ShipGarten will deliver restaurants in shipping containers to Scotts Run in June

Last time Tysons Reporter checked in on ShipGarten, the unique restaurant/biergarten venture was expected to launch in early spring, but spring arrived and is now heating up into summer, and the shipping container doors remain fastened.

ShipGarten will now open at the Scotts Run development in Tysons in June, Creative Bar Concepts LLC Managing Partner Matt Rofougaran confirms, though an exact opening date has not been set yet.

Rofougaran, who was CEO of the now-shuttered Tysons Biergarten, attributes the latest delay to several factors, including challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, a delay in obtaining materials, a delay in getting Dominion Energy out to the site, and the overall size of the project.

“The project [is] bigger than expected by not just us but the contractor,” he said.

Developed by the same team behind Tysons Biergarten and the still-operating Hops N Shine in Alexandria, ShipGarten will be a pop-up biergarten with restaurants located inside four converted, 40