For 45 years, Ben’s Chili Bowl has anchored Washington D.C.’s U Street Corridor. A favorite haunt of jazz luminaries, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bill Cosby, the Bowl has survived riots, neighborhood blight, and even the area’s current gentrification wave—largely thanks to the best chili in the Capital City. Grab a chili half-smoke and a cola, put a quarter in the jukebox, and enjoy.

—ANTHONY CROSS