Favola’s Consulting Questioned by Challenger — “Is two-term Sen. Barbara Favola (D-31) a rising star, poised to become chairwoman of a Senate committee if Democrats seize control of the Senate? Or is she an opportunist capitalizing on insider influence for personal gain? That’s a question for voters this June in a primary that pits Favola against challenger Nicole Merlene.” [Arlington Connection]
Video: CCTV Sewer Inspections — Arlington County uses cameras inserted into manholes to inspect its sanitary and storm sewers for cracks and other problems. [YouTube]
Another Arlington Cybersecurity Firm Acquired — “Arlington-based endpoint cybersecurity firm Endgame is being acquired by Netherlands-based search and data management firm Elastic N.V. for $234 million in stock and debt repayment, according to an announcement by the two companies.” [Washington Business Journal]
New Cybersecurity Firm Unveiled — “[Arlington-based] Kfivefour today emerged from stealth and announced the immediate availability of its full spectrum Red Team assessments, training and penetration testing services. Kfivefour is a private sector focused cybersecurity affiliate of Millennium Corporation, a defense contractor and cybersecurity company.” [PR Newswire]
Local Startup Founder Arrested — “[Former Arlington resident] Andrew Powers, the founder and CEO of communications technology firm CommuniClique Inc. — sometimes known as Clique API — has been arrested by the FBI, which has charged him with a felony for what it described as part of ‘a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.'” [Washington Business Journal]
Sangria with sweet potato fries and beet burger sliders at Buena Vida Social Club
Sangria at Buena Vida Social Club
Buena Vida Social Club in Clarendon
Fish taco setup at Buena Vida Social Club
Marijana Skerlic, general manager of Buena Vida Social Club
Sweet potato fries at Buena Vida Social Club
Beet burger sliders at Buena Vida Social Club
Beet burger sliders on the grill
Frozen margarita at Buena Vida Social Club
Chef at work in Buena Vida Social Club
Buena Vida Social Club rooftop lounge
Buena Vida Social Club rooftop lounge
The owner of Ambar and Baba in Clarendon is planning to open the last piece of a three-tier set of Mexican eateries at 2900 Wilson Blvd on Monday (June 10).
TTT Mexican Diner — a street food-style eatery on the first floor — and Buena Vida — a more traditional Mexico City dining experience — are both already open. But the rooftop cantina called Buena Vida Social Club will complete the set.
Ivan Iricanin, the owner of Buena Vida Social Club, is not Mexican, nor is general manager Marijana Skerlic. Both are Serbian, but worked together with celebrity chef Richard Sandoval, from whom they developed a passion for Mexican cuisine. For Buena Vida Social Club, Iricanin said he is working with chef Gerardo Vázquez Lugo, whose restaurant Nicos in Mexico City has earned acclaim.
The restaurant boasts a variety of seafood options and food from Acapulco with prices ranging from $9 to $16. Drinks range from cocktails served in fresh coconuts and frozen margaritas to agave-infused sangria, priced from $8 to $80.
The restaurant is open daily from 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Brunch hours on Saturdays and Sundays are planned to open sometime in July.
Opening restaurants in direct competition with each other can be hazardous, but Iricanin said he’s confident that the concepts for each of the Mexican eateries and the other nearby restaurants are distinct enough that they won’t poach each other’s business.
“I think Arlington needs a lounge,” said Skerlic. “This is not a sports bar. The whole place has the feel of a Mexican lounge. We want to give it a very social feel.”
Skerlic’s background is in tending bar, a job she’s worked since she was 17, so her passion is for the mix of new cocktails being offered at Buena Vida Social Club.
“I feel proud,” Skerlic said. “It’s not my restaurant, but to be able to run it… that feels special.”
New District Brewing Company has announced that Valley Fest will return on Sept. 29, but in the meantime, there’s honeysuckles to pick and a North-South Arlington grudge match to settle.
The event is planned to be held on the street outside the brewery at 2709 S. Oakland Street. Entrance is free with community arts and music planned for the festival, along with food and dessert trucks. A “beer package” is also available for $22, good for three tickets to sample New District beers.
Valley Fest started in 2017 as a smaller festival but expanded in 2018 as a plan to replace Capitol City Brewing’s Oktoberfest after the brewpub closed.
New District founder Mike Katrivanos told ARLnow that much of the festival will be similar to last year, but with a heavier focus on artists.
