A wood fire kitchen and whiskey bar on Columbia Pike will close at the end of the year, staff confirmed.
Marble and Rye at 2501 Columbia Pike will close on December 31. A staff member said it will shutter after Sunday brunch that day. Staff in the restaurant declined to comment on a reason for the closure.
It opened in late 2015 at the Penrose Square property, replacing RedRocks Neapolitan Bistro.
The menu features pasta, pizza and seafood dishes as well as sandwiches and burgers. It has more than 150 different whiskeys and whiskey-based cocktails, in addition to its wine and beer selection.
When it opened, Marble and Rye had been hailed as part of a growth of whiskey bars on Columbia Pike.
Events company Magnolia Open Mics will host its final open mic night at Marble and Rye this Sunday (December 17), in conjunction with the Songwriters Association of Washington. The event begins at 6 p.m., and includes a raffle.
A longtime Mexican restaurant in Crystal City has closed its doors.
Cantina Mexicana at 515 23rd Street S. shuttered late last month. An employee who answered the phone at the restaurant’s location just off Columbia Pike confirmed the closure, which he said happened “a couple of weeks ago.”
He added that several employees from the Crystal City eatery had made the switch over to its other location, on Columbia Pike. That location has been open since 2013 and a sign on the door encourages patrons to continue visiting it.
“Thanks for the memories!” the sign reads. “It’s been a great journey. We sincerely appreciate your friendship and all your patronage the last 40 years!”
The restaurant served “fine Tex-Mex cuisine,” and had been in business in various guises since 1978. In 1995, former dishwasher Gloria Arias bought the restaurant, then known as The Taco House, and in 2005 changed its name to Cantina Mexicana.
Restaurant space at 1850 Fort Myer Drive in December 2017
Pancho Villa Mexican Cuisine has apparently closed in Rosslyn.
The restaurant at 1850 Fort Myer Drive opened last year in the former home to the short-lived Secret Chopsticks restaurant. It is across the intersection from Arlington Temple United Methodist Church.
As of Monday morning, the restaurant’s chairs and tables were still in place, but the inside looked bare and the bar area had been stripped of all its bottles and draught beers. A sign on one of the outside windows appeared to have been ripped down.
The phone number listed on its website is also out of service.
Pancho Villa served made-from-scratch Mexican food. Its menu included staples like tacos, burritos, enchiladas and fajitas, as well as so-called “special dinners” for customers to have different combinations. It also had an extensive drinks menu.
A Rosslyn pizza joint owned by a former Washington Redskins football player is temporarily closed.
Spinfire Pizza at 1500 Wilson Blvd is scheduled to reopen on December 31, 2017 after renovations, according to its Yelp page.
A sign on its front door has no further details on the work, only that it is closed. It offers customizable personal pizzas in 90 seconds, with toppings ranging from pizza staples like pepperoni and mushrooms to Sriracha sausage, candied pecans and dried cranberries.
Garcon posted a photo on his Facebook page in October showing him paying the restaurant a visit. Its other location is in Ashburn, near where the Redskins have their practice facility. Spinfire opened its Rosslyn space in 2015.
A fire on the eve of Thanksgiving has damaged well-known local restaurant Caribbean Grill.
The fire broke out around 11 p.m. inside the restaurant at 5183 Lee Highway, according to fire officials. It was “caused by hot coals that fell out of [a] grill on to combustibles nearby.”
A large fire response was dispatched, but the fire was quickly extinguished and only minor damage — including smoke damage — was reported. No one was injured. The restaurant filled with smoke and firefighters remained on scene to ventilate the structure afterward.
#Update: Units are finishing up smoke removal operations and will going back in service shortly. Expect road closures in the area for about the next 30min. pic.twitter.com/D7L7FdMuxs
Wednesday night was a busy night for the Arlington County Fire Department. Around 7 p.m. last night, firefighters battled a brush fire in the woods on the 3000 block of N. Quincy Street, in the Dover Crystal neighborhood.
A fire department spokesman estimated that the fire, which was extinguished without incident, scorched about 400 square feet of woodlands.
Arlington County’s only Jerry’s Subs & Pizza has reopened after remodeling.
The eatery at 2041 15th Street N. in Courthouse appears to have been given a new lick of paint and some upgraded lighting.
When an ARLnow reporter dropped by on Monday evening, business was steady after the reopening, which employees said happened last week.
Jerry’s serves pizza, hot and cold subs and a variety of cheesesteaks. It is across the street from Arlington County jail, next door to a bond office and is a block away from an entrance to the Courthouse Metro station.
Mister Days celebrates its 40th anniversary on Friday
Photos of Mister Days’ “Rally in the Alley” events
Mister Days is located at 3100 Clarendon Blvd
A mainstay of the Clarendon bar and restaurant scene celebrates a significant milestone Friday, as Mister Days (3100 Clarendon Blvd) marks its 40th anniversary.
It first opened in an alleyway off Dupont Circle on November 21, 1977 serving prime rib, ham sandwiches, a soup and a salad. And in the years that followed, including a move to 18th Street NW between L and M Streets NW before opening in Arlington in 2000, it gained a strong following.
The bar has served famous guests like movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Washington Redskins greats like Sonny Jurgensen and John Riggins, and had live entertainment from singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter early in her career.
But owner Robert E. Lee said it is the relationships he has built that are most memorable.
“It’s kind of bittersweet,” Lee said of the anniversary. “You start losing friends, not customers, but friends that you met through business. After you get out of school, you have professional relationships. In the bar business and restaurant business, you meet hundreds of people that become friends.”
Lee said that initially, he was unsure about having televisions showing sports in Mister Days, figuring it would be a distraction from the dancing and food. But when he saw customers leaving to go home and watch “Roots,” a 1970s miniseries, he began to think differently.
