Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

A catering startup with an appetite for growth is looking to establish a presence well beyond the D.C. metro area.

HUNGRY, launched in late 2016, plans to have its platform available in Philadelphia later this quarter, and has big plans for the future.

“I think it’s really a testament to… the success that we’re seeing here in Washington,” company chairman Jeff Grass said. “We’ve already tripled sales since the beginning of the year, and we expect to continue to see… growth in the second half of the year.”

Based in Rosslyn, HUNGRY has raised $4.5 million in seed funding since its founding. Later this year, they’ll aim to raise between roughly $7 and $10 million in “Series A” financing, according to Grass.

That funding “would really give us the resources to take what we’ve demonstrated to be successful here and sort of roll it out everywhere,” Grass said.

HUNGRY works with local chefs — around 50 in the D.C. area — to provide high-quality office catering options “at a Panera price point,” Grass said.

The company’s roster of chefs includes Chopped champions, former White House chefs and the former personal chef to Pitbull. Their “at least” two to three hundred clients include “tons” in Arlington and companies like Amazon and Microsoft, Grass said.

“We created this really first ever platform that [connects] offices with top local chefs and we do it in this way that makes it really reliable and really efficient,” Grass said.

The desire for higher quality office catering “is not a D.C. specific phenomenon,” Grass said. “We see opportunity across the country, if not the world.”

HUNGRY also aims to give back to the communities in which they operate by working to fight hunger. For every two meals ordered, HUNGRY donates a meal to a partner like the Arlington Food Assistance Center, Grass said.

And “the cutlery and plates and napkins and things that come with HUNGRY catering are all made of corn, so they’re fully compostable and biodegradable,” Grass said.

Grass sees HUNGRY as different from competitors like ezCater, which recently raised $100 million in venture financing, for several reasons.

“At the core, we are the only ones working directly with top [local] chefs,” Grass said. “You’ve got all these really interesting chefs with different backgrounds. That is fundamentally different than anything the competition can provide.”

Ultimately, “we think we’ve got a really elegant model that does it in a way that really benefits everybody that we touch,” Grass said.

Photos via Facebook


Over the past four days (July 19-22), Arlington County Fire Department’s Camp Heat provided girls ages 15-18 with a free-of-charge inside look at a career in the fire service.

Now in its fifth year, the program has hosted more than 80 campers. Participants this year came from Northern Virginia, Maryland and as far as Ohio to experience fire and emergency medical services simulations, physical training and team-building activities.

“A lot of the females [at ACFD] ended up doing this after going to school or doing other careers,” Capt. Sarah Marchegiani said. “They never really thought about it as a career just because socially, it’s not really something that we’re exposed to as little girls.”

Erin Schartiger, a junior mentor for Camp Heat, attended the program two summers ago. Now, she is a certified firefighter in her home city of Sterling.

Camp Heat “was what pushed me [to be] like, ‘oh yeah, this is definitely something I want to try, something I want to do,'” Schartiger said.

Across the country in 2016, about four percent of career firefighters were women, according to the National Fire Protection Association. In Arlington, that number stands around 10 percent.

So far, at least two former campers have applied in ACFD’s current hiring cycle. Though Marchegiani said she would love for all of the campers to become Arlington County firefighters, “that’s obviously not realistic.”

“In general, I hope they come out with a mindset that they can accomplish whatever they want if they work hard, they dream big and put in the effort and time,” Marchegiani said. “It’s really just all about empowering them to show them that they can achieve whatever they set their mind to.”


The Crystal City Twilighter 5K will kick off tomorrow night (July 21) at 8:30 p.m., accompanied by several road closures.

Here are all of the affected roadways, according to the county:

6-11 p.m.

  • The entirety of Crystal Drive between 23rd Street and 20th Street

8-11 p.m.

  • Northbound lanes of Crystal Drive between 23rd Street and 26th Street
  • Northbound lanes of Crystal Drive between 12th Street and 20th Street
  • Northbound lanes between 12th Street and 15th Street
  • North and Southbound lanes of Long Bridge Drive as well all traffic around 6th, 10th, and Ball Streets

There will also be limited access to parking garages and restricted street parking on affected roads.

Photo courtesy Crystal City BID


Blerdcon, an anime, gaming, cosplay, comics and sci-fi convention with a focus on inclusivity, will return to Crystal City next Friday (July 27).

Held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City (2799 Jefferson Davis Hwy), organizers anticipate between 3,000 and 4,000 attendees.

Blerdcon aims to celebrate “blerd,” or “black nerd,” culture in an environment that welcomes everyone, including members of the LGBTQ community, individuals with disabilities, people of color and international fans.

Guests include artist and jewelry designer Douriean Fletcher, whose work was featured in Marvel’s Black Panther, actor and writer Kevin Grevioux, known for his work on the Underworld series, and actress and stuntwoman Keisha Tucker, whose credits include Black Panther and Ant-Man and the Wasp.

