How Buddy's Got Its Name

(A doggone good story)

Call it kismet. Call it destiny. Or call it what Debbie Long calls it, "just something that was just meant to be."

It was New Years' Day, 2003, and Debbie, the founder of the famous Dudley's Restaurant, was out taking a walk in the neighborhood when she ran into a handsome brown-eyed blonde who would change her life forever. It was love at first sight!

It isn't often that you meet such a lovable, lost cocker spaniel on the corner of High and Euclid!

Debbie took her new friend home, and after determining that he really had no home of his own, gave him one, along with a new name, Buddy.

Was there some significance as to where she and Buddy first met? Why did it happen at the corner of High and Euclid, right in front of the location of the famous old Saratoga Restaurant.

Was this a "sign" that Debbie, one of Lexington's most successful restauranteurs, should take this empty space and create a neighborhood joint in Chevy Chase as popular as Dudley's? One as good as the Saratoga was in its heyday? As friendly as her dog Buddy?

Debbie's answer to that was "Yes."