Photo by HOWIE SOUTHWORTH
A ceviche dish at 1799 Prime Steak & Seafood in Old Town Alexandria.
“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.
The door opens without drama. Just a soft blow of warm air and the scent of something familiar, smoke, bourbon, a little wood, and the sort of refinement you feel before you ever see a menu. 1799 Prime Steak and Seafood. Home. I ease onto a barstool and try to get my bearings, but the bearings don’t wait. They come to you.
Ruben and Chuck are already mid-conversation, rearranging a prep list, stacking glassware, checking ice levels like it matters. It does. I listen, half-present, half-drifting. There’s a pep talk happening behind the bar, a little humorous, a little cheerleader, full of whatever ritual gets a team ready for the night. At one point, Ruben turns to Chuck and calls him “Charles,” and suddenly the room feels like a family kitchen in the middle of a fancy evening in the making.
Photo by HOWIE SOUTHWORTH
A whiskey sour at 1799 Prime Steak & Seafood
The afternoon hasn’t fully woken up, but it’s trying. By the time the sweet-corn flatbread lands in front of me, I’ve already joined the day. It smells like something between backyard cookout and a Southern Sunday. A crispy, salty crust with an airy bite; not pizza exactly, more like someone took a memory of pizza south for a long weekend and brought home an accent.
Then Chef Sonny’s ceviche, bright, briny, proper. He comes out from the open kitchen and greets me like a sibling, proud and calm, as though he knows exactly what he just sent out and is quietly waiting for me to notice. I’ve written about Chef Sonny before. Espoused his virtues. He never says it out loud, but he carries himself like a man proud of his culinary children. Totally fair.
Down the bar, the king of all dishes, their crab and avocado tower moves toward a deep table, corn from the land, crab from the bay, the kind of Alexandria dish that tells of its own origin without needing a backstory. I wrote about that tower once in a book, tracing its layers back through this city’s past. The dish hasn’t forgotten where it came from.
Everywhere I look in this uncrowded afternoon barroom, there’s hustle, not rushed, not frantic, excited. That quiet storm before a busy night. Everyone looks like they know what’s coming and anticipate it.
My whiskey sour longingly shows up, layers of color stacked like time. Tan, violet, white. A single ice orb taking its time, like it knows the evening will handle the rest. Then the door opens again, and in walks the proprietor, Jay Quander.
Photo by HOWIE SOUTHWORTH
An artistic tableau greets guests at 1799 Prime Steak & Seafood in Old Town Alexandria.
He sees me, and before a word, I get a full embrace, the kind you give family you haven’t seen in a season or two. Jay greets his staff the same way, the smiling patriarch, telling stories, checking hands, checking energy. You can feel Jay’s presence settling the room in place. A leader without having to declare it. A host without needing the title. He moves from bar to table like someone making sure the family has enough to eat.
By sundown, the afternoon makes its move toward evening. Sun sliding behind colonial-height brick buildings, the kind of light that stops being daylight but isn’t night either. That in-between hour when the city takes its time deciding what happens next. Jay returns, rests his hand on the back of a barstool, and talks to me about community, about legacy, no speech, just a truth in plain language. His family’s history is threaded through this region, and somehow 1799 feels like a temple to this truth. My whiskey sour settles toward the bottom, the layers of color become one.
To be sure, this is a steakhouse with excellent cuts and elegant plating, but underneath, it’s something else, something learned at a family table. The kind of place where you’re greeted like a cousin, where a bartender becomes a funny nephew for the night, where staff and guests seem to share the same last name even if they’ve never met. Family is not declared here, it’s felt.
And maybe that’s the real takeaway. Not just the menu, not just the history, not even the steak. But the reminder that heritage can be built forward, through food, through hospitality, through the act of gathering and staying, even as the sun sets outside. My glass is empty. I let the last sip linger. Outside, Old Town keeps its brick and its stories. Inside, a new one grows. A family formed by kitchen, by bar, by time. And if this is how afternoon becomes evening, I’m happy to let it happen again, one barstool at a time.
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."
His forthcoming book, "Hemingway's Spanish Table" will be released on 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.