This year’s event will also include a panel entitled Black Heroes Matter, organized by movement founder and comic book creator URAEUS.

Full weekend passes are available for $50 each, with separate tickets required to participate in certain events. Blerdcon runs from July 27 -29.

Photo via Facebook


Modern Asian restaurant Ping by Charlie Chiang’s is closed in The Village at Shirlington.

A posting to the restaurant’s 4060 Campbell Avenue door dated Monday (July 16) thanked customers for their patronage over the past three decades.

The Shirlington site remained open after Charlie Chiang’s closed in Crystal City in 2015.

As of this morning, Charlie Chiang’s website was down. There was no answer to the phone at Kwai, Charlie Chiang’s Tysons restaurant, yesterday evening (Thursday) or this morning, though its website is still active.


On a summer day in 1988, prosecutor Helen Fahey addressed an Arlington jury. It was the sentencing phase in a six-day long capital murder trial.

“Something is terribly, terribly wrong with Timothy Spencer,” she said.

That trial opened 30 years ago this month, on July 11, 1988. It ended with a death sentence.

Spencer, sometimes known as the “South Side Strangler,” was convicted for the brutal rape and murder of Susan Tucker, a 44-year-old Fairlington resident. He would eventually accumulate three more death sentences for similar killings in and around Richmond.

The story is significant in American legal and scientific history because it represents the nation’s first capital murder conviction based on DNA evidence. No serial killer in any country had previously been convicted with DNA.

Richmond-based writer Richard Foster is chronicling the story in painstaking detail through a 10-episode podcast, entitled Southern Nightmare.

“The fact is there was no other evidence directly linking Spencer to the scene besides the DNA,” Foster said. “That’s what’s really so groundbreaking about this case.”

Foster spoke with sources including homicide detectives, FBI profilers and friends and family of Spencer’s victims to outline a chilling tale of escalating criminal behavior, tragedy and the struggle for justice.

Years earlier, from summer 1983 through January 1984, investigators believe Spencer committed a series of crimes including eight rapes in and near Arlington in what Foster describes as a “seven-month terroristic campaign.”

Those crimes culminated in Spencer’s first murder, in the 23rd Street S. home of lawyer Carolyn Hamm.

That January, the attacks abruptly stopped, only to resume in September 1987 with the rape and murder of Debbie Davis, a 35-year-old Richmond resident.

As Foster relays in the podcast, Arlington County detective Joe Horgas discovered that this timeline lined up with a prison stint for Spencer — he was arrested for an Alexandria burglary in January 1984, and released to a halfway house in Richmond in September 1987.

When Horgas visited the halfway house in Richmond, he found something else. Spencer had been signed out of the house when each of the murders occurred, and he had furlough to visit his mother in Arlington when Susan Tucker was killed.

Arlington detectives arrested Spencer in Richmond on Jan. 20, 1988 with a grand jury indictment for burglary, rape and murder.

Spencer was never tried for the 1983-84 crimes or for Hamm’s murder. The DNA left behind at the Hamm murder scene had degraded beyond usefulness, and he had received death sentences for the other murders.

But Spencer’s implication in the Hamm case led Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles to pardon David Vasquez, who had been sentenced to 35 years in prison for Hamm’s murder after submitting an Alford plea — not admitting guilt, but conceding that there was enough evidence to convict him.

Vasquez’s sentence “was an obvious miscarriage of justice and it’s very sad,” Foster said. “[Vasquez] was a man who functioned at about the level of a 10-year-old depending on the situation.”

The Spencer case, in spite of its significance, seems to be “one of those cases that… fell through the cracks, historically,” Foster said.

At the time, DNA evidence was quite new to the courtroom, and there was uncertainty over whether juries would accept it. This case “made it so it wasn’t as difficult to put on DNA cases… in the future,” Foster said.

Without DNA evidence in Spencer’s trials, “I definitely don’t think they would’ve gotten the four convictions they got,” Foster said. “I think that would’ve been a lot tougher.”

Spencer was executed April 27, 1994 — the last person in Virginia to be put to death with the electric chair.

Photo via Facebook


Signature Theatre’s annual Sizzlin’ Summer Nights cabaret series will return tomorrow (Thursday) in Shirlington with a performance from the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C.

Cabarets run for approximately one hour. Tickets for individual performances are $35 and all-access passes are available for $175.

The first ten cabarets are listed below. The full schedule may be found on Signature Theatre’s website, and performances run through Aug. 4.

