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The Palm restaurant remembers Barbara Bush

Former First Lady Barbara Bush is being remembered at one of her favorite DC restaurants

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) — Former First Lady Barbara Bush is being remembered at one of her favorite DC restaurants.

The Palm is a DC institution with its caricatures of celebrities and politicians lining the wall.

“How many times you get to sit next to an active President and the First Lady it was pretty cool," said server Chuck Koskinas.

It sure is cool but Washingtonians don't get too star struck, especially at the Dupont Circle eatery where leaders of the Free World from Carter to Trump have dined. But when the Bush’s arrived, they made quite the entrance.

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“They would walk through the dining room they would say hello to everybody, everybody would clap,” said server John Stauch. Stauch and Koskinas served the Bush family, all dozen of them enjoying a fine steak dinner with old friends and Palm owners.

“When Bush was head of the UN that was on 42nd Street also he would come into The Palm in New York quite a bit,” Koskinas recalled, “and they became good friends with some of the owners and told him at one point there were no good American steak houses in the Nation’s Capital.”

Then in 1972, The Palm opened its second location in DC. The veteran servers remember Mrs. Bush as friendly, engaging woman who loved a good joke.

“Mrs. Bush would you like to me to wrap up these left overs to take to Millie (the family dog) and she would look up and smile at me and say no, we have Millie on a diet," recalled Koskinas. Most importantly Mrs. Bush made others feel special around her.

“She was just a very elegant lady who was interested in the staff she was curious about who we were and what we did. She was a pretty special lady," said Stauch.

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