Tatte Bakery in Clarendon, opening soon (Staff Photo by Matt Blitz)
Tatte Bakery in Clarendon, opening soon (Staff Photo by Matt Blitz)
(Updated at 3:35 p.m.) Tatte Bakery in Clarendon is finally set to open.
The growing Boston-based chain’s Arlington location will open tomorrow (Wednesday), according to a sign in the window. It was first announced earlier this year and was originally expected to open in July.
The cafe is located at 2805 Clarendon Blvd, around where the Baja Fresh used to be before it closed in late 2018, ahead of extensive renovations to the building.
The Clarendon spot is focused on breakfast, brunch, and lunch, with hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will have the same menu as the other D.C.-areas locations, except no dinner. The menu includes sandwiches, tartines, shakshuka, salads, bowls, and coffee.
The interior of the restaurant features a modern aesthetic and tiled counters.
The bakery is housed within The Crossing Clarendon, the multi-block, mixed-use development and retail center formerly known Market Common Clarendon.
Bearded Goat in Shirlington (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
CHIKO in Shirlington (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
Throughout this fall, there could be a few new faces around Shirlington as high-intensity gym F45 and some other businesses plan to launch in the next few months.
The gym is scheduled to have its grand opening at 2800 S. Randolph Street on Saturday, Sept. 11, according to a press release, though staff working amid a torrential downpour earlier this week said the gym had a soft launch last Saturday.
The grand opening is scheduled for 8 a.m.-noon, and will include free classes, a chance to win a raffle after each class, and exclusive membership offers.
The gym’s fitness program centers on high-intensity interval training, circuit training, and functional training — increasing the heart rate to boost metabolism and burn fat effectively, said the press release.
Just around the corner, Bearded Goat Barber is scheduled to open at 4150 Campbell Avenue sometime this fall. The Shirlington location, next to Samuel Beckett’s Irish Gastro Pub, will be the third for the barbershop, which first opened in Ballston in 2019.
Bearded Goat is aiming for an opening on Friday, Oct. 1, said co-owner Scott Parker, though the exact opening date remains a moving target.
Also coming this fall is CHIKO, a Chinese/Korean fusion restaurant at 4040 Campbell Avenue. The restaurant features a mix of dishes from both countries, like bulgogi stir fry and “orange-ish” chicken.
An “immersive group gaming entertainment facility” is coming to Ballston Quarter.
That could mean something like an escape room, or virtual reality gaming experiences.
The entertainment facility will take up about 2,217 square feet of space located at Suite 2233, on the second floor of Ballston Quarter, according to a permit filed with Arlington County. The permit had no further details about who or what is coming.
When asked what it could be, a spokesman for Brookfield Properties, which manages the retail at Ballston Quarter, said he can’t say.
“We are not able to comment on this as we don’t comment on behalf of our tenants,” he said.
After making a few inquiries, it’s still a mystery. 5 Wits, which provides live-action immersive experiences and already has a location in Ballston Quarter, said it’s not expanding.
“At this time, there is no expansion planned for 5 Wits Arlington,” a spokesperson said.
VR Zone DC Arcade and VR Arena, a virtual-reality gaming experience with locations in D.C. and Rockville, Maryland, also confirmed it’s not that company: “It’s not us and we unfortunately don’t know who’s coming to Ballston.”
Two years ago, The VOID — a virtual-reality gaming experience that received a lot of media attention — announced it was coming to Tysons Corner Center. But the poster-child for VR arcades faced financial problems and its Tysons location has since shut down.
The VR gaming concept, generally speaking, has reportedly struggled to take off and faced significant setbacks during the pandemic.
The exterior of Clarendon’s Maison Cheryl in 2021 (staff photo)
A waitress mixes drinks at the bar at Maison Cheryl (staff photo)
The shrimp tempura dish at Maison Cheryl in Clarendon (staff photo)
A newly-opened bistro in Clarendon is hoping to attract a slightly more mature crowd in an area known for its youthful nightlife.
Maison Cheryl, located in the former Heritage Brewing space at 2900 Wilson Blvd, had its soft opening last Thursday. The 2,000-square-foot restaurant offers a refined, yet casual spot for Arlingtonians to take dates, meet their neighbors, and explore an ever-evolving menu of drinks, dishes and desserts.
Though the bistro can accommodate nearly 80 people in the dining room, the centerpiece of the eatery is the pristine, marble bar counter, around which strangers and friends gather, talk and indulge in creamy and rich “French-New American” food.
