The founder of a local ride-hailing startup will discuss how he got his business off the ground in the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s latest live podcast episode.
Alex Villanueva launched Sprynt in June, offering free rides in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. Within five days, the new app had been downloaded more than 700 times, and today Sprynt vehicles are a familiar sight in the corridor, going up and down Wilson and Clarendon Blvds all day long.
The event will take place on Tuesday, October 24 in front of an audience at 1776 in Crystal City. Villanueva will discuss his personal story and how he turned his business idea into a reality. Registration is $25.
ARLnow founder Scott Brodbeck will be the program’s moderator and will lead the discussion with Villanueva. Audience members will be able to ask questions during a Q&A segment that will not be recorded.
The event also features networking opportunities and food served from Ruth’s Chris Steak House. And for those unable to attend, the interview will later be published online via ARLnow’s podcast, 26 Square Miles.
A new Italian restaurant is open in Lyon Park, replacing a pizza chain.
Troy’s Italian Kitchen replaced Zpizza at 2710 Washington Blvd in April. The eatery is located between a Discount Tobacco & Phone Cards store and the El Charrito Caminante Mexican and Salvadorian restaurant in a small strip mall.
Troy’s opens each day at 10 a.m. and has garnered mostly positive reviews online so far. An employee at the restaurant said Monday that demand has been good for its customizable pizzas, pastas, paninis and salads.
“People need to eat at different times,” he said of the earlier-than-usual opening hours.
Troy’s stays open until midnight Sundays through Thursdays, and until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Inside, there is seating for around a dozen people.
Already, a small collection of art by younger customers is starting to grow on the wall, as well as a review written on a plate.
“Great pizza, great atmosphere, love the thin crust,” it reads. “Can’t wait to try out other pizzas.”
Some small business owners in Manassas are concerned that Manassas is becoming too much like Clarendon.
Potomac Local reports that the Arlington neighborhood came up during a business roundtable discussion on Friday. While some expressed apprehension at the idea, others were supportive of Manassas becoming more upscale.
The topics ranged from development to affordable housing.
Some in the group said they don’t want to see more apartments and condos built in the city. Others advocated for condos that sell for $350,000 and above.
“I see Manassas looking more and more like Clarendon in Arlington,” said one man.
A new coffee bar in Rosslyn is set to open “very soon,” according to the cafe’s owner.
Construction is almost complete on the Central Coffee Bar in the first floor of the soon-to-redevelop RCA building at 1901 N. Moore Street, with workers starting to move furniture in. Owner Mehmet Coskun declined to give an exact timeframe, but said it should be open “very soon.”
Coskun said the spot will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day, serving coffee, pastries and the like in the morning and then hosting happy hour from 5-7 p.m. He said the coffee, provided in partnership with a roastery in Annapolis, will be from the best beans available.
“We will have very fresh coffee from Ethiopia, Central America, Colombia, Mexico and we will have seasonal beans, so whatever the country harvests, we’ll make sure we’re getting the best beans,” he said. “I’m doing a lot of tastings, so we will give something different than just Starbucks for people to at least try.”
Inside, Central Coffee will have leather sofas and a 60-inch electrical fireplace to make the space of just over 2,000 square feet feel intimate. Coskun said they had initially planned on having a smaller, 1,500-square-foot space, but expanded the plans after conversations with representatives from the Rosslyn Business Improvement District.
“We have a very cozy space where you walk in and you already feel like you want to sit down and do work or pick up your laptop and enjoy,” Coskun said. “It has that cozy environment with leather couches and with that fireplace built in and that open space. The whole thing is an open space.”
Coskun, a Pentagon City resident, said he wanted to open the coffee shop to give Arlington a locally-run option beyond international giant Starbucks. He added that the company could look to expand in the county too, depending on the success of its first location.
“We do want to be Arlington County’s coffee shop,” Coskun said. “We’re looking for a second location somewhere in Clarendon, and we want to continue to grow in Arlington before we grow anywhere else. We are going to be the local guys.”
Scott Parker is part of a group of partners who together have built something of a nightlife empire in Arlington.
A-Town Bar and Grill, Don Tito and Barley Mac have all been hits along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. And now Scott and his partners are getting ready to open (in the next couple of weeks) The G.O.A.T., a new sports bar right across from the Clarendon Metro station in the former Hard Times Cafe space.
Scott has helped to build this empire based on Sunday Fundays and happy hour drink specials all while having a somewhat unique personal background for a bar impresario: he does not drink.
On this week’s 26 Square Miles podcast, we sat down with Scott to discuss how he achieved success after success in the notoriously difficult restaurant industry, what to expect with the G.O.A.T., what comes next, and what he thinks of the current state of the Arlington bar and restaurant scene.
