President Obama inadvertently walked into a meeting of White House reporters on Wednesday when he took the national Teacher of the Year award winner out to lunch.
{mosads}Obama made an unscheduled stop at the D.C. tea house Teaism with high school English teacher Shanna Peeples, just as a group of presidential correspondents was holding a meeting.
At noon, Obama and Peeples walked approximately one block from the White House to H Street, where they ducked into Teaism for a takeout lunch.
“Good to see you,” Obama told onlookers, according to a pool report. “I’m taking a walk. It’s a beautiful day.”
The pool covering the president was not allowed in the shop, but several reporters who were at the meeting tweeted photos of the president inside.
Earlier, Obama praised Peeples for working with refugees from countries such as Iraq and Somalia who have been ravaged by war, saying they have faced challenges that would “overwhelm adults, let alone kids.”
“Shanna’s classroom provides them a safe haven,” Obama said during a ceremony in the Rose Garden for the Amarillo, Texas, educator. “And in Shanna, they find somebody who protects them fiercely and believes in them deeply.”
Obama mistakenly told Peeples she could order coffee at the luncheon, according to Time reporter Zeke Miller. Even for a president, Teaism serves no such beverage.