The restaurant’s chef and owner Robert Maher and his wife moved from New York City to Bethesda earlier in the pandemic to be back in his wife’s hometown. He planned to open a restaurant there, but found the Clarendon spot and loved the energy in the neighborhood.
“When I started it, I wanted a restaurant that would look beautiful but also a place you could take a date, but also something that was all-inclusive and not only have good food but have good drinks and have good wine,” said Maher. “I have a real problem. I like to make everybody happy. It’s a good thing, but it keeps you awake at night.”
With many Clarendon nightlife spots catered toward younger adults in their 20s, Maher and general manager Rami Sabri wanted to create a restaurant geared toward older millennials — those in their 30s, starting to settle down in Arlington. In other words, the kind of “elder millennial” that gets made fun of in those Progressive commercials.
The restaurant is planning on officially opening soon after Labor Day. Maher and Sabri said the community response has been very positive so far.
“We already have regulars,” said Sabri. “We have five or six couples who have already come back. Nothing has been sent back, almost nothing boxed.”
“Except my mom. My mom’s like this big,” added Maher, indicating her petite size. “She saves [leftovers] for breakfast the next day.”
Even after being in business less than a week, certain dishes are starting to stand out.
“My favorite dish has to be the fried burrata. It’s really simple, really fresh. There’s something so satisfactory about cutting burrata and it oozing out,” said Maher. “The shrimp with spicy kewpie mayo and cabbage and lime salad, I mean that is probably our number one selling dish.”
Sabri added that the crispy cauliflower always comes back as “a clean plate.”
Maher says menu items will rotate throughout the seasons and depending on what patrons say they’re interested in seeing added.
“My plumber was like, ‘Oh I love bison,’ and I was like, ‘Listen, tell me you’re coming, I will buy some bison and I will put it as a special.’ Anything to make anybody happy,” said Maher.
The bistro is also working on menus for brunch and lunch. It’s serving its first weekend brunch this Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to around 1 p.m. and will continue to offer it every weekend.
The ROX motorcoach departs from Pentagon City and Virginia Beach (courtesy of ROX)
The plush leather seats aboard the ROX motorcoach, a luxury bus departing from Pentagon City and Virginia Beach (courtesy of ROX)
A meal comes with purchase of a ticket to ride the ROX motorcoach (courtesy of ROX)
Alcoholic beverages can be purchased aboard the ROX luxury motorcoach, which departs from Pentagon City and Virginia Beach (courtesy of ROX)
Folks wanting a weekend trip to Virginia Beach can now catch a luxury motor coach — with leather seats and hot towels — that has regular departures from Fashion Centre at Pentagon City.
Rides with the bus company, ROX, started July 1, 2020, and ended 90 days later as coronavirus cases rose in the fall. Service between Arlington and Virginia Beach started back up in July, and the company is set to bring a Charlottesville-Virginia Beach route online in September.
Today, the Virginia Beach-based company has three motor coaches that seat up to 23 passengers (a normal bus has 56 seats). Buses leave Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Each ROX bus has WiFi, individual charging outlets and chargers available on-demand. Riders can choose from a digital library of books, movies and TV shows, and are served a complimentary meal, snacks and soft drinks, with the option to buy alcohol.
“It’s better than any first class flight you’ve been on,” said ROX founder Jeff McWaters, a businessman and former Virginia state senator, who represented part of Virginia Beach.
McWaters, who founded the health insurance company Amerigroup, got the idea from his personal experience traveling for work between Virginia Beach and D.C.
If all the employees drove, “no one could work, it was dangerous, and we had issues,” he said, while flying was a hassle with frequent delays, and trains had poor WiFi and food.
With ROX, the former senator is looking to invigorate the commercial connection between the two hubs while taking advantage of a growing preference for remote work, with occasional trips to the office.
“We learned during the pandemic, you can work from home, you can work from the park, you can work with a glass of wine, but you can’t work on I-66, working on trains is spotty, and you can’t work on airplane,” he said. “You can work on the ROX.”
So far, most riders are using the bus for leisure, but McWaters predicts business travel will return.
ROX stops at Fashion Centre because it is well-connected and offers shopping and dining, he said. The mall, which offers luggage storage, alos has an Avis rental car outpost, and riders can catch the Metro or a car to get to other parts of Arlington, D.C. or the airport.
“It’s got everything,” he said.
While the bus service was shut down, the company earned income from private charters of a fourth bus. That coach features reclining seats, a kitchen, a sofa and eight televisions, including one outside for tailgating.