A pet store and grooming center will replace a longtime seafood shop near the Lee Heights Shops, according to county permits.
American Seafood at 4550 Lee Highway closed on December 31 last year after nearly 35 years in business.
And while none of its signs have been removed yet, permits indicate that work will be done to completely renovate the building. County planning staff approved the business license for the new pet store on September 12.
The Lee Heights Shops have seen some turnover in recent times, with long-time local stores Bradshaw’s Children’s Shoes and Lemon Twist closing late last year.
Lemon Twist was replaced by women’s clothing and accessories store Lemoncello Boutique. Bradshaw’s still has not been replaced.
Online retail behemoth Amazon just announced that it is searching for a place to build a second headquarters, and Arlington officials say the county is tossing its hat in the ring.
Amazon is looking to build its “HQ2” in North America, in a metropolitan area with a population over 1 million and room to build up to 8 million square feet of transit-accessible office space in a pedestrian-friendly setting. The new headquarters is expected to come with $5 billion worth of investment and will create up to 50,000 jobs, with an average salary north of $100,000.
Other requirements include being within 30 miles of a population center and no more than 45 minutes away from an international airport.
Arlington, officials say, could fit the bill — and the county is planning to respond to Amazon’s request for proposals.
“Yes, we will be pursuing the opportunity,” said Arlington Economic Development spokeswoman Cara O’Donnell, adding that it is “too early to say which specific locations would be under consideration.”
One potential option is Arlington’s Crystal City neighborhood, which has a burgeoning tech scene and an existing plan to build up to 9.7 million square feet of office space, partially through the demolition of aging, vacant office buildings. It is also transit and highway accessible, within walking distance of Reagan National Airport and much of its office space is owned by one company.
Another option is Arlington’s millennial-heavy Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, along the Orange Line. Rosslyn recently scored Nestle’s U.S. headquarters and Ballston has been active in trying to attract tech companies and fill soon-to-be-vacated office space.
O’Donnell declined to say what Arlington’s pitch to Amazon will be, but the transit accessibility and skilled, young professional workforce is likely to be a selling point. Economic incentives and tax breaks from the county and the state will also undoubtedly be involved — Amazon has stated that will be a determining factor.
Competition for the new headquarters will be intense, as the winning jurisdiction will be instantly transformed into a formidable technology center. In the Washington region alone, D.C., Loudoun County and Prince George’s County have already indicated that they will also be pursuing Amazon.
It’s not quite a Grand Opening, but it is a big step and a new beginning for Dr. Ujjwal Shakya and the staff of MMA & Sports Rehab in South Arlington.
After almost 3 years of building a patient population inside Pentagon Mixed Martial Arts at 1041 S. Edgewood Street — near Columbia Pike — Dr. Shakya has moved his physical therapy practice two doors down to his own clinic at 1033 S. Edgewood on the same street.
Dr. Shakya says the clinic treats more than just the MMA competitor or athlete. “About 5 to 10 percent of our patients are MMA athletes,” he says. “Most patients have a number of sports-related injuries, chronic pain syndrome and acute pain/injuries from everyday activities.”
It helps that Dr. Shakya active in sports, which clearly helps him understand injuries specific to athletes. He has been practicing martial arts, particularly Muay Thai, for the last six years and plays cricket for the DC Royal Cricket Club locally.
Dr. Shakya believes that the clinic has experienced rapid growth and positive feedback because of widespread word-of-mouth referrals, evident by the sincere and abundant praises on Yelp, Google Plus and other social media platforms. He wholeheartedly appreciates patients for their kind words about his services.
The MMA & Sports Rehab practice includes multi-disciplinary approaches to disorders of general orthopedic, vestibular (balance), neurological and sports nature. Patients are likely to experience any combination of therapeutic exercises, Kinesio taping, soft tissue mobilization, Myofascial Release, Blood Flow Restriction training, Dry Needling and other manual therapies.
Dr. Shakya says, “We perform various manual therapy techniques along with specific therapeutic exercises, and patient education is a big part of our practice. We focus on a combination of excellent patient service, focused and effective therapy.”
But perhaps most crucially, Dr. Shakya sees a patient not as a single complaint to fix, but as a comprehensive and holistic person. “We see the patient as a whole person rather than just a pain in the neck or a low back ache,” he says.
For instance, he says, if the complaint is an ailing ankle, “We address the hip, the knee and the core. The patient is a full person, not just an ankle. I try to find the source of the symptoms, the source of the pain.”
Dr. Shakya, who is originally from Nepal, has the unique distinction of being one of the few physical therapists he knows of with double-doctorates: Doctor of Physical Therapy and Doctor of Manual Therapy, in addition to being a Board Certified Sports Specialist.
