Wakefield High School students will soon have a new way of getting to and from school: Capital Bikeshare.
A new CaBi station with eleven bike docks was approved unanimously at the Jan. 9 School Board meeting. The station will be placed near the other bicycle racks on the southern side of the school, along S. Dinwiddie Street.
The agreement between Arlington Public Schools and Capital Bikeshare is effective for five years, with an automatic renewal thereafter. The agreement specifies that the Capital Bikeshare is responsible for the costs of setting up the station and maintenance.
There are nearly 100 Capital Bikeshare stations in Arlington, with a number of other stations in the works across the county. There are several stations not far from Wakefield, along Four Mile Run Drive, Columbia Pike, and around Shirlington.
The plans did not include a timeframe for when the new station will be implemented. A school spokesman said the timeline will be determined by the Capital Bikeshare.
The Pinemoor in Clarendon (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
The Pinemoor in Clarendon (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
The Pinemoor in Clarendon (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
Almost a year after signs for The Pinemoor went up at 1101 N. Highland Street, it looks like progress is being made on the new southern restaurant.
The restaurant replacing Clarendon Grill was originally planned to open last summer, according to signs, but that date came and passed without news. Now, signs of life: the restaurant has recently filed permits to serve alcohol and inside, the restaurant sports new decorations and furnishings.
The Pinemoor is described online as a “cousin” to Copperwood Tavern, a “farm-to-table American restaurant and craft bar” in Shirlington (4021 Campbell Avenue) and, most recently, Ashburn (20465 Exchange Street).
“Copperwood Tavern has a new cousin in the oven and she’s a Southern pistol,” The Pinemoor’s website says. “The Pinemoor is a farm-to-table American restaurant coming soon to Clarendon.”
Emails to Pinemoor’s owner seeking comment have thus far not been returned. It’s not yet known when the restaurant will open.
The new restaurant is at the corner of Wilson Blvd and N. Quincy Street in what was onceTaylor Gourmet.
LEBTAV doesn’t have all the same full-service items as the two other Lebanese Taverna locations in Arlington, in Westover (5900 Washington Blvd) and Pentagon Row (1101 S. Joyce Street). The location offers sandwiches, like shawarma and falafel, and rice bowls for around $10.
The hours are not posted online, but other LEBTAV locations are open from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. The new option will be a homegrown addition to the increasingly crowded Ballston lunch scene, which includes a CAVA restaurant down the street that has similar offerings and is frequently packed.
(Updated at 4:30 p.m on 11/02/20)Gallery Clarendon, a temporary art space at 2800 Clarendon Blvd, has announced that it will be closing to make way for a new pizza restaurant from New England.
The gallery, a project from the Arlington Artists Alliance, opened at Market Common Clarendon in June 2018 as a way to fill the space until a permanent tenant could be found. At the time, the Arlington Artists Alliance told ARLnow they expected to be open for roughly a year.
The gallery will close at the end of February, the Alliance said.
In May of 2018, with modest expectations and a solely volunteer effort, the Arlington Artists Alliance turned the empty storefront on the corner of Clarendon Blvd. and N. Fillmore into a gallery and artist studios for 50+ local Arlington artists. The positive feedback we received from the community was heartwarming and overwhelming… It was a wonderful experience for the artists and we thank each and every one of you who visited our gallery and studios or attended a class in Clarendon.
A pair of shows currently on display, called Catharsis and Kaleidoscope, will be the final exhibits at the gallery. Both shows are scheduled to have an opening reception tomorrow (Friday). Catharsis’ reception is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. while Kaleidoscope will start at 5 p.m., with both scheduled to finish around 7 p.m.
The Arlington Artists Alliance is currently hoping to find a new home in North Arlington, though its Gallery Underground location in Crystal City remains open.
Cherise Goldbach, general manager of Market Common Clarendon owner Regency Centers, said the new tenant in the space is Colony Grill, a small chain of thin-crust pizza-focused restaurants primarily based out of Connecticut.
The company’s website says it offers a one-size (12-inch) thin-crust cheese pizza, with signature spicy hot oil, and a variety of toppings. The chain also has a salad pizza — the company’s thin crust topped with salad fixings — with no cheese or sauce unless requested.
It will be the only Colony Grill location outside of Connecticut and New York, according to the company’s website. The first Colony Grill opened in an Irish immigrant neighborhood of Stamford, Connecticut in 1935.
“Everyone at Colony Grill is extremely excited to open in Clarendon later in 2020,” said Ken Martin, COO of Colony Grill, said in an email forwarded to ARLnow. “During our search, we absolutely fell in love with the greater Arlington area. It is simply a remarkable part of the country. We look forward to introducing our unique pizza to the neighborhood and becoming a part of the community fabric for years to come.”