The bus has been to “some fun places,” and is set to embark on a 10-day hunting trip to Wyoming this fall, said Janice Tuckman, a sales representative for ROX.
“We picked up group at the The Greenbrier and drove them on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, where they visited distilleries and stayed at an Airbnb. They had a whoopin’ good time, and after four days, headed back to Greenbrier.”
A steak from Guerra Steakhouse (courtesy of Guerra Steakhouse)
A meal at Guerra Steakhouse (courtesy of Guerra Steakhouse)
Steak and wine at Guerra Steakhouse (courtesy of Guerra Steakhouse)
The table setting at Guerra Steakhouse (courtesy of Guerra Steakhouse)
Guerra Steakhouse in Rosslyn is off to a slow start after opening this past Saturday, but that is partly by design, according to owner Jackelin Barrera.
The steakhouse at 1725 Wilson Blvd does not yet have a sign, or an advertising campaign, but Barrera said she was more concerned with opening before coronavirus cases could once more threaten businesses to limit capacity.
Guerra offers steaks, wines to pair with them, and other classic steakhouse dishes in the former space of Ben’s Chili Bowl, which closed last year.
The restaurant is family-owned and operated.
“All the people who work inside are family,” said Barrera. “I feel like you can tell the love we have for each other when you taste the food.”
The steakhouse’s story has its roots in family, as it is named for her grandfather, Ermides Guerra, a Guatemalan immigrant who loved steak.
So far, Barrera said the most popular dishes have been the jumbo tiger shrimp with a “fuego spicy paste” and the iceberg wedge topped with blue cheese, bacon, grape tomatoes and radish, in a blue cheese dressing. She said the New York strip steak has also received attention.
“Most of the people that have come by have said Arlington has been missing a good steakhouse,” said Barrera.
In addition to serving quality food, Barrera said Guerra is focused on making patrons feel like part of the family.
“We don’t just give you a steak — we give you an experience,” she said.
Currently, the steakhouse only serves wine and beer, but Barrera said her family plans to add cocktails next week. Down the road, she said the Guerra Steakhouse experience could include a clam bake and a tomahawk steak that will be flamed table-side.
“We’ll hopefully have table-side cocktails too,” she said.
Cryotherapy at Restore Hyper Wellness (courtesy of Restore Hyper Wellness)
Infrared Sauna Therapy at Restore Hyper Wellness (courtesy of Restore Hyper Wellness)
Cryoskin Therapy at Restore Hyper Wellness (courtesy of Restore Hyper Wellness)
Compression Therapy at Restore Hyper Wellness (courtesy of Restore Hyper Wellness)
A new business offering high-end therapeutic and wellness treatments — including cryotherapy — is opening in Pentagon City.
Texas-based Restore Hyper Wellness started offering treatments to help people facing pain, inflammation and chronic dehydration in 2015. There are now Restore franchise locations throughout the U.S., with one set to open at Westpost, the shopping center formerly Pentagon Row.
It will replace the T-Mobile that was at 1101 S. Joyce Street, according to a permit filed with Arlington County last week.
The 2,202 square-foot facility will offer cryotherapy, a treatment often utilized by athletes, post-operative patients, and those suffering chronic pain.
“We believe everyone can benefit from cryotherapy,” according to the Restore website. “Cryotherapy has shown to reduce inflammation and releases endorphins that help alleviate pain, boost energy and metabolism, and increase the body’s natural healing abilities.”
Restore also offers cryoskin therapy to localize the effects of the cold temperatures on the skin.
The website says the service is “the most advanced non-invasive treatment solution for slimming and toning. If you’re looking to lose fat on your stomach, thighs, arms or back this is the solution for you.”
Though prices have not yet been set for the new location, at other Virginia locations prices start at $39 for an individual cryotherapy session and $59 for a monthly membership. So far there’s no word on when the business plans to open.
(Updated at 2:10 p.m. on 8/3/21) Upscale health club chain Life Time is opening a huge new fitness center at The Crossing Clarendon, a stretch of retail formerly known as Market Common Clarendon.
Life Time’s opening is currently expected to happen in the first few months of 2023, said Andrew Kabat of Regency Centers, which owns the multi-block development, which mixes retail, residential and office space.
“It’s really such an exciting, well-rounded lifestyle offering that I think will be a massive statement for this community,” Kabat said. “Being very high-end and luxury focused, it fits in well with the Clarendon community.”
The gym will occupy 113,000 square feet of space at 1440 N. Edgewood Street, where, up until recently, an Equinox gym was expected to move in. In February, Regency Centers sued Equinox, alleging breach of contract.