There are more credentials, and you can see them on the clinic’s website.
The transition from the gym setting to the clinic setting affords patients with opportunities for relief in both locations as Shakya’s practice continues to have access to Pentagon MMA.
The bottom line on the expansion of the business into its own clinic says something about the care and treatment patients experience at MMA & Sports Rehab. “Our patients have continued to support us and we are proud to provide exceptional care with expertise,” the doctor says.
For more information about MMA & Sports Rehab, see the website here, call 703-884-7084 or email at [email protected]. The preceding was sponsored by MMA & Sports Rehab and written by Buzz McClain.
The soft opening will include Saturday night (photo via Instagram)
Wilson Hardware replaces RiRa at 2915 Wilson Blvd
Guests can expect to see various motifs and murals on the walls (photo via Instagram)
It will serve contemporary American food and drink (photo via Instagram)
Wilson Hardware has three distinct bar areas (photo via Instagram)
Seating will also be available on the back patio
(Updated 2:10 p.m.) After months of anticipation, the successor to the former RiRa Irish Pub in Clarendon will open its doors tomorrow (Friday).
Wilson Hardware’s soft opening at 2915 Wilson Blvd will begin at 5 p.m. Friday, with happy hour from 5-7 p.m., according to an event listing. It will open at the same time on Saturday as well, with a DJ to perform on both nights from 10 p.m. until close.
Anyone wanting to make dinner reservations for Friday or Saturday can now do so online.
“The team has been working hard create a beautiful, multi-level space for everyone’s enjoyment,” an invite to the soft opening reads. “Guests can anticipate bold fixtures, textured artwork and a unique experience in the new eclectic venue.”
The new 7,000-square-foot bar and lounge has three distinct bar areas, including one on the roof. Inside and outside are motifs and murals.
Food to be served will include Hardware fritters, crab dip and panzerotti, whichis crisp-fried pizza dough stuffed with cheeses and marinara sauce. The menu will also feature avocado burgers with grass-fed beef, duck confit with roasted vegetables, steak frites and pan-seared salmon with saffron mashed potatoes.
Many of the drinks will reference the Virginia Hardware store, which occupied the space from the early 1960s until 2005. The cocktail menu will feature signature drinks such as the “Blueprint,” a mix of rosé, vodka, cantaloupe, lemon, ancho chile and mint; the “Adjustable Wrench” made with bourbon, rum, vanilla and chocolate bitters and the “Bright Idea,” a shareable cocktail for two.
Work to renovate and build out the space began last year.
“We’re so excited for everyone to finally see our vision for Wilson Hardware to come to life,” co-owner Jad Bouchebel said in a statement. “We know Arlingtonians will be pleasantly surprised when they see how we’ve revamped the space into an elegant new restaurant and bar.”
After months of delays and regulatory hurdles, new Columbia Pike beer garden BrickHaus is set to open on Labor Day.
The 2900 Columbia Pike restaurant will open its doors at 2 p.m. with full service inside and a range of freshly tapped beers and new food. Reservations are not available, and the patio will not be open until October, owner Tony Wagner said in a Facebook post.
It's time to celebrate! BrickHaus is at long last opening our doors on Columbia Pike on Monday, September 4th. Doors…
Most construction on the space has been finished since May.
BrickHaus will be a beer garden on the first floor, with some 20 beers on tap and an approximately 30-seat outdoor patio. The second floor mezzanine will have upstairs dining with a menu including steaks, German food and other entrees.
It will offer mostly regional brews from Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, in addition to perhaps a couple of German beers. Wagner said draft wine will also be available.
The aging building has received an extensive renovation after being vacant for years following the departure of Blanca’s Restaurant.
“The oldest building on Columbia Pike will come to life once more, letting it all hang out!” Wagner wrote.
The event will be held in conjunction with the Inventors Network of the Capital Area, a nonprofit that helps inventors of all experience levels network and share information.
Anyone who wants to pitch their ideas at the event must fill out and send an application form beforehand. The form asks for a short description of the product, and has the following requirements for the pitch itself:
Prototype or final product available to present
Consumer product
Reach a mass audience
Can retail from $9.99-39.99
Demonstrable
Easy to understand
New product that is not on the market
Short, two-minute pitch
Forms must be sent to [email protected], with the subject line, “Sept 18 Arlington, VA Pitch.” Top Dog will review applications and then select the contenders for the pitch-a-thon.
The founder of a local ride-hailing startup will discuss how he got his business off the ground in the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s latest live podcast episode.
ARLnow founder Scott Brodbeck will be the program’s moderator and will lead the discussion with Villanueva. Audience members will be able to ask questions during a Q&A segment that will not be recorded.