Instead of relying on the major network broadcasts, Lee did something new for customers by, as he put it, putting on “all games all the time.”
“We figured out how to do back-channels through satellite dishes, so we got the satellite dishes,” he said. “We started doing all games all the time. Nobody else had it. We weren’t the first sports bar, but I believe we were the first where you could get all the games. You couldn’t buy them.”
Much of Mister Days’ popularity in D.C. came from its “Rally in the Alley,” an outdoor event held in conjunction with other nearby bars that included food, drink and live entertainment and at times hosted 15,000 people.
What began as a party one St. Patrick’s Day morphed into a charity event, just one of the bar’s charitable ventures that also included paying for kids to attend basketball camps and get basketball scholarships to DeMatha Catholic High School and donating food for free Christmas and Thanksgiving meals.
“[Rally in the Alley] became a major event,” Lee said. “That’s like the acorn that became an oak tree. That was just an idea, and that’s what I love to do. You have an idea, and all of a sudden it works.”
Family Still Searching for Missing Arlington Woman — Family and friends spent the weekend searching for Katherine Hawald, who went missing Thursday, last seen in Arlington. Volunteers checked places Hawald would hang out and handed out flyers, enlisting others to assist in the search effort. [Fox 5]
Veep Participates in Veterans Day Ceremony — Vice President Mike Pence participated in the annual Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday. “From the hour of our nation’s birth, our best and bravest have stepped forward to defend our freedom,” Pence said. “And as we speak, a new generation of American veterans is being forged across the wider world.” [Dept. of Defense]
Millennials Moving Out = Lower Rents — “More millennials are leaving Greater Washington than moving in, and that could spell trouble for commercial real estate developers across the region. Those young professionals helped the region avoid oversaturation of new apartments, but the diminishing pool will likely shrink demand for those units, among other potential consequences.” [Washington Business Journal]
Which Restaurants Are Open on Thanksgiving — Those hoping to avoid the hassle of making a turkey at home have a few options for dining out in Arlington on Thanksgiving. [Patch]
Burrito Bros Now Offering Taco — Perhaps responding to competition down the street, the Burrito Bros stand on Columbia Pike — formerly known as Pedro & Vinny’s — is now offering tacos. [Twitter]
(Updated 4:45 p.m.) A fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant is set to open in Ballston.
According to permits filed with the county, Cava Mezze Grill is set to move into 4121 Wilson Blvd, on the ground floor of the Stafford Place II building, the former headquarters of the National Science Foundation.
It will replace the Matsutake Steak and Sushi restaurant at the location, which closed in 2014. Cava Mezze Grill is not to be confused with Cava, which already has a location in Arlington: a full-service restaurant at 2940 Clarendon Blvd in Clarendon.
A reader sent a photo of construction showing the space has been more or less stripped out, ready for the build-out.
The restaurant group behind Pamplona and Bar Bao in Clarendon has opened an outdoor food stand in the Crystal City Water Park (1601 Crystal Drive).
Called The Stand, it features a rotating menu of what it describes as “the best new food trends the area has to offer, right in the comfort of your own neighborhood.” It officially opened for business today (Wednesday).
The Social Restaurant Group partnered with venture capital firm Catalyst Venture Group on the project. It opened a few months after the water park’s former concession stand was forced to close when landlord Vornado declined to renew the lease.
November’s line-up at The Stand is as follows:
All day, every day: Breakfast with B Doughnut and La Colombe Coffee
November 1-3: Cookie Dough & Co. (cookies)
November 6-10: Capital Chicken & Waffle (comfort food)
November 13-17: Donburi (Japanese)
November 20-22: Pinch Dumplings (traditional Chinese)
November 27- December 1: Timber Pizza (pizza)
The partners are also behind the upcoming Common Ground Food Hall in Rosslyn, set to open in late 2018.
“We are so excited to introduce The Stand in Crystal City,” said Zi-Heng Zhu, co-founder of Common Ground Food Hall, in a statement. “Crystal City is full of creative people with an appetite for discoverable new kinds of food. It’s the perfect canvas for our chefs to share and test ideas in a fresh outdoor setting.”
A burger restaurant and bar is set to open a second location in Pentagon Row in the coming months.
Basic Burger hopes to open in the plaza at Pentagon Row (1101 S. Joyce Street) by the end of this year, next door to the Starbucks and facing the central square. Its first location opened in Courthouse last year.
The restaurant already pairs a relatively straightforward menu — burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, fries, salads, shakes — with a clean, modern interior and a bar offering beer, cider and wine.
And general manager Guillermo Castillo said the new location will have all those favorites as well as some new items like a new side salad, spicy chicken sandwich and between four and eight craft cocktails.
“We’re going to add to our menu, we’re not going to take away from it,” Castillo said.
Castillo said the new location will have around 1,200 square feet of outdoor seating with lighting, while two walls will be made of glass to give the whole restaurant what he called “an indoor/outdoor feel.”
“It’s thankful for us that it has been received really well, and so for our design, we want to be modern and a little bit contemporary, we wanted it to be very clean, sharp lines,” he said. “We wanted it to be welcoming. We didn’t want it to look like a franchise company. We wanted it to look like something where you’re comfortable eating there.”
Castillo said Basic Burger is “hoping and shooting for” a soft opening in December as a “bare minimum.” He said the full build-out will take around six or seven weeks once it has been prepared by the landlord.
After just a year in business, Castillo said Basic Burger’s expansion shows it is going in the right direction.
“Our first year was incredibly strong,” he said. “We’re fortunate: Arlington is really receptive to us… South Arlington, for us, is a market that we were looking to get into.”
