Presidential Debate Series Image

As always, Busboys and Poets is your community go-to place for politics!

This election season, Busboys and Poets will show all Presidential Debates, at every location. We aim to provide a dynamic and engaging environment for each viewing party!

Our First Featured Cocktail
Demo Blue – coconut rum, blue curacao, pineapple juice over ice | $8

Busboys and Poets is located in six distinctive neighborhoods in the Washington Metropolitan area and is a community resource for artists, activists, writers, thinkers and dreamers.


Debates will be streamed on the newly upgraded
large screens at every Busboys and Poets location.
Drink specials will be available all night.

Please see below for all dates and times of upcoming debate screenings
PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE SCHEDULE

The Making of Busboys and Poets

A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets

We’re proud to announce A Seat at the Table: The Making of Busboys and Poets, the new memoir from our CEO and Founder, which reveals the vision, challenges, and triumphs behind opening Busboys and Poets. Packed with misadventures, unexpected triumphs, and insights on race, business and politics, Andy Shallal’s memoir takes us on a “How I Built … Continued

PHOTO 2024 02 01 07 10 14

For Langston Hughes on His 123 Birthday

Speech given on February 1, 2024 in Havana, Cuba In 1927 Langston Hughes walked into a Cuba amid an emerging community of artists, intellectuals, and radicals.  He saw a “sunrise in a new land [– a day – in his words]sic – full of brownskin surprises, and hitherto unknown contacts in a world of color.”  … Continued

PALESTINE WEEK 1920 x 1080 px 2

Palestine Week 2024

January 18, 2024 – January 25, 2024 In keeping with our ongoing mission of uplifting racial and cultural connections, Busboys and Poets is hosting Palestine Week (January 18 through January 25, 2024). This week-long series of events will offer a diverse range of programming featuring Palestinian food, music, dance, poetry, discussions, and other enriching events. … Continued

joseph lms green

Split This Rock Poem of the Week: Joseph LMS Green

  Joseph Green is a spoken word artist, educator, and motivational speaker with over 15 years’ experience in youth development. He co-founded poetryN.O.W., a nonprofit providing creative writing programming and curriculum for DC-area youth and schools. While serving as Split This Rock’s Director of Youth Programs for 3 years, he transferred poetryN.O.W’s work into Split This Rock’s care. Joseph has … Continued

busboys books1

Split This Rock Poem of the Week: Doritt Carroll

intermittent apnea of unknown causation   I. the first time it happened i thought i was being strangled four fingers compressing each side of my throat no air II. have you ever eaten crabs? first you flip the breast tab up then you fold the crab back like the binding of a new book then … Continued

Fusterlandia

8. Fusterlandia

Reflections from the Busboys and Poets Travel Tribe’s Cultural Exchange trip to Cuba (July 6-13, 2022) By Andy Shallal (@andyshallal CEO/Founder, Busboys and Poets) Jose Fuster aka the Picasso/Gaudi of Havana is a bundle of energy. At 70 something he is charming. Engaging. Full of life. And a brilliant artist and entrepreneur. He is the founder … Continued

Busboys and Poets Books Review: Before the Next Bomb Drops

Busboys and Poets Books Review: Before the Next Bomb Drops

In his second poetry collection, Remi Kanazi takes the reader on a journey of violence and collective ignorance from Palestine to Ferguson to Iraq to Brooklyn. His unapologetically angry, graphic depictions of violence and fierce indictment of the ignorant among us who claim “the world is a messed-up place” but do nothing to stop it … Continued