The Crossing has undergone a recent renovation and rebranding and, starting with Life Time, Regency Centers is on the cusp of announcing several other new retail tenants.
The new gym will take up 5,000 square feet on the ground floor as well as the entire second, third and fourth floors, compared to the nearly 30,000 square feet of space Equinox was set to occupy. Life Time will offer workout spaces, a spa, a co-working space and room for group fitness classes, as well as a food and beverage component and places to drop off kids.
“It’s just that well-thought out,” said Kabat, who helped to land the leasing deal with the company. “Their brand, the way they’ve really integrated themselves into the community — they’re a lifestyle brand. They’ll offer a lot of different amenities.”
Unlike most other Life Time locations, the Clarendon outpost is in more of an urban setting, spanning multiple stories, rather than occupying a freestanding facility in a suburban area, he said. The fitness center will also be “the catalyst” for other exciting announcements, Kabat said.
The building that Life Time will occupy was an vacant office space when Regency Centers acquired it in 2016. It was gutted and a fourth floor was added, and construction was completed last summer. Between Life Time and Tatte Bakery and Cafe, which is also moving in on the ground floor and is expected to open in early September, the building will be 93% leased.
In total, the building has eight retail spaces on the ground floor: Tatte and Life Time are the only two publicly-announced tenants at this time, but Regency Centers is getting ready to announce five more, Kabat said. Each of these deals was agreed to during the pandemic.
“Once we add those other five users, we’ll be at 98-99% leased,” he said. “We feel good that we’ll be 100% leased by end of the year.”
Among the building’s ground floor spaces is the former location of beloved live music venue Iota Club and Cafe, which closed in 2017.
The leasing announcements are in addition to other changes coming to The Crossing Clarendon, including a new pedestrian plaza near Barnes and Noble. Recently, custom framing store Framebridge opened at The Crossing, along Clarendon Blvd.
Mattie and Eddie’s at Westpost in Pentagon City (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Mattie and Eddie’s at Westpost in Pentagon City (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Mattie and Eddie’s logo (courtesy photo)
When Pentagon City’s Mattie and Eddie’s opened earlier this year, it immediately garnered a lot of attention. For its owner, though, the restaurant is personal.
“It’s a very personal story,” chef and restaurateur Cathal Armstrong tells ARLnow about the Irish pub’s origins. “There are pubs all over Ireland that have great food and I wanted to show that… and be respectful to my grandparents.”
Mattie and Eddie’s is named after the Dublin native’s grandparents — Martha and Eddie — and the logo featuring two well-dressed figures was designed by Armstrong’s brother.
“Every restaurant we’ve ever done… is an expression of something personal,” he says. “Each one has its own sense of community… and I’ve always wanted to do something along my own heritage, my own roots.”
In late March, Mattie and Eddie’s opened its doors in the former Siné space at Westpost (formerly Pentagon Row).
“It wasn’t necessarily something we planned. It just kind of fell into my lap. The landlord reached out to us and they had a space available and asked if I was interested,” says Armstrong. “It was just a kind of serendipity.”
This is Armstrong’s eleventh restaurant and first in Arlington since Society Fair closed on Columbia Pike in 2014.
He says Pentagon City offers a chance to be near a nexus of restaurant-goers; those commuting on Metro, those who live in the big apartment buildings close by, office workers and nearby Amazon employees, and tourists staying at hotels. Plus, there’s plenty of parking for those who choose to drive.
“That’s definitely a big appeal because people have a tendency to go to where there’s a lot of activity,” says Armstrong. “They might go to Nighthawk Pizza for dinner and come to us for a pint afterwards… There’s a perfect kind of symbiosis of restaurants feeding off each other.”
He admits business hasn’t fully returned to what could have been expected pre-pandemic. Armstrong says they are still operating at about 50% of what the restaurant is capable of.
But he remains encouraged that things will continue in a positive direction. Nothing made him feel more like things were slowly getting back to normal than the day in May when Virginia allowed bar seating again.
“I didn’t even realize it…. until the stools came back, that it was just kind of sad without bar stools,” he says, “And now it’s much more fun and lively.”
Nonetheless, Armstrong — like many others — are concerned about the Delta variant, vaccination rates, and increasing COVID cases.
“I’m kind of conservatively expecting not to get back to what we would call normal before spring of next year,” he says.
As for the future, Armstrong has toyed with opening a scaled-down version of Restaurant Eve (which closed in Old Town Alexandria three years ago) and maybe a more modern-styled Irish restaurant.
