Ulysses G. "Blackie" Auger Sr; steak restaurateur (GREAT)
Hyfler/Rosner
BYLINE: Adam Bernstein, Washington Post Staff Writer
Ulysses G. "Blackie" Auger Sr., 83, who made a fortune as a
steak restaurateur and became one of Washington's leading
entrepreneurs, died yesterday at his home in the District of
complications from a heart attack. At one point, he owned an
interest in the Mayflower Hotel, where he had been a busboy
after dropping out of high school.
Auger's greatest fame came as the proprietor of Blackie's
House of Beef, the eatery that provided heaping platters of
rich food and emphasized value over ambience for what was
invariably described as a meat-and-potatoes clientele. The
restaurant also served politicians and businessmen with whom
Auger formed significant relationships.
He and his wife started a hot dog stand at 22nd and M
streets NW after World War II and grew their venture through
sheer grit into Blackie's. The enterprise continues to this
day, surrounded by the Washington Marriott, which Auger
helped build atop Blackie's in 1981. He owned the hotel, the
chain's first in the District.
Over the years, Auger invested in banks, real estate and
other ventures from Panama to Switzerland.
With the stocky build of a prizefighter, the former Army
Ranger never lacked confidence when selling his product. "If
I please myself," he often said, "I'd please 99 percent of
the people."
He built an enterprise on beef, which after being in short
supply during World War II and the Korean War was making its
way back into the market. In 1953, he started a fixed-dinner
menu of prime rib, baked potatoes and peas, plus salad and
cheesecake, all for $1.75. He kept costs low and undersold
much of his competition, which was equally envious and
disdainful of his success.
To his customers, his mantra was simple: "You eat beef or
you don't eat nothing."
Ulysses George Auger was born Sept. 19, 1921, in Pottstown,
Pa., and raised in Washington, where his Greek immigrant
father was a chef. He left the old Central High School to
help support his family, working in a produce market and at
the Mayflower.
During World War II, he served in Africa and Europe. A few
Southern Army buddies gave him the nickname because they
could not pronounce Ulysses. " 'Hey, you with the black
hair. Hey, Blackie,' " he recalled.
Wounded in Italy, he returned to the United States and began
working as a pressman at the Los Angeles Examiner. During a
strike, he moved to Washington to begin in the food
industry.
He borrowed $2,000 on his mother's home and began a hot dog
stand. Within a few years, he bought a business on 22nd
Street NW called the Minute Grill, which catered mostly to
auto mechanics working at the nearby Capitol Cadillac
garage.
The garage's owner, Floyd D. Akers, was a regular and helped
the young, inexperienced man get a bank loan to expand the
restaurant. At the time, Auger said, he did not own a suit
and had to borrow "a coat from a cook in a place down the
street." His eatery became the Minute Grille (with the extra
"e") and then Blackie's in 1953, when it began offering
roast beef and prime rib to enthusiastic crowds.
He filled his restaurant on the cheap with antiques he and
his wife collected from dismantled or soon-to-be-demolished
buildings: stained-glass windows and pews from a church,
discounted Tiffany lampshades, Chinese urns -- "Western-New
Orleans eclectic" was one published attempt at defining the
style.
Garrulous to the point of barking, Auger constantly won new
customers by ushering them into his restaurant with the
promise, "If you don't like it, I'll pick up the tab."
The business made him a fortune. At one point, he was buying
two new Cadillacs every year from Akers.
He also had other businesses, including interest in the
Mayflower Hotel (he eventually owned 12 percent of it) and
several Blackie's spinoffs. He named them recognizably: the
Black Rose, the Black Crystal, the Black Beret, the Black
Tahiti (Polynesian food, inspired by a vacation to the South
Pacific), the Black Greco, the Black Saddle, the Black
Circus, the Black Ulysses and the Black Russian.
The last was built in 1966 in the basement of the then-new
D.C. Welfare Department building. With its framed oil
paintings, brass foot rail and plush leatherette bar, it
looked out of place for an austere government facility. He
served veal cutlets or a Salisbury steak for 60 cents.
"We wanted to give those welfare people, as well as other
people in the neighborhood, a nice place to eat," Auger
said. "When you buy equipment and furnishings wholesale, it
doesn't cost any more to go first class."
He regularly bought and sold interests in restaurants,
jettisoning them with the first signs of personnel or
equipment trouble. The Black Gun and the Pierre, a French
restaurant, were among those with which he quickly grew
frustrated.
An avid real estate investor, he secured the land around
Blackie's to ensure his future there. Many of his closest
friends were businessmen, including the PMI parking lot
magnate D.F. "Nick" Antonelli, with whom he frequently
invested in property and other endeavors. They were on the
board of directors of Madison National Bank, which was taken
over by the government after massive losses stemming from
real estate loans.
Auger maintained a reduced but active role in his business
dealings after a stroke five years ago. Much of the interest
has been passed to his children.
Survivors include his wife of 58, Lulu Hansen Auger of
Washington; three children, Gregory Auger of Bethesda and
Ulysses G. Auger II and Dina Economides, both of Washington;
two sisters, Harriet Maroules of Silver Spring and Margaret
Tzafferis of Washington; and 10 grandchildren.
Auger was a businessman, above all. He shied from civic
involvement, once putting it this way: "If I get on the city
council, or on the board of my church, I end up with a lot
of people hating me. But if I help someone I know get on the
council or the board, then I don't get a lot of people
hating me. Look at it this way, I feed 500 Republicans and
Democrats a day. How can I get involved?"