business closing

Little Beet Has Closed in Rosslyn

By ARLnow.com
1/2

Fast-casual vegetarian restaurant Little Beet has closed permanently in Rosslyn.

The eatery opened three years ago at 1800 N. Lynn Street. At the time it was the second Little Beet location in the D.C. area for the growing New York-based chain.

A sign on the door suggests that while the Rosslyn location is closing, more Little Beets are on the way for the region.

“As we continue to grow our presence in the D.C. metro area, we are sad to announce that our Rosslyn location will be closing its doors,” the sign says. Part of our mission is to spread food knowledge and change the perception of vegetable-forward meals. Now it’s time for us to plant new seeds in different neighborhoods.”

“We’ll be expanding in this area in the near future and hope to see you at our 2021 openings,” the sign continues. “Thank you for an amazing journey, Rosslyn!”

Currently, Little Beet’s website lists no open locations in D.C. or Virginia, though the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City still lists a Little Beet location there — which opened late last year — on the mall directory.

Staff photos by Jay Westcott. Hat tip to @mikeywl.

Pharmacy on Wilson Blvd To Close Permanently

By Joseph Ramos

Arlington Pharmacy, at 5513 Wilson Blvd in the Bluemont neighborhood, will close permanently later this month, owner Henry Herring tells ARLnow.

The drug store’s last day in business is set for Wednesday, September 23.

Herring said he bought the pharmacy last year from founder Won Lee, who opened it in 2001. The pharmacy was struggling when he bought it, according to Herring, and a recovery didn’t work out the way he had hoped.

All existing prescriptions will be moved to another pharmacy, likely the one inside the nearby Bluemont Safeway on Wilson Blvd. Customers can also call to move their prescriptions to the pharmacy of their choice.

Herring also owns Medical Center Speciality Pharmacy, a compounding pharmacy in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Image via Google Maps

Columbia Pike Donut Shop Has Closed Permanently

By ARLnow.com
1/3

The former Sugar Shack Donuts along Columbia Pike will not be reopening, after the restaurant’s owner filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

The Washington Business Journal reports that former state lawmaker Rob Krupicka — a Sugar Shack franchisee who was in the process of rebranding his locations as an independent, plant-based cafe called Elizabeth’s Counter when the pandemic struck and forced them to close — has declared bankruptcy and shuttered the 1014 S. Glebe Road location in Arlington for good.

The store originally opened in 2016.

Krupicka’s D.C. location is also closed permanently, but he hopes to keep the now-rebranded Elizabeth’s Counter location at 804 N. Henry Street in Alexandria open with an expanded outdoor dining area, the Business Journal reports.

The nearest donut shop to the former Arlington Sugar Shack is a Dunkin Donuts inside a gas station at 3100 Columbia Pike.

Crystal City Legal Sea Foods in Questionable Waters

By Vernon Miles
1/3

The future is murky for Legal Sea Foods in Crystal City after the company took the location off its official list of restaurants.

The webpage for the Crystal City location now redirects to the chain’s Reagan National Airport outpost. Similarly, the Legal Sea Foods location in D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood has been removed from the company’s list, and its webpage now redirects to that of the Legal Sea Bar in Union Station.

The removal of the D.C. and Arlington restaurants from the locations page was done within the past month; as recently as July 28 both were still listed.

All Legal locations in the D.C. area remain closed, at least temporarily, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company’s locations in its home market of Massachusetts, by contrast, started reopening in June.

While the front door to the Crystal City Legal Sea Foods has a sign up saying the closure is temporary, a source with knowledge of the matter tells ARLnow that it has indeed closed permanently.

The company, which is suing its insurer over the denial of business interruption claims caused by the pandemic, could not be reached for comment.

As one door on the block closes, however, another opens. The neighboring Bowlero at 320 23rd Street S. opened in July.

New Clarendon Smoke Shop Replacing Classic Cigars and British Goodies

By Vernon Miles
1/3

Long-time local store Classic Cigars and British Goodies in Clarendon (2907 Wilson Blvd) is closed for good, but a new smoking accouterment vendor is planning a move into the same location with an inventory that will pay respect to the late Anglophile establishment.

“Smoke Source Tobacco and Vape is excited to open their fifth location on the highly populated Clarendon Blvd,” Kelsey Sharp, a spokesperson for the regional chain, told ARLnow.