Bumble Coffee, a mix of espresso, orange juice, and caramel at This is Fine Coffee (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
This is Fine Coffee (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
This is Fine Coffee owners Anna Tsybko (left) and Jason Blevins (right) (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
This is Fine Coffee (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
This is Fine Coffee interior (photo via Facebook)
This is Fine Coffee logo (photo via Facebook)
Okay, hear me out: orange juice, espresso and a dash of caramel over ice.
Reactions in the ARLnow office were mostly negative, but the reporter who actually tasted it at the new This is Fine Coffee in Clarendon now swears by it.
The small coffee shop — which replacedBlümen Cafe at 2607 Wilson Blvd. — had its soft opening today, but co-owners Jason Blevins and Anna Tsybko said they’ve already started seeing more customers than they were expecting.
Blevins chalks some of that up to his Java Shack background: he worked at Java Shack from 2012 to 2014, before the local coffee shop was taken over by Commonwealth Joe and ultimately closed last year. Blevins said he wanted This is Fine Coffee to have a laid-back vibe similar to Java Shack and to serve as a local gathering place and an exhibition space for artists, some of whom already have art on display in the cafe.
Many of the customers at This is Fine Coffee are former Java Shack regulars, Blevins said, at which point two of the customers nodded in confirmation.
The signature drink at This is Fine Coffee is bumble coffee, the aforementioned orange juice/espresso/caramel mix. This is Fine Coffee’s owners said it’s a popular drink in Russia and Ukraine, where Tsybko is from and where Blevins spent time working on a documentary.
The contents can sound off-putting, so Tsybko says she sometimes makes it for friends and gets them to try it before saying what’s in it. But Tsybko and Blevins fell in love with the drink there and decided to bring it back home to Arlington.
While it sometimes feels like you can’t shake a stick along Wilson Blvd without hitting a dozen coffee shops, Tsybko and Blevins said the intensely personal feeling of This is Fine Coffee sets it apart.
“Many of the decorations here are from our apartment,” Tsybko said.
“We’re not a chain, or aspiring to be a chain,” Blevins said.
The pair said the name is an allusion to the decidedly unpretentious atmosphere of the cafe. Tsybko said it was sort of a self-aware reflection of the way people talk about where they want to meet and get coffee.
While a lot of new coffee shops are very into the science and classification of coffee and the idea of coffee mixing as an art form, Blevins said the name is a throwback to coffee shops as a community-oriented place where people can pull up a laptop and work or meet up with friends.
Virginia Hospital Center in Crystal City (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
Virginia Hospital Center in Crystal City (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
(Updated at 11:30 a.m.) Virginia Hospital Center recently opened a new immediate care facility in the Crystal City area, but plans are already in the works to expand the facilities.
“Virginia Hospital Center Immediate Care will be adding family medicine and OB/GYN care (by appointment) in coming months,” a spokesperson told ARLnow in an email.
Staff at the center said the plan is to start offering primary care services in June.
The center at 764 23rd Street S., which opened earlier this month, currently operates as an immediate care facility for non-emergency conditions. This includes things like colds and flus, minor lacerations or burns, and ear, eye or urinary infections.
The new location will put Virginia Hospital Center services within scooter distance of Amazon’s new HQ2.
VHC currently offers primary care treatment at its main hospital campus (1625 N. George Mason Drive) and in Shirlington (2800 Shirlington Road). The hospital earlier this week started providing trauma services at its Emergency Room.
Tacos Mexicano, né Goody’s pizzeria (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
Tacos Mexicano, né Goody’s pizzeria (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
Tacos Mexicano, né Goody’s pizzeria (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
Don’t be fooled by the signs on the building, the notoriously green shack in Clarendon is still long-time local pizzeria Goody’s.
The “Goody’s NY Style Pizzeria” sign has been taken down from the building at 3125 Wilson Blvd. and replaced with a sign that says “Tacos Mexicano,” while the windows advertise tacos and pupusas. Inside, however, there’s still rows of pizza and staff still call it Goody’s.
While Goody’s has sold tacos for nearly a year, according to their Facebook page, a manager at the restaurant said the sign change was reflective of a new emphasis on the Mexican cuisine. In addition to the classic “two slices of pizza and a soda for $5.99” deal, the restaurant also offers quesadillas, tacos, burritos and more.
The majority of the menu, however, remains various types of pizza like Goody’s Deluxe — pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, onions — as well as subs and burgers.
Goody’s changed hands in 2018 after its original owners retired. It reopened with new owners, whose colorful new mural on the diminutive building at 3125 Wilson Blvd didn’t fly with county regulators. It was later re-painted red and two shades of green.
New Aroma location at 4044 Campbell Avenue in 2020 (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
CVS under construction at 4052 Campbell Avenue (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
CVS under construction at 4052 Campbell Avenue (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
CVS under construction at 4052 Campbell Avenue (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
Shirlington restaurant Aroma Indian Cuisine is planning to reopen later this month, immediately adjacent to the carved-out husk of its old space.