  • July 19 (8 p.m.) — The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C.: It Takes Two
  • July 20 (7 p.m.) — Rochelle Rice: American Remix
  • July 20 (9 p.m.) — Mason Cabaret: An Evening with Stephen Sondheim
  • July 21 (7 p.m. and 9 p.m.) — Bob McDonald: Best of Bob
  • July 22 (5 p.m.) — Monumental Theatre: Flip Flop, A Miscast Cabaret
  • July 22 (7 p.m.) — Nova Y. Payton and Mark G. Meadows: Hotter than July
  • July 24 (8 p.m.) — Awa Sal Secka: Soul Divas
  • July 25 (8 p.m.) — Nova Y. Payton and Mark G. Meadows: Hotter than July
  • July 26 (8 p.m.) — Erin Driscoll: Ladies’ Night

The Washington Post has noted Signature Theatre’s cabaret series for lending the stage to out-of-town performers and promoting cabaret in the D.C. area. The Signature Theatre’s productions are routinely recognized as among the region’s best — they have won 107 Helen Hayes Awards and received 411 nominations.

Photos courtesy Signature Theatre


Located on the fourth floor of Le Meridien Arlington (1121 19th Street N.) is a new rooftop restaurant aiming to be a “food truck on steroids,” in the words of general manager Calvin Ware.

The Yard celebrated its grand opening Friday (July 13) with a DJ and Washington Redskins cornerback Greg Stroman. The venue is open to both hotel guests and members of the public.

Weekly specials include Margarita Mondays ($6 margaritas) and Taco Tuesdays (buy one, get one tacos). This Tuesday (July 24), they’ll celebrate National Tequila Day with $5 “Yardaritas” from 4-6 p.m. Menu offerings include sliders, tacos and frosé (frozen rosé), and games like cornhole are set up for patrons.

Ware envisions eventually adding artificial grass to make the venue feel more like a backyard.

For now, they “definitely want to be the place to be in Rosslyn,” Ware said. The Yard is open Monday through Friday from 4-1o p.m.


The Virginia Department of Transportation is looking to “developers, planners, futurists, big data lovers and problem solvers” to help address the state’s biggest transportation questions.

Today (July 17) and tomorrow, participants in VDOT’s second SmarterRoads Hackathon and Idea Jam Series will gather at startup incubator 1776’s Crystal City campus. They will use VDOT’s open data sets and SmarterRoads portal to develop projects.

Last year’s event, held in Virginia Beach, produced a mobile app capable of providing real-time traffic signal information and a system to optimize road pavement schedules, among other concepts.

Winners receive cash prizes up to $1,000 and some successful entrants will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas at a future workshop.

Virginia Secretary of Transportation Shannon Valentine will deliver a speech tomorrow afternoon, before the event wraps up with an awards ceremony at 4 p.m.

File photo


Bistro 1521 (900 N. Glebe Road) is back open after closing earlier this month due to lease defaults.

Posts to the restaurant’s social media pages on Friday announced that Bistro 1521 would be open Saturday (July 14). Since then, business has been good, general manager Solita Wakefield said.

The property’s landlord, the Virginia Tech Real Estate Foundation, briefly closed the eatery because it owed “some back rent,” Wakefield said.

But the landlord was “so willing to work with us,” and the restaurant is now “back on track,” Wakefield added.

Wakefield also noted that Bistro 1521 will celebrate its one-year anniversary next Sunday (July 29), and the Philippines’ ambassador to the U.S., Jose Manuel del Gallego Romualdez, plans to attend.


Arlington Agenda is a listing of interesting events for the week ahead in Arlington County. If you’d like to see your event featured, fill out the event submission form.

Also, be sure to check out our event calendar.

Tuesday, July 17

Adult Game Night
Westover Branch Library (1644 N. McKinley Road)
Time: 6-8 p.m.

Classic games like Life, Pictionary and Taboo will be available for a night full of friendly competition at the Westover Branch Library. No registration necessary.

Wednesday, July 18

History Talk: Julia Rhinehart: WWI Navy Yeomanette
Aurora Hills Library Branch (735 18th Street S.)
Time: 7-8:30 p.m.

Come learn about the life of Julia Rhinehart, a Glencarlyn resident who was one of the first women to enlist in U.S. Navy as a yeomanette during World War I. The event is free.

Thursday, July 19

Gentle Fitness in the Garden
Glencarlyn Branch Library (300 S. Kensington Street)
Time: 10-10:45 a.m.

Registered nurse and certified fitness trainer Kathleen Bardo will lead the fourth and final installment in this exercise series for older adults. Register here.

Friday, July 20

Columbia Pike Movie Nights: Toy Story
Arlington Mill Community Center (909 S. Dinwiddie Street)
Time: 8:30-10:30 p.m.

The Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization’s summer movie series continues this week with Toy Story. In case of inclement weather, check Facebook or Twitter for any cancellation announcement.

Saturday, July 21

Crystal City Twilighter 5K*
2121 Crystal Drive
Time: 8:30-10:30 p.m.

Race through the streets of Crystal City while avoiding daytime heat. Registration is open through race day, though there is a discount available through Wednesday.

*Denotes featured (sponsored) event


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