“We are getting a lot more artists this year,” Katrivanos said. “Last year, we did this cool thing where we had an artist do a piece featuring tires from the auto shops nearby. She actually made the tires into art pieces like wavy walls set up throughout the festival.”
This year, Katrivanos said he’s hoping to have a metalworking artist display their work at the festival. An artist hasn’t been selected yet — that’s expected to happen happen in July — so if anyone knows any metalworking artists they’re encouraged to reach out to the brewery for some potential work.
In the meantime, Katrivanos said there are some Arlington-focused events and features at the brewery.
“We did a North-South Arlington collaboration beer with The Board Room up in North Arlington,” said Katrivanos. “We called it Crossing Route 50. The North Arlington crowd doesn’t want to cross Route 50, so we tried to build a bridge.”
The beer is a grapefruit IPA, which Katrivanos described as having the aroma of dank citrus and tropical notes from the hops.
The other event coming up is the honeysuckle harvest, where the brewery takes 30-50 volunteers on a road trip to pick honeysuckle from various parts of Virginia. Mostly the group visits farms and parks, where honeysuckle — an invasive species — is seen as a weed.
“We bring it back to the brewery here and brew a honeysuckle hefeweizen with the fresh flowers,” said Katrivanos. “It captures all the aromatics — captures the sweet flavor of the honeysuckle and reminds you of Virginia summer. That beer is one of our beers people know us by. We’re actively campaigning for that now and we’ll be picking honeysuckle.”
For anyone interested in a weekend honeysuckle road trip, Katrivanos said to contact Michael Sutherland at [email protected].
After five years of churning out pies for wholesale in the basement kitchen of 2803 Columbia Pike, Acme Pie Company has moved up to the street level and opened a retail pie shop.
In every sense, the store is the product of its founder Sol Schott — from the throwback ’30s aesthetic to some of the unorthodox choices in pies. But more than pastries, Schott has visions of Acme as a community gathering place in a classic Americana sense.
“One of the things I wanted to do with this place is I wanted to do exactly what I wanted to do,” said Schott. “I wanted it to be mine, from concept to everything, for good or bad. I wanted to see if I could do something exactly how I wanted to do it.”
Schott said visually, the store is based on Woolworth’s lunch counters from the 1930s. The wall art over the sound absorbers on the wall is inspired by Depression-era art from the Works Progress Administration. More often than not, when you walk in, the 1936 film serial Flash Gordon will be playing.
Acme Pie Company is only open from 3-9 p.m. during weekdays (except Monday, when it’s closed) and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on weekends, but the baking process starts as early at 5 a.m. and can take much of the day.
The pie shop had previously operated inside Twisted Vines Bar and Bottleshop. But when that restaurant closed, Schott said he had to take a risk and move into retail. The Acme Pie Company’s retail shop opened in April.
“It’s been a big transition,” said Schott. “I’m not so much of a retail guy as I am a baker, that’s my history and passion. But it’s been going well. I enjoy talking to customers and dealing with people, that sort of thing. It’s been fun and it’s been successful.”
The pie shop is a change for Schott in more than one way. He admitted that a little over a decade ago, he was dubious about the prospect of making pies.
“I don’t want to say I hated making pie, but I didn’t know how to do it very well,” Schott said. “This was 16 years ago. We were buying the pies, and at some point [the retailer] decided she didn’t want to wholesale them anymore, so I realized… ‘damnit, I’m going to have to make pies.’ I didn’t have an appreciation for it, it was a pain in the neck. But I’d spent a lot of time making these pies, and learning to do it really well.”
Eventually, Schott gained an appreciation for the art and realized that he could carve out his own piece of the pie in a market crowded with other pastry chefs.
“I knew I could do that with pies, because most pastry chefs haven’t spent the time learning to make pies because they’re European trained, like myself, and that’s a different skill set,” Scott said. “I realized that I could wholesale sell them to places that wouldn’t buy anything else. They have bakers and cake guys and scones and cookies and muffins, but a real lack of quality pie.”
Now, Schott says they’re churning out around 20,000 pies a year, and Schott said every one of those pies tells a story. The blackberry pies — Schott’s favorite — are inspired by going blackberry picking and making the pies with his mother as a child. The cherry pies are made with materials from an Amish family in upstate New York.
Working out of a shop has allowed Schott to also experiment with more types of pie than he could when he was working wholesale.
Local students, teachers and friends are invited to dine on Arlington-planted and grown lettuce at an event this week.