The new Aroma at 4044 Campbell Avenue — where Hula Girl Bar and Grill was until it closed in September — is nearly complete, manager Jose Rios told ARLnow. Rios said the plan is for the restaurant to open sometime around Tuesday, Jan. 21.
The new bar will have a totally different alcohol setup, with a full counter for seating, Rios said, and a few new dishes are being added to the menu, though that hasn’t been finalized yet.
Aroma was one of several restaurants on the corner of Campbell Avenue and S. Randolph Street that moved or closed to make way for a new CVS. Ping by Charlie Chiang’s, the restaurant on the corner, closed in 2018 while Cheesetique moved to a larger location down the block at 4024 Campbell Avenue.
Construction is still underway inside the 10,906 square-foot space, but Rios said the CVS is scheduled to open sometime this spring.
Editor’s Note: 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.
DivvyCloud, an Arlington startup specializing in cloud-based cybersecurity, is planning to more than double in size with a move into a new much larger new headquarters in Courthouse.
It’s is far from the only cybersecurity company working in Arlington, but DivvyCloud carved out a niche as a cloud-focused security option that not only fixes gaps in security coverage but makes it easier for a company to see where its security is weakest.
Today (Monday) the company moved into a new 13,000 square foot office at 2111 Wilson Blvd, an office over six-times larger than its old 2,000 square foot office in Rosslyn. In a press release, CEO and co-founder Brian Johnson said the office expansion is a result of adding new employees, with more expected down the road.
“[Since 2018] the company has grown from 20 to 55 local employees — an increase of 175 percent — and plans to reach at least 120 employees within the next year,” Johnson said.
New DivvyCloud offices at 2111 Wilson Blvd (photo courtesy DivvyCloud)
New DivvyCloud offices at 2111 Wilson Blvd (photo courtesy DivvyCloud)
The company has netted some sizable investments over the last year, along with new contracts with customers from Pizza Hut to Fannie Mae. In an email to ARLnow, Johnson said the expansion is justified by an increasing need in cloud-based coverage — particularly in light of recent major data breaches.
“In our recent report, we found that 77% percent of respondents reported having two or more clouds, yet less than half of respondents were able to accurately identify the risk of misconfiguration in public cloud as higher than the risk in traditional IT environments,” Johnson said. “Countless major data breaches, including Honda and Capital One, have been caused by misconfigurations just in 2019 alone. As a result, more and more companies are realizing the need for an effective solution to prevent misconfigurations and properly secure cloud and container infrastructure.”
Weenie Beenie was recently commemorated in an Arlington mural, but the shack near Shirlington has a surprising history involving gambling winnings and a beef with a popular D.C. restaurant.
Founded as a simple hot-dog stand in the 1950s in Green Valley at 2680 Shirlington Road, Weenie Beenie’s current incarnation was the creation of gambling legend Bill “Weenie Beenie” Stanton, lauded as the “one of the premier gentleman gamblers of pocket billiards” aka pool.
According to the Arlington Public Library, Staton took $27,000 in winnings from a gambling trip to Arkansas and used it to purchase the hot dog stand in 1960.
There was, at one point, several Weenie Beenies throughout the area, but the only one remaining is the one just north of Four Mile Run.
The storefront boasts that Weenie Beenie is the home of the original half-smoke — a local sausage variant popularized by Weenie Beenie rivalBen’s Chili Bowl in D.C. Also offered: North Carolina style barbecue and breakfast served all day.
A state organization aimed at helping Virginians identify unclaimed property will set up a booth next week to help locals find previously unknown money.
On Thursday (Oct. 3) from noon to 5 p.m. and on Friday (Oct. 4) from 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m., the Virginia Department of the Treasury’s program VA Money Search is scheduled to set up in the lobby of the county government building at 2100 Clarendon Blvd.
With a name like “vamoneysearch.org” and a mascot of a man in a trench coat, the program would seem a little suspicious, but Stephanie Shea, a spokesperson for the Arlington County Treasurer’s office, said the program is operated by the state government.
“The Treasury is mandated to try to find the rightful owners of money that is unclaimed,” Shea said. “There is no fee for this service, it’s totally free. We invite everyone to stop by the team’s table in the lobby of 2100 Clarendon Blvd to find money.”
Last year, Shea said the organization found $68,026.68 in one day.
“Last year one County employee found over $3,000,” Shea said. “Money is found from closed bank accounts, insurance policies, wages from an old job, etc.”
A press release from the program said that overall it returned $79 million to Virginia citizens in 2018. According to the release:
Unclaimed Property can be generated in nearly every financial transaction with any company. Property becomes unclaimed when the holder company has not had contact with the owner of the property or funds for a specified time, then the account is considered dormant. Dormant accounts by law must be turned over to the state… Unclaimed Property stays in our database until the rightful owner or heir files a claim.
