Charging Buffalo Award

James “Jimmy” Cirrito was born and raised in Arcade, New York, and followed his parents into the restaurant business almost as soon as he could carry a tray — bussing tables for his aunt and uncle as a teenager, then cutting his teeth in family and corporate restaurants alike.

In his twenties, Jimmy traded the snowbelt for Northern Virginia and quickly made a name for himself as a bartender, promoter, manager, and DJ. In 1994 he won Washington, D.C.’s Fastest Bartender Contest, and at 24 he set a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! world record — working a single bar shift for twelve straight days, for charity. Long before he owned a bar, Jimmy was already using one to raise money for people who needed it.

That hustle became a home in 1997, when Jimmy and his wife Maureen opened Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern in Herndon. What began as a neighborhood bar has grown into a genuine institution — Herndon’s mayor once crowned him the “King of Building Community” — and Jimmy built it into the unofficial embassy of Buffalo in Northern Virginia: real wings, beef on weck, poutine, and his own bottled JOTT Wing Sauce, in a room that fills with Bills Mafia red, white, and blue every Sunday.

For Buffalonians across the DMV, Jimmy has become something like the mayor of their hometown away from home. He hosts the annual UB Alumni Tailgate benefiting UB scholarships, organizes bus trips so Buffalo expats can travel together to Bills and Sabres games, and supports Butch’s Bingo for the Butch Rolle Foundation — keeping his Western New York community connected no matter how far they’ve landed.

His giving runs deeper still: annual charity events, a first-responder mural, and a Memory Lane brick walkway that literally embeds the community in the ground the tavern stands on. Twenty-nine years in, he’s now opening Jimmy’s Brewhouse — a dream he first pitched in 2013 and is finally bringing to life.

Jimmy and Maureen have been married 34 years; their daughter Kelsey, 32, lives in Crested Butte, Colorado. From a kid bussing tables in Arcade to Herndon’s King of Building Community, Jimmy Cirrito proves you can leave Buffalo — but Buffalo never really leaves you.

2025 – Neil Chatterjee, Chief Government Affairs Officer, Palmetto

2024 – Jerry Zremski, Buffalo News, Washington Enterprise Reporter

2023 – Julie Pace, American Journalist

2019 – Jamie Stachowski, James Beard Chef and Owner

2018 – Peter M Cuviello, Senior Client Partner (Retired Alumnus), Deloitte Advisory, Defense Segment, US Federal Services; Deloitte & Touché LLP

2017 – Margaret Sullivan, Media Columnist for the Washington Post

2016 – Kim Keenan, President and CEO of Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC)

2015 – Megan Smith, US Chief Technology Officer

2014 – H. David Jay, Architect

2013 – The Honorable Tom Reynolds, former Congressman

2012 – Jim Militello, Radio Sports Reporter for Associated Press Broadcast

2011 – Tracy O’Grady, Owner and Executive Chef, Willow

2010 – Erik Brady, Sportswriter for USA Today

2009 – Donald E. Will, President and CEO of Will Poultry Company

2008 – Charles W. Roesch, Owner of multifaceted restaurant and catering business

2007 – The Honorable Bill Paxon, Buffalo area Congressman and lobbyist

2006 – Michael A. Fitzpatrick, General Secretary, International Association of Iron Workers

2005 – Tom Toles, Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post

2004 – The Honorable Jack Quinn, Buffalo area Congressman

2003 – The Honorable(s) Jack Kemp, John LaFalce, and Hank Nowak, Buffalo area Congressman and Buffalo Nite founders

2002 – Gwen Ifill, Managing Editor and Moderator, PBS Washington Week

2001 – Scheduled for September 12, cancelled

2000 – The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator, State of New York

1999 – Marv Levy, Head Coach of the Buffalo Bills

1998 – James T. Molloy, Doorkeeper, U.S. House of Representatives

1997 – The Honorable Thomas A. Constantine, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

1996 – David O. “Doc” Cooke, Pentagon administrator

1995 – Wolf Blitzer, CNN television correspondent

1994 – Mark Russell, Political satirist

1993 – Tim Russert, Moderator of Meet the Press, NBC Washington Bureau Chief