Tuna Restaurant in Cherrydale has been sold to a new owner, who is reopening with a more Thai-focused menu today (Friday).
The restaurant at 3813 Langston Blvd that served Laotian and Japanese cuisine was put up for sale only a few months after it initially opened, replacing Maneki Neko Express. Owner Sak Vong told ARLnow in late February that he was selling because of a “new business opportunity overseas.”
And, fairly quickly, it found a buyer in Leesburg-resident May Ditnoy, who also owns a catering company with her mother.
The plan, Ditnoy told ARLnow, is to reopen today after being shut down for a week to “upgrade” the menu and make minor layout changes. The restaurant will keep the “Tuna” name for the moment and will serve Thai and Japanese cuisine, similar to the previous menu.
This is Ditnoy’s first restaurant, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity of a fully built-out kitchen that served a similar cuisine to what her and her mom plan to cook.
“[Building] a brand new restaurant is definitely a lot of investment and money, so this is big for us,” she said. “We are very fortunate to find Tuna Restaurant, though it could be in better condition, we can definitely improve and work with it. The fact that they served Laotian and Japanese cuisine is good too.”
The neighborhood is also a big plus, Ditnoy said. In recent weeks, she’s walked the neighborhood and eaten a number of different places in Cherrydale. Her experiences have convinced her to reopen Tuna.
A new name is “in the works,” but Ditnoy didn’t want to delay opening her first restaurant by waiting on name change paperwork. Both she and her mom are excited those first customers to come in today.
“This is a great spot for us,” Ditnoy said. “All in all, this is going to be a great place for us to start.”