| Nathans of Georgetown, Washington D.C. |
Unusual Suspect At Nathans Q & A Cafe, Washington Business Journal - September 15, 2006by
When people were walking around dazed and confused right after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, Carol Joynt did what she does best: served lunch and asked questions. With more than three decades of experience as a journalist, reporter and television news producer, Joynt never expected to be running Nathans restaurant in Georgetown. Tragic events in her own life led here there. And it was another set of tragic events that led Joynt to take her interviewing expertise and newfound restaurant skills to create a lunch setting that would fill a very raw, new need for people who had plenty of questions and no forum in which to ask them. Those lunches, where people can come with questions and get answers from experts, "are my pride and joy," she says of what's now known as the Q & A Cafe. "Everything else has been a rescue mission." The first thing she rescued was Nathans. Joynt came to own the "saloon," as she calls it, on the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue through extraordinarily difficult circumstances. When her husband, J. Howard Joynt III, died of pneumonia in 1997, she became the sole owner. With no background in restaurants, she planned to sell it, until, two weeks after her husband's death, Joynt learned he'd been under investigation for tax fraud. The legal battles sucked up much of her finances, and the tax troubles made it impossible tao sell. With no other means of supporting herself and her 5-year-old son, Joynt jumped in to save the restaurant. She continued her job as a booker for Larry King but eventually realized that she needed to make a choice. "Each of one of them was getting a third of me," she says of her job, her son and Nathans. The full tale of trying to keep the place afloat could fill an article all on its own. And it did. Joynt published her story in a Newsweek "My Turn" feature in January 2005. Since then, Joynt has created a new chapter in the restaurant's history -- and her own. About 55 people came to the first lunch in October 2001. For $15, they got lunch and a chance to ask Chuck Vance, a former Secret Service special agent for President Ford and founder of Oakton security firm Vance International, questions such as "Do I need a gas mask? and "Can I get on the subway?" The format is still simple, but the subject matter isn't always so serious. The speaker list included "Simpsons" performer Harry Shearer and Wonkette Ana Marie Cox. The essence of the discussion, the give and take of a Q & A, remains the same. Joynt still solicits questions on index cards, which she then lets loose on the guest. And the no-sitting politician rule is still firm. With more than 110 sessions already, The Q & A Cafe is about to kick off another fall season. The coming weeks will feature the likes of Pat Buchanan, Fred Thompson and Jim Lehrer. Even though Joynt has broadened her net of speakers, the cafe still retains an undercurrent of its Sept. 11 origins. While she no longer leads off each interview by asking, "Where were you on 9/11?" the day's events still extend their icy reach and maintain a silent seat in the audience. "Sept. 11 is in everything we do -- all of us," Joynt says. "It is in the weave. We've all been redefined by that day, even though we may not notice in a daily and tangible way. But it's there."
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