But, for right now, he’s happy with sticking to his other restaurants and shepherding Mattie and Eddie’s.
“I don’t foresee myself doing anything else for a couple of years,” says Armstrong. “We’ve got to get back to normal first.”
Lucky Danger menu items (Photo courtesy of Lucky Danger)
Aabee Express at Pentagon Row in 2018
Chef Tim Ma (Photo courtesy of Lucky Danger)
Lucky Danger’s Pentagon City outpost is finally set to open on Wednesday (July 21), according to a restaurant press release.
The popular D.C.-based Chinese-American pop-up restaurant is taking up residence at Westpost (formerly Pentagon Row) at 1101 S. Joyce Street. It moves into the space previously occupied by Aabee Express Mediterranean, which closed nearly a year ago.
The Arlington location will be the highly-regarded concept’s first permanent location, after the success of their pop-up in D.C.’s Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood.
“We noticed a lot of our guests were actually driving over from Arlington, Alexandria to D.C. to pick up food,” Lucky Danger’s executive chef Andrew Chiou tells ARLnow. “So, we might as well go to them.”
The restaurant had initially targeted an April opening back when they first announced their expansion in February.
The opening was delayed for two reasons, Chiou tells ARLnow. First, co-owner and local chef Tim Ma’s continued activism work while co-founding Chefs Stopping AAPI Hate took bandwidth and priority. At the same time, the fabrication of custom-built equipment took longer than expected.
Lucky Danger will be take-out and delivery-only — there is no on-location sit down capacity.
Orders will be taken via an “in-person kiosk” at the location for the time being, according to the press release. Online ordering is expected to be available in the “coming weeks.”
Chiou says this was done with not just pandemic-related safety in mind, but also to pay employees more.
“We want to pay our staff more… to make up for lost time from earlier in the year,” says Chiou. “In order to do that, we have to save costs in other places.”
That meant not having a cashier and servers.
The menu at Westpost will be much the same as the one in D.C., but there will be a few additions including pan fried scallion pancakes, deep fried shrimp spring rolls, General Tso’s chicken, and Moo Shu pork wrapped in a housemade pancake. Every order comes with a “fistful of fortune cookies,” per the press release.
Chiou says they often got requests from guests for other favorite Chinese-American dishes and decided to start making them.
“We’re already moving the location to where our guests are. So, might as well also give them the food they want,” Chiou says.
Initially the restaurant will only be open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday, but the plan is to be open seven days a week and for lunch. However, the restaurant is still hiring and is not ready to move to expanded hours quite yet, says Chiou.
The hope is that this Arlington location is just the first in Lucky Danger’s expansion.
Chiou says the thought is to open a number of Lucky Danger outposts across the area, including more in Arlington, that are closer together, smaller, and remain top quality. This could mean food sells out faster (which is often the case in D.C.), but that’s okay.
“We want to open a few more spaces that aren’t too far apart [from each other],” says Chiou. “So that everyone can have access to Lucky Danger.”
After operating a new hair salon in Courthouse for two months, owner Carissa Lawlor says she is ready to do more than cut and color hair.
Lawlor, who opened hŌm Salon at 2020 Wilson Blvd on May 19, aims to use her 1,500-square-foot space to foster community and encourage wellness with courses and pop-up shops.
“The idea to open the salon was to elevate the salon experience, for our guests to connect with our community, encourage staff to grow, monthly specialty classes, yoga classes, life coaching,” said Lawlor. “Being your real self isn’t just beauty — it’s all encompassing…That’s why we’re here, really.”
hŌm’s first personal wellness course is scheduled for Friday, July 30 at 6:30 p.m. For $25, stylists will teach attendees tips and tricks for curling and blow-drying their hair as well as styling skills.
Starting Saturday, Aug. 7, the salon will host pop-up markets on the first Saturday of every month. Vendors will have booths inside and along the sidewalk. With hours from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the market is timed to line up with the neighborhood farmer’s market.
For Lawlor, promoting wellness also has an ecological component. Her salon recycles around 95% of its waste, including foil and hair color packaging, which is converted into asphalt filler, car and bicycle parts and clean energy products.
“We have maybe two pounds of trash a week, not even,” said Lawlor.
The salon, which offers more than 40 services, specializes in brow styling and blonde coloring. Prices start at $51 for a hair cut and $166 for highlights. From 3-5 p.m. on weekdays, the salon offers blowouts for $25.
hŌm is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