Smoke Source Tobacco and Vape has other locations in Northern Virginia, including in Manassas, Chantilly and Fairfax, but the new store will be a little different in an homage to Classic Cigars and British Goodies, which closed in March and never reopened.

“Not only will the new store provide tobacco and vape products and accessories but also offer a variety of cigar brands including Padròn, Montecristo and Davidoff and continue to stock specialty British goods as well as an assortment of craft beer and wine,” Sharp said. “The store is under new ownership but, in an effort to please the current customer base, Smoke Source Tobacco and Vape will continue to stock the British goodies as well as expand their inventory.”

The store is currently still stocked with the remaining Classic Cigars and British Goodies supply — including bottled drinks, teas, biscuits and candies imported from the UK — but that could change over the new few months.

“The new store is currently undergoing a full refresh and hopes to be open by the end of this summer,” Sharp said.

Lou Lou Boutiques to Close Clarendon Location

By ARLnow.com

Signs are up for a “store closing sale” at Lou Lou, a clothing boutique in Clarendon.

The store at 2839 Clarendon Blvd opened five years ago, selling fashionable clothes and a variety of accessories, like scarves, necklaces, purses and bracelets.

A store-wide sale is being held from now until Saturday, Aug. 15.

“Though we are sad to leave our clients in the Clarendon area, we are excited to offer them a great last two weeks of exclusive deals,” said company spokeswoman Michelle McNaughton, “and will continue to welcome them at our other
locations nearby in Fairfax, Alexandria, and D.C.”

Lou Lou is owned by Middleburg, Va.-based West Federal Retail, which operates 29 boutiques in the D.C. area and along the East Coast. More about the store from a press release:

Lou lou Boutiques is a local, family owned, retailer in business in the Northern Virginia area for over 15 years. Celebrating small business and local retailers is a passion of this woman’s fashion accessory brand. Through their Local Partnership program, lou lou features local artists and vendors in all store locations. Lou lou encourages their customers to continue to shop small and support our local neighborhoods. “It is truly the loyalty of our customers that make retail possible right now and we thank them for their continued to support.”

File photo

Aabee Express Closes at Pentagon Row

By Vernon Miles

While other restaurants at Pentagon Row have reopened with social distancing, Aabee Express (1101 S. Joyce Street) has closed after nearly two years in business.

The restaurant focused on healthy Mediterranean cuisine with vegetarian options and earned a 4.5-star rating on Yelp.

Staff at the restaurant was packing up the appliances last week as the location was being emptied. Employees said the restaurant is looking at reopening somewhere near their current location, but no plans have been finalized as of yet for when or where that could happen.

Just around the corner, Champps closed earlier this summer as a result of the pandemic.

Staff photo by Vernon Miles

Longtime Lee Highway Shoe Repair Shop Closing Soon

By Vernon Miles

It would be easy to blame closing down shop on COVID-19, but Jojo Tchalekian doesn’t. When Sam Torrey Shoe Service at 5267 Lee Highway closes on July 31 after 75 years in business, Tchalekian says it will be a long time coming.

Tchalekian is closing down the brick and mortar location that he and his father took over in 1986 from the original owners — who founded the store in 1945 — but he said he will continue to work on garment repairs remotely.

“I’ll still be resuming business, but not in the storefront,” Tchalekian said. “Everything is going to be online.”

Tchalekian is planning to move to the Outer Banks area of North Carolina. The closure had been in the works for a while, but Tchalekian admitted that coronavirus sped things along.

“We haven’t had much business in five months, which gave me the opportunity to clean up the backlog and I was able to do this now. It made more sense.”

Customers can keep in contact and send things in for work by contacting [email protected], though Tchalekian said that’s a holdover until he can get a new website and email up and running.

The Lee Highway community around the store is still the same one Tchalekian has known and loved since he took things over, but he said the nature of shoes have changed.

“Nothing’s really changed except for the industries; they’re making shoes different,” Tchalekian said. “They used to be a lot more leather, now it’s synthetics. That’s hurt our business a bit.”

Shoes were the “sole” of the business, with lots of gluing soles and heels and such back together, but the store has also provided a wide array of repairs to things like purses, belts, luggage and briefcases — fixing busted zippers and the like.

The impending closure has led to an outpouring on social media, as long-time customers lament the loss of a trusted local business.

