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All the United States Washington, D.C. Annie's Paramount Steakhouse
Gastro Obscura

Annie's Paramount Steakhouse

This restaurant has been a haven for D.C.'s LGBTQ community since the 1950s.

Washington, D.C.

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Reina Gattuso
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CAPTION
  Anokarina/Used with permission
A monument to the victims of the Orlando Pulse shooting in front of Annie’s Steakhouse.   Sammy/Used with permission
Annie at a Pride event.   Annie's Paramount Steakhouse/Used with permission
  Clay Carr/Used with permission
The steakhouse, before it was known as “Annie’s.”   Annie's Paramount Steakhouse/Used with permission
Employees of Annie’s Steakhouse ride in a float during D.C. LGBTQ Pride 2009.   Tim Evanson/CC BY-SA 2.0
  1 Sentence/Used with permission
Annie, center, poses in a vintage photo from the Paramount Steakhouse.   Annie's Paramount Steakhouse/Used with permission
Ferris wheel in front window   teddrake / Atlas Obscura User
  IgFan / Atlas Obscura User
Annie’s carousel   blimpcaptain / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Annie's Paramount Steakhouse, located in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., wasn't originally prefaced with Annie Kaylor's name. Customers simply began using the title themselves. The exuberant bartender, sister to founder and World War II veteran George Katinas, welcomed visitors to the steakhouse with a smile, witty banter, and a darn good Manhattan, stirred idiosyncratically with her finger. Since the 1950s, she and the rest of her siblings built the steakhouse into a haven for D.C.'s LGBTQ community. Recently honored by a James Beard Foundation America's Classics Award for its decades of warm, welcoming service (and massive steaks), Annie's Paramount Steakhouse is a landmark to LGBTQ culinary history.

It all began in the fifties, when gay men—many of them federal employees who could lose their jobs or even be imprisoned under sodomy laws if news about their sexuality were made public—began frequenting the establishment. They came for the affordable steaks, juicy ribeyes with thick-cut fries, but they stayed for the rare aura of acceptance. "It was freedom, the same feeling I would later experience when I stepped off the plane in Provincetown or the ferry to Fire Island for the first time," wrote D.C.-based food critic David Hagedorn in a post for the James Beard Foundation. "More than freedom, it was community." It was a community Annie had purposely helped nurture. Sometime in the 1970s, the restaurant's website reports, Annie spotted a gay couple holding hands under a steakhouse table. She strode over to them, and in her signature warm tone, said, "You don't have to hide that here."

Members of the LGBTQ community haven't had to hide at Annie's ever since. Today, the restaurant, under the direction of Annie's nephew and George's son, Paul Katinas, offers saucy buffalo wings, tender filet mignon, and strong martinis. Today, D.C.'s annual gay pride parade continues to cross the steakhouse. While Annie, who died in 2013, no longer graces the steakhouse’s own float, her welcoming spirit lives on.

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Lgbtq Unique Restaurants & Bars Restaurants Steak

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In a nod to its clientele of federal employees, Annie's remains open for 24 hours the night before all federal holidays. 

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Reina Gattuso

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teddrake, IgFan, blimpcaptain

  • teddrake
  • IgFan
  • blimpcaptain

Published

July 11, 2019

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Annie's Paramount Steakhouse
1609 17th St NW
Washington, District of Columbia
United States
38.91161, -77.038298
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