Daniel Leaderman/The Gazette. Andy Shallal, owner of Busboys and Poets, wants the restaurant to become a cultural and community center. The new Hyattsville location opened to the public Monday.

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Daniel Leaderman/The Gazette. Busboys and Poets, a restaurant and coffee shops that will also host readings and open mic performances, opened Monday at its Hyattsville location.

Daniel Leaderman/The Gazette. Andy Shallal, owner of Busboys and Poets, wants the restaurant to become a cultural and community center. The new Hyattsville location opened to the public Monday.

 

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Part coffee shop, part performance space, part restaurant and even part movie theater, Busboys and Poets is aiming to be not just a place for food, but a cultural center and Hyattsville community hangout, according to its owner.

The restaurant, which has three other locations in Washington, D.C., and Virginia, opened its doors Monday, joining Chipotle, Elevation Burger and Yogi Castle in the Arts District Hyattsville development on Baltimore Avenue.

"We are a space where people can come and pause, just relax, enjoy, have a drink, be on their laptop," said owner Andy Shallal, adding the restaurant's mission is to connect people racially and culturally.

"[Busboys and Poets] is a place where art, culture and politics align," Shallal said. "Hyattsville ... [has] all kinds of people, different cultures, backgrounds [and] economic statuses."

The Hyattsville location, which has seating for about 350 people and room for about another 100 on the patio, has a special room in the back. Named for historian and social activist Howard Zinn and adorned with a mural featuring the words and images of people including Frederick Douglass, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the room contains a stage, microphone and video projector for performances. An open-mic poetry performance is scheduled for 9 p.m. Thursday and a reading by four local authors is scheduled for 6 p.m. July 28.

The restaurant's menu includes a selection of pizzas, sandwiches, salads and an assortment of other entrees.

"We're very well known for our catfish," Shallal said, adding that there were many options for vegans and vegetarians as well as omnivores.

By 5 p.m. Monday, dozens of customers were exploring the restaurant and sampling the food.

"It's a great thing for the city," said Councilwoman Candace Hollingsworth (Ward 1), adding that the new restaurant built on the momentum generated by its recently-opened neighboring businesses. "It's great to see it open and starting to come alive. ... This is the rebirth of cool on Route 1."

Meg Floyd, a senior studio art major at the University of Maryland, College Park, said Busboys and Poets was likely to become a regular hangout for her and her friends.

"During the school year, every Thursday we come up to Hyattsville because there are art shows all the time," Floyd said

Brentwood sculptor Margret Boozer, one of several local artists with work on display at the restaurant, said the opening was exciting for the local arts community.

“[We’ll be] going to Busboys and Poets to hang out,” Boozer said. “It’s really cool to have our work up and visible in the place where we live.”

dleaderman@gazette.net