Politics

Bill Clinton’s favorite DC restaurant shuts down buffet due to Obamacare

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One of former President Bill Clinton’s favorite restaurants has eliminated its Friday buffet due to Obamacare.

“We regret we had to make this decision but unfortunately we face new expenses as a result of the Healthcare reform and the Friday Buffet, though wonderful, was not profitable and required extra staff which we can no longer sustain,” a notice at the Georgetown Italian restaurant’s website reads.

The Friday Lunch Buffet ended on Jan. 1.

Businesses across the country have reduced hours and limited hiring in order to meet the requirements of Obamacare and keep costs under control.

Clinton has been critical of the Obamacare rollout but has otherwise supported and defended the president’s signature law. However, one of Clinton’s “favorite haunts” is not immune from the law’s downsides.

Clinton’s affection for Filomena is well documented. The book “Where to Date in D.C.” says that says restaurant is a “personal favorite of President Bill Clinton.”

And in 1993, Clinton and then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl discussed how much the pair liked Filomena during a meeting in the Oval office.

“That’s a very good place,” the then-president said, according to The New York Times. The conversation between Kohl and Clinton indicated that were well acquainted with Filomena.

The Daily Caller reached a couple Filomena employees by phone who referred TheDC to upper management, which did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Luckily for Clinton, his favorite dish — the calamari appetizer — is still on the menu.

Update: Filomena elaborates on their decision:

Because of the potentially large new expense of offering healthcare coverage to 90 employees, we had to look for areas of operations that were either marginal or losing money to trim expenses or losses and find new areas to increase business so that we could keep all our employees and continue to grow our business.

 

Because restaurants such as ours, 86 employees, are so labor intense the potential expense of offering coverage to so many could threaten independently owned restaurants like ours. Our goal is to tackle the problem head on and find ways to pay for it without losing our employees. We have in fact done this by only offering a la carte lunch on Fridays, continue to offer the Saturday lunch Buffet and develop a new Spectacular new Sunday Brunch Buffet that has been a big success since its launch thus.

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