The Reevesland Learning Garden — part of the park that was split from the now-privately-owned Reevesland farmhouse — is planning a “Fiesta Salad-Bration” on Friday (June 7) from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at Ashlawn Elementary School (5950 8th Road N.). The salad celebration is a twice-yearly program.
“Hundreds of Ashlawn Elementary students and neighbors have planted and grown a huge crop of luscious organic lettuces in the Reevesland Learning Garden and in three neighborhoods that will be served at the Fiesta Salad-Bration for more than 800 students, teachers and Arlington friends,” Joan Horwitt, president of the Reevesland Learning Center, said in an email.
Horwitt noted that the salad will also include a vinaigrette dressing made by Ashlawn neighbor and Reevesland volunteer Ron Battocchi.
Arlington is looking for public input on a plan to use energy more efficiently.
Tonight (June 4) from 7-9 p.m. at the Central Library Auditorium (1015 N Quincy Street), county staff plan to host an open house during which the community can ask questions or offer feedback on an update to the county’s Community Energy Plan (CEP).
Goals for the project include:
Increase the energy and operational efficiency of all buildings: By 2050, the plan aims to have total building energy usage in Arlington be 38 percent lower than in 2007. In the report, staff says both code-required reductions for buildings and incentives for voluntary efficiencies — a carrot and stick approach — will be required.
Ensure Arlington’s energy resilience: The report notes — and anyone in Ballston two weeks ago can confirm — Arlington’s energy infrastructure is vulnerable to extreme weather and other factors. The report says Arlington will need to use new technologies to rely on more local sources of energy and potentially establish “microgrids” to make critical pieces of infrastructure like Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and the Virginia Hospital Center more independent from blackouts across the county.
Increase locally generated energy supply: The plan aims to have Arlington County follow the example of Discovery Elementary, which won accolades for using all its energy generated on-site, and establish more solar energy collectors and other green energy sites across Arlington.
Move more people with fewer greenhouse gas emissions: The goal here is fairly self-explanatory, but the general idea is to get more Arlingtonians using buses, bicycles, and other non-car means of transportation, while encouraging those who are required to use cars to shift toward hybrid and energy-efficient vehicles.
Integrate energy goals into all county government activities: The report says Arlington should aim at having government facilities reduce CO2 emissions to 71 percent below their 2007 levels by 2040. The approach would involve a mix of smaller efficiencies in energy and water usage and larger shifts in making new government facilities more energy efficient from a design standpoint.
Support residents and businesses that reduce energy usage: The final goal of the report involves using county staff and resources to help encourage locals — from individuals to business owners — find ways to rethink energy usage in their own lives.
“We invite the community to drop in and spend as much time as needed to learn about the draft CEP update, CEP implementation details, and provide feedback on the proposed changes to the 2013 CEP,” Rich Dooley, Arlington’s community energy coordinator, said in an email.
A ribbon-cutting celebration of the new program is planned for 4:30 p.m. on Thursday (June 6), according to a press release.
Aspire! launched a campaign in 2016 to finance a 7,300 square-foot expansion. The expansion ultimately cost $1 million.
“Words can’t express how thrilled and grateful we are to achieve this amazing feat, thanks to the incredible generosity of our partners, donors, and supporters,” said Aspire! Board Chair Steve Manlove in the press release. “This truly has been the most amazing public-private partnership between Aspire! and Arlington County, with invaluable support [of sponsors].”
The summer camp at the facility is planned to open on July 1 for 120 children. Aspire!’s Learning ROCKS! Program for upper-elementary students is planned to return in the fall.
“Aspire!’s new home at the Arlington Mill Community Center is the next step in a great partnership with Arlington County,” said Jane Rudolph, Arlington County director of Parks and Recreation, in the press release.”As a permanent fixture at Arlington Mill, Aspire! will continue to empower students through their after school and summer programs and bring energy and inspiration to this well-loved intergenerational community center.”
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.
Tinkering with the virtual structure of a company can be hazardous, so instead, Ballston-based startup HyperQube will make a digital clone of a company and then subject it to every horrible cyberattack known to man.
“Being able to rapidly clone entire infrastructure, including the networking, allows enterprises to test in ways that used to be too expensive,” Craig Stevenson, founder and CEO, told ARLnow. “Before HyperQube, probing an enterprise’s defenses was costly and dangerous, since you are probing real systems which can’t be taken offline. Now, you could spin up hundreds of exact copies of an enterprise’s defenses and probe them both risk-free and simultaneously, saving massive amounts of effort and eliminating the risk of taking a production system offline.”
