“Let All Who are Hungry Come and Eat” – Help for Fran O’Brien’s
“Let All Who are Hungry Come and Eat.” You said it at the Passover Seder, but did you open the door? The owners of Fran O’Brien’s Stadium Steakhouse do every week, inviting wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital to a free dinner at the restaurant. Regular readers not only know about Hal Koster and Marty O’Brien’s kindness – to primarily amputees – but have also contributed generously to helping our young heroes return to society.
“Let All Who are Hungry Come and Eat.” You said it at the Passover Seder, but did you open the door? The owners of Fran O’Brien’s Stadium Steakhouse do every week, inviting wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital to a free dinner at the restaurant. Regular readers not only know about Hal Koster and Marty O’Brien’s kindness – to primarily amputees – but have also contributed generously to helping our young heroes return to society.
No, we’re not asking for more money. We’re asking – urgently – for a few minutes of your time.
The restaurant is located in the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, and the lease ran out in December. Hal and Marty had been asking for a new lease since the fall and management had been assuring them it would be renewed. Last week, they were given until 1 May to vacate. Two things to know: Hilton admits it has no other tenant for the space. The restaurant has been a profit center for the hotel and had no plans to close or move.
We’re guessing two things – neither says much for the Hilton Hotels Corporation. First, the hotel is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Hilton has not made the basement restaurant ADA compliant – part of the lease negotiation was to have been for the replacement of a non-working escalator with an ADA-compliant elevator, but there were no negotiations. The soldiers have been using a steep stairwell or the service elevator, and Hilton is probably worried about a lawsuit.
That is the less ugly scenario. Worse would be that the Hilton is uncomfortable with so many wounded soldiers passing through its lobby on the way to the restaurant and worries about the impact it will have on the hotel guests.
Please help us make the Hilton Hotels Corporation worry about something else: future business. Take a moment to e-mail or call the following people and (politely) let them know that a) ADA non-compliance is illegal, but more importantly, it is shameful when the chief victims are veterans; and b) you are appalled that a major American corporation would turn its back on the young men and women who have been injured in service to our country, and that being the case, you will not stay in a Hilton (or related hotel) and will do everything in your power to ensure that others take the same course of action. Please cc: info@jinsa.org on the e-mail.
Atish Shah, VP for Investor Relations – atish_shah@hilton.com
Kathy Shepard, VP for Corporate Communications – kathy_shepard@hilton.com
Candace Hollis, Sr. Mgr. Corporate Communications – candace_hollis@hilton.com
Stephen F. Bollenbach, Co-Chairman and CEO – 310-205-4656
Hilton’s website proudly boasts of its corporate philanthropy and starts its paean to itself with, “We at Hilton recognize our responsibility to corporate citizenship wherever we do business.” Right now, that appears not to include Fran O’Brien’s Stadium Steakhouse or our wounded soldiers.