A Clandestine Duccini’s Pizza Delivery Fed Protesters Sheltering in a D.C. Rowhouse

Duccini’s pizza, an Adams Morgan go-to known for late-night hours and jumbo slices that hold up while sober, fed a small portion of the resistance late Monday night with a delivery that snuck through a police blockade on Swann Street NW and fed protesters taking refuge inside the home of a good Samaritan.

Rahul Dubey has been hailed as a hero for opening his door to dozens of strangers marching through the streets after curfew to demonstrate against state-sponsored brutality and systemic racism following the death of George Floyd in police custody. Police had pushed them to the street near Logan Circle that’s lined with historic rowhouses and trapped them with a “kettling” maneuver. After the protesters flushed tear gas out of their eyes and began their wait for a 6 a.m. end to curfew, Dubey realized all he had to feed them was some ground beef in the freezer.

According to the Washington Post, police first denied Dubey’s request to order food for the group, then allowed a delivery to get through. Dubey told Esquire that police “hijacked the pizza delivery guy for an hour,” but he was finally able to feed the protesters by getting someone to hand him boxes of Duccini’s pizza over his back fence.

“I’ve never been so excited to get a Duccini’s pizza in my life,” Dubey tells Esquire. “I couldn’t leave it to chance. I called the owner and was like, “Brother, I’ve been ordering from you forever. I need you to do me a favor. We are held hostage,” and he was like, “We got you man.” It’s like a covert mission to get Duccini’s pizza! I’m delirious, but it’s beautiful. It’s absurd that I had to get some stranger to hand me pizza over my back fence through police brigade, but it also shows the human spirit, too, and that’s what this is all about.”

A 22-year-old protester named Meka posted a video to Twitter that showed five boxes of Duccini’s pizza getting passed over the fence. Dubey can be heard telling the person with the pizzas, “You are a fucking champion.”

While D.C. has been under a curfew for the past three nights, the city deems food delivery an “essential service,” which throws service workers into the middle of confrontations between heavily armored police, protesters, and bad actors.

As news spread Tuesday that Duccini’s fed the beleaguered demonstrators, segments of D.C. Twitter had a new reason to celebrate the delivery joint.

• A 2 a.m. Talk With Rahul Dubey, the ‘Absolute Legend’ Sheltering Black Lives Matter Protesters [Esquire]
• On Swann Street, D.C. protesters needed a refuge from police, so one resident ‘just opened a door’ [WaPo]