Bryan Rominger is proud of the "bus kid" title he's earned after one month at Vinnie's Restaurant in Burke. Waitress Erica Pruschowsky slumped against Rominger while taking a cigarette break in the back, speaking of the good old days when she was the bus kid 4 1/2 years ago.
"This is my first job. I started as a bus kid and worked my way up," she said.
Rominger likes his title, which carries a certain level of respect with it.
"It feels cool," he said, noting the friendly atmosphere at Vinnie's, a home-style restaurant in the Kings Park Shopping Center, which has been drawing clientele there for the past 23 years. Rominger even feels it after one month.
"You see the same customers over and over. They know my name, and I've only been here a month," he said.
There is a certain level of status that comes with the home-style food, the teak-colored booths and the community participation that spans generations at Vinnie's.
Life around Vinnie's may be threatened, though, when the lease runs out in December. The shopping center management company is talking about raising its rent from $16.50 a square foot to $25 a square foot, with a 3-percent raise every year, according to Vinnie Wagner, the namesake of the restaurant.
Wagner feels the rate hike isn't justified, but she could accept it better if it was presented in a better manner. In the past few months, the new management company has torn up the parking lot, updated the facade and upgraded the aging center, passing on some of the expense to the residents, according to Wagner.
"So far, they're not willing to negotiate with us. It's a matter of greed," Wagner said.
First Washington in Maryland is the management company for the center. Ken Baker, property manager, points to the market rate when determining rent. Longevity or character doesn't play into the equation.
"It's the market rate, not so much the renovations. If you got a high-rent location, that's what you do. We're not doing anything that doesn't take place in the commercial environment," he said. First Washington has 80 properties in Philadelphia, Richmond, Chicago, New Jersey and Milwaukee. Around Fairfax, the company manages the Saratoga shopping center, Camp Washington in Fairfax City, the Centre Ridge marketplace, as well as properties in Falls Church, Reston, Ashburn and Manassas.
A few doors down, David Ramsey manages Headway Hair Designs. He's been at the center since Day 1, 37 years ago, and experienced a rent increase last time he signed a new five-year lease.
"They raised our rents. They said it's in anticipation of a greater volume down the road, but I haven't seen that yet," Ramsey said, remaining optimistic about the renovations.
"You have to expect a certain amount of inconvenience. I think it looks a lot better now," he said.
WAGNER DAUGHTERS, Suzanne Wagner and "CW," sat at a booth with waitress Nancy Tingen and her sister, Sheila Tingen. CW did most of the talking but wanted to remain in the background so she wouldn't give her full name. She is part of the Wagner family, though. They all discussed the changes and the introduction of chain restaurants in the area that seem to be edging out the family-owned places. Vinnie's lobster thermidor is one example of home cooking the restaurant serves. No one else in the area has the dish, according to Nancy Tingen.
"They're pushing out the people that still do stuff the old way. We're losing all the cultural, ethnic diversity. I don't go to these chain places," CW said.
Tingen remembered her customers when she graduated from high school.
"A bunch of our regular guests came in and congratulated me, some gave me presents," she said.
The booths are threatened as well. According to CW, the management company wants them to get rid of the booths.
"The customers like the booths," Tingen said.
Baker acknowledged some monitoring of interior dècor.
"We may ask them to make changes in their dècor to update. It benefits them as well as the shopping center," he said.
To cope with the rising rates, the prices at Vinnie's will have to go up accordingly.
"We're going to have to do that or cut the quality of the food," CW said.
Vinnie looked at that possibility and feels the regulars will still come, but she doesn't like the management company's attitude.
"Nobody wants to be stepped on," she said.
THE RESTAURANT, complete with a small bar on the side, has character, though. If only the stuffed yellowfin tuna on the back shelf could talk. For years, the fish has been somewhere in the restaurant or bar, and the legend around the angler, Francis "Whitey" Wagner, is like a fishing tale. It was one of two large tuna caught by the chef, Whitey, around 15 years ago. It is bigger than Whitey, they say.
"It used to hang in the bar until the bartender jumped up and broke the tail. He [Whitey] hasn't gone fishing since," Wagner said.
Shelly Frazier, a waitress at Vinnie's for 22 years, is aware of the fish. It stares down on the wait staff from its perch on the top shelf in the back room.
"Whitey caught it. It scares me. Everybody asks about it," she said.
There is more to it than the fish, the bus kid and camaraderie, though.
"Vinnie's has had a following for over 30 years," Frazier said, attributing part of their success to Vinnie herself. "She just has a way with people."