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Food, Wine and Arts - A Tribute to the Kennedy Center
Strangely, and not for any good reasons, the Kennedy Center has been in the news quite a bit lately. As a result, it has brought back so many great memories of living in the Washington DC metro area, and taking advantage of all of the amazing history, fantastic restaurants, and vibrant cultural and arts scene. And the Kennedy Center? That’s the epicenter of it all! Here’s my tribute to the Kennedy Center, and the fantastic food, wine, and arts scene in our Nation’s capital!
Laurie and I took maximum advantage of everything Washington DC had to offer during the 30+ years we lived in Alexandria, VA. Without traffic, we could be in downtown DC in less than 30 minutes to enjoy a great dinner and a show afterwards at any number of different venues, including the National Theater and Ford’s Theater. But the grand dame of them all was the Kennedy Center, which was our favorite venue for theater, concerts, and shows.
The Kennedy Center was created by an act of Congress in 1964 and was intended to serve as a living memorial and national cultural center honoring President Kennedy. The center opened in 1971 and includes three main theaters – the opera house, the Eisenhower theater, and the concert hall. It also includes other performance venues, along with a beautiful bar and restaurant on the top level and multiple high-end lounges available to to patrons and donors to the Kennedy Center.
For 20+ years, Laurie and I were regular visitors and patrons to the center. During that time, we attended performances at the Kennedy Center over 30 times and spent many wonderful evenings there with friends and family. We never had a bad experience there – the staff were friendly and helpful, the venue itself was absolutely beautiful, with precious artwork throughout. The building itself was beautifully maintained as well – everything was polished and cleaned to a brilliant shine, and regular renovations and updates ensured that everything from the carpets to the seats and chandeliers were fresh and new as well. I never saw a trash can overflowing, a dripping ceiling, damaged walls, or crumbling concrete in the parking garages. Every once in a while, there was an escalator that was under repair that required us to walk up and down stairs to the parking garage – that’s the worst thing we saw over two decades visiting the center!
Also, the Kennedy Center never struggled financially – yearly patron and donor contributions to the center averaged $180M prior to 2025 and the Trump takeover, and ticket sales were always robust as well, with 80% to 93% of available seats filled each year for all performances (again, prior to 2025). In short, up until recently, the Kennedy Center has always been a successful and vibrant performing arts center that drew huge crowds on a weekly basis, and that was financially self-sustaining as well.
Which is why Laurie and I loved our time at the Kennedy Center! A visit to the center, almost always on the weekend, was a special event that we looked forward to for weeks. We would pick out a restaurant near the center to enjoy a nice cocktail and dinner beforehand – we would park at the Kennedy Center and then walk to dinner and then back for the show after. Some of our favorite restaurants that we frequented included Kingbird (which was across the street in the Watergate complex), Fiola Mare in Georgetown, Dish, Marcel’s (a fantastic French restaurant that had limo service from and to the Kennedy Center for their diners), Circle Bistro, and Bourbon Steak to name just a few.
Returning to the Kennedy Center after dinner, we would usually go out onto the grand terrace that spanned the entire length of the building to enjoy world-class views of the Potomac River and Georgetown. Then it was off to our show! In the early days, we got seats on the main level in the orchestra section, which were usually fine but always cramped for me. Eventually, we decided to become patrons/donors to the Center, which came with some great perks, one of which was the ability to buy tickets for shows before they went on sale to the general public. Which means we were now able to get box seats, which had more comfortable seating, better views, and almost unlimited legroom – we never went back!!
Later on, we decided to become Circle Donors, which was a higher level of contribution to the Center each year. That gave us access to the beautiful lounges prior to shows and during intermissions, well worth the additional cost!! We loved sharing our experiences at the Kennedy Center with friends and family, and each time they were amazed not only with the shows themselves, but also with the beauty and grandeur of the place. Sitting in box seats also allowed us to easily exit a bit early once the show was over and get to our car and out of the Kennedy Center before the traffic jams began.
As I mentioned earlier, by my count Laurie and I attended over 30 performances at the Kennedy Center during our last 20 years living in the DC metro area. These included National Symphony Orchestra concerts (we got season tickets one year to try it out and enjoyed the concerts but not as much as the theater and other performances). We saw Jerry Seinfeld perform, as well as Carol Burnett and the late great Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame (during his Pet Sounds tour a few years before he passed away). We saw some fantastic plays in the Eisenhower Theater including The Humans, Side Show, Sunday in the Park with George, and Bright Star to name a few.
And of course, most of the time we were there for the theater and Broadway musicals, which we absolutely loved (and still do!). A sampling of the shows we saw at the Kennedy Center include Hamilton (twice!), Dear Evan Hansen, Ragtime, The Lion King, Mame, The Sound of Music, Wicked, Chicago, The Book of Mormon, Phantom of the Opera, On Your Feet (the Gloria Estephan tribute), Kinky Boots, Ain’t Too Proud (a tribute to the Temptations), The Producers, White Christmas, An American in Paris, and Company – OK, I’ll stop there but you get the idea!
As you can imagine, some of our absolute best experiences from our time in DC were our evenings out at the Kennedy Center – there’s simply no other place like it (and we’ve been to NYC to see almost as many shows on Broadway and the Lincoln Center, so that’s saying something)!
Obviously, what’s happening to the Kennedy Center right now is incredibly upsetting and so unnecessary – demonstrated unbridled narcissism and insecurity in a U.S. President, supported by his bootlickers and enablers, is an ugly and embarrassing thing to watch. I can only hope that saner heads will prevail, and we can return soon to a situation where the Center is once again the premier performing arts center in the nation, and free from political intervention and meddling. I have faith and confidence that the American people will make it so!
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