“Everybody’s been sad and I totally get it,” Tchalekian said. “It was a tough decision but it was one that had to be done and now was the time to do it.”

Photo via Google Maps

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Hotel-to-Apartment Project on Hold — “A proposal to convert the Arlington Courts Suites extended-stay hotel in the Courthouse area to apartments is on hold, at least for now. The project had been slated for County Board consideration on July 18, but has been deferred until at least October at the request of the applicant, citing ‘economic concerns about the project due to the COVID-19 emergency.'” [InsideNova]

Controversy Sparks Idea for Fundraiser — A local man has raised more than $140,000 “after starting a GoFundMe page to buy Goya Foods products and donate them to local food pantries after critics called for a boycott over pro-Trump comments from Goya’s CEO. ‘People are seeing in the news a double standard for one political view,’ 27-year-old Casey Harper of Arlington, Va., told FOX Business.” [Fox Business, GoFundMe]

Jury Questionnaire Going Out Soon — “The Arlington Circuit Court, which includes the City of Falls Church, will soon begin its annual juror qualification process.  Juror questionnaires will be mailed in early August to randomly selected residents of Arlington County and Falls Church City.  These questionnaires are used to qualify residents for jury duty which begins Jan. 1, 2021, and ends Dec. 31, 2021.” [Arlington County]

Job Losses Possible at DCA — Among the 36,000 United Airlines workers who may be furloughed starting in October, according to WARN Act notices, are 116 employees at Reagan National Airport. [Virginia Employment Commission]

Swearing In for New County Board Member — “Takis P. Karantonis, elected to the Arlington County Board in a special election on July 7, 2020, will be sworn in at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14 in a virtual ceremony. Clerk of the Circuit Court of Arlington Paul Ferguson will officiate.” [Arlington County]

Red Hook Lobster Pound Shuts Down — Long-time local food truck operator and concessionaire Red Hook Lobster Pound is selling its trucks and assets as the pandemic forces it out of business. This presumably means that there will be no Red Hook lobster restaurant near Clarendon, either. [Washingtonian]

ACPD Investigating Airbag Theft Along Lee Highway — “At approximately 7:30 a.m. on July 12, police were dispatched to the report of a larceny. Upon arrival, it was determined that between 7:00 p.m. on July 11 and 7:30 a.m. on July 12, an unknown suspect(s) smashed the windows of approximately three vehicles and stole the airbags. There are no suspect(s) descriptions. The investigation is ongoing.” [Arlington County]

Photo courtesy Mike Cantwell

Bar Louie Has Closed in Crystal City

By ARLnow.com

Chain gastropub Bar Louie appears to have permanently closed its location on 23rd Street S. in Crystal City.

“Space for lease” signs now cover the windows of the former after-work watering hole, which opened in late 2013.

Though coronavirus closures have caused significant financial hardship for bars and restaurants, Bar Louie’s troubles started before the pandemic: it filed for bankruptcy in January.

The chain’s marquee location in D.C., adjacent to Capital One Arena, closed in January amid the bankruptcy filing. Other Bar Louie locations have recently closed in Massachusetts, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

While Bar Louie has closed, Crystal City is set to get a new nightlife option on the same block in the near future: bowling alley Bowlero.

Next Day Blinds Suddenly Vanishes, Replaced By 3 Day Blinds

By ARLnow.com
1/2

If you were hoping for Next Day Blinds, you’ll now have to wait two extra days.

The regional window covering chain, which has a showroom in the Virginia Square area, has reportedly gone out of business. Instead, visitors to its now-defunct website are being redirected to a California company called 3 Day Blinds.

“Next Day Blinds has ceased operations and permanently closed its doors,” the website says. “3 Day Blinds, with over 40 years experience in the window coverings business, has hired a number of former Next Day Blinds Sales Staff, Design Consultants, Installation Experts and Administrative personnel. We will strive to continue the tradition of providing exceptional products and services to the Greater Baltimore / Washington DC area.”

Next Day Blinds had at least nine locations in the D.C. area. The company was founded in 1993, was a prolific local television advertiser, and billed itself as one of America’s largest regional manufacturers for custom window coverings.

While no reason for the closure was given, the last post on the company’s Facebook page from early April said it was temporarily closed during the pandemic.

Dear Customers:We miss you. Please stay safe and healthy. While we are closed for now, we are continuing to support…

Posted by Next Day Blinds on Monday, April 6, 2020

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