HyperQube describes the virtual environment as “alternate realities” that allow users to test, play and break to their hearts’ desire.
The ability to clone digital structures isn’t new, but Stevenson said HyperQube allows the clones to be built and modified quickly.
Various products focus on different scales and targets, like Hyperskill — which uses the cloning method to allow instructors and students to tinker with real systems without potential consequences.
The startup launched in January 2018 after participating in the local cybersecurity accelerator Mach37.
HyperQube ran an event last year where they invited hackers to come participate in a digital competition where, once a platform was shut down, the hackers wrote out detailed explanations of their exploits and offered suggestions on how to fix them.
The company recently signed partnerships with the National Guard, Department of Homeland Security, Cisco and other groups. Stevenson said more partnerships were on their way soon, but couldn’t announce any further details. HyperQube also raised $500,000 in seed funding, which is going toward sales, development and new hires.
Stevenson said Arlington has been a great place to run a cyber startup.
“For us, being within 40 minutes of a customer in D.C. or our data center in Ashburn, makes Arlington ideal,” said Stevenson.
Kora — an Italian eatery at 2250 Crystal Drive in Crystal City — seems closed, but with no visible indication of whether the closure permanent or not.
In addition to the doors being locked and the website saying “closed,” staff at Jaleo — the tapas restaurant next door — said the restaurant had been closed for at least a couple of weeks.
Kora bills itself as a restaurant, bar and lounge, with a menu offering various pizzas and pastas. The restaurant was founded by Morou Ouattara, a quasi-celebrity chef who also owns Lily and the Cactus in D.C.’s NoMa neighborhood.
The restaurant was most recently in the news this past January when it, along with several other Crystal City restaurants, offered free food for federal employees affected by the shutdown.
Both Twisted Vines and BrickHaus closed last year, which at the time Wagner said was part of a plan to regroup and focus on the new Josephine’s Italian Kitchen. All of the restaurants were located within a few blocks of each other on Columbia Pike, where Wagner lives.
Wagner said the decision to close was brought about by family issues and he hopes that the closure will allow him more time to focus on other priorities.
Following the closure, Wagner said he’s still on the lookout for new opportunities in the area, but for now, there’s nothing planned.
Wagner is still deciding what to do with the neon “Gelato” sign in Josephine’s, which he called the “most Instagrammed” thing in the restaurant.
Oliver Freeman’s goal is to have at least one Arlingtonian on a World Cup-winning team by 2030.
Freeman’s soccer program, Love the Ball, is launching its first Arlington camp this summer in a partnership with the Arlington Dept. of Parks and Recreation.
The four-day camp is planned to run from July 22-26 at Kenmore Middle School (202 S. Carlin Springs Road).
“Most of the time, we are doing soccer, but one thing that really interests me when we came to this country is soccer is not number one,” said Freeman. “It’s not the most important sport. Looking outside, I don’t see kids playing that. Back home in England, that’s all kids do.”
Every day is themed around a different country and technique, like a Brazil-themed day focused on dribbling or a Germany-themed day focused on passing. Freeman said kids are encouraged to wear clothing or colors from that country on those days.
The camp is aimed at kids ages 4-12 and costs $250 for full-day classes.
According to the program’s website, Freeman coached with the famous Chelsea Football Club in the U.K., coaching players in community sessions, holiday camps and advanced centers.
The Love the Ball program started in Britain in 2012 and came to the U.S. in 2016. Freeman said over the last few years they’ve seen growth and currently have 10 coaches working in about 20 schools throughout the region, but this is the first year the program has operated in Arlington.
Freeman said being chosen as a partner by the parks department is a strenuous process, but he’s hoping if this year goes well the program can expand with more camps. The partnership promotes Love the Ball through Arlington’s summer camp catalog and gives them access to the Kenmore Middle School field.
“I really hope to instill a love for the game,” Freeman said. “It’s not just a camp. Hopefully, they go home and start kicking the ball around. They have to do stuff on their own time if they’re going to be good at it.”
For the most part, Freeman said he’s also yielded to the American terminology of “soccer” rather than “football.”
“You have to choose your battles,” said Freeman. “Unfortunately, kids get too confused. If you say football, they’ll start trying to grab the ball. Sometimes I have kids from South America or Europe, and I call it football to them and their parents.”
