
erased Black Broadway off the map.
Through it all, Ben's Chili Bowl has remained,
even becoming Obama's first surprise pit stop
leading up to the 2009 inauguration.
But despite the hype, Virginia lives to make sure
the place feels like home to everyone who walks in.
Stanley Mayes: She and Ben, during his lifetime,
they brought along their family
so that their family would continue along after them.
And that is an important thing, because Ben is gone,
and one day I'll be gone and Virginia will be gone,
but the legacy of the Chili Bowl will continue to live
because the children have made that a part of what they do.
Virginia: It's a family affair,
and I am so, so grateful for that.
I like being able to come in
and meet and greet our patrons
and treat them as guests coming into my home.
It's been an interesting 62 years.
I've not had a boring moment.
Virginia: It's very tasty, have you tried one?
Lisa: I haven't. [Virginia laughs]
Lisa: If I'm being perfectly honest,
I've somehow gotten through my life
without ever having a chili dog.
So I have absolutely no idea what to expect from this.
But I will say, just smelling it, it smells like summer.
It smells like a family barbecue.
It smells, like, sweet and a little bit spicy.
Is "goddamn" a critique? This is so good.
So, the chili. It doesn't have a lot of texture to it,
which is where the onions come in.
The onions add that crunch that you really want,
that fresh, sweet crunch.
The mustard on top adds a little bit of a sweetness,
but the chili overall,
it's thick, it's rich, it's spicy,
but in that way that it's like a flavorful spice,
it's not a hot spice.
So it feels like you can just keep eating it
because it's never gonna, like, hurt your mouth.
I've never had a chili dog before,
and it's so much better than I was expecting.
I feel like I've been missing out on this my entire life.
Roach: When I came here, my hair was long as yours,
but look what happened.
Them chili dogs are delicious!
[laughs]