“A Table Down The Street” follows Howie Southworth, author of "A Taste of Alexandria," one local barstool at a time. No reviews. Only encounters. The bartender chasing perfection, the chef with a story, the regular who swears this place was better before you found it. Food and drink may be the excuse. People are the point. A corner seat can tell you everything.
Photo by Howie Southworth
Frankie's in Old Town Alexandria
I choose a stool at Frankie’s the way we choose that spot on a dancefloor. Look for the widest space to groove without seeming antisocial. Here, the dance of conversation is already underway.
Someone is talking about another bar in town. Someone else is planning a birthday trip to Paris. A third voice is doing the hard sell on the French countryside. A guy in the middle is attempting to work on his laptop. He is losing that battle.
Now discussions converge and we are somehow onto Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Sue the barkeep, admits she has no idea what happened in that saga. Too young. A brief and passionate explanation follows from four stools down. Within moments the bar pivots to how Tonya and Jeff might have gotten away with it.
Several theories emerge. None hold up under serious scrutiny. The topic changes again. Yellow foods. Pickles. My lifelong distrust of them.
Photo by Howie Southworth
Frankie's in Old Town Alexandria.
This is how Frankie’s works. You sit down alone and land in the middle of a symposium already in progress. Quickly you are no longer observing it. You’re in it. The laptop guy attempts once more to get that spreadsheet done. He fails again.
Thursday lunch hour becomes something closer to social hour. No one needs to name it. Looking around the bar, I notice something else. Almost everyone sitting here arrived alone. That’s the quiet trick of a place like this. You don’t come for the room. You come for a reason. Lunch. A drink. Ten minutes between things. Something small and temporary.
And then, without much effort, the room begins to rearrange itself around you. You look up and realize you’re no longer alone in the way you were when you walked in. No announcement. No invitation. It just happens.
A newspaper open. A phone resting face down on the counter. Someone waiting on a takeout order. Someone nursing a drink while answering emails that appear to be losing importance by the minute. And yet the room behaves like a table of friends.
Photo by Howie Southworth
Dining at Frankie's in Old Town Alexandria.
Food begins drifting out of the kitchen without interrupting any of it. A salad lands in front of someone debating European train routes. A sandwich appears beside laptop guy, who acknowledges it briefly before returning to that danged spreadsheet. A pizza slides onto the bar somewhere down the line.
My food arrives in the same conversational current. Meatballs in bright marinara, crowned with generous clouds of ricotta. A thick slice of toasted bread leaning alongside like it already understands its assignment. A glass of Chianti settles beside the plate. The first bite and the first sip make the case immediately. Italian comfort food doesn’t try to impress. It reassures.
Frankie’s is several things at once. A sports bar. A neighborhood haunt. And somewhere in the middle of it all, an Italian kitchen quietly sends out plates that feel like they were meant to hug you. Italian restaurants have long played a particular role. They function less like restaurants and more like family kitchens that happen to seat eighty people.
Here, you don’t have to arrive with family. The room assembles one for you. At one point the conversation drifts toward eyeglasses. My frames seem to invite commentary wherever I go. Byron, the guy planning the French birthday trip, leans over to inspect them.
“You know a guy?” he asks, already preparing to recommend one of his own. I explain I already have the best frame maker. Second to none. We reach a polite stalemate. Byron doesn’t skip a beat and returns to dreaming out loud about baguettes and French things.
The talk continues its own weird, sensible stream. Topics appear and dissolve like weather. No one at Frankie’s seems particularly concerned about where the conversation started or where it's gone. People and ideas drift in. People and ideas drift out. The room absorbs them and moves on.
The meatballs disappear slower than expected. The Chianti glass empties at exactly the pace the room sets. Outside the window, Alexandria continues about its afternoon. Strangers pass on the street and remain strangers. Inside Frankie’s, it’s different. The room hums in that comfortable, conversational way neighborhood places master without trying. If you’re lucky.
It’s not a bar. It’s a living room with better meatballs.
Photo courtesy of Howie Southworth
Author Howie Southworth
Howie Southworth is a seasoned denizen of Old Town Alexandria and the best-selling author behind "A Taste of Alexandria: Modern Restaurant Recipes That Echo Our City's Past," published by Alexandria Living Magazine.
Southworth is also the author of a new book, Hemingway’s Spanish Table (Insight Editions), released March 17.
Past works include "Chinese Street Food," "One Pan to Rule Them All," "Kiss My Casserole!" and "How to Cook Anything in Your Dutch Oven." Howie is also a regular essayist for Salon.com.
