Mel Krupin is the 78-year-old maitre d’ of the downtown D.C. McCormick and Schmick’s, and is almost as well-known as the power lobbyists and politicians who come to the restaurant to see him. He was the maitre d’ at the swanky Duke Zieberts in Farragut North from 1968 until 1978, and opened his restaurant, Mel Krupin’s, in 1980. He came out of retirement seven years ago to work at McCormick and Schmick’s, where he still practices his witty one-liners on the clients.

You moved here from Brooklyn in the ’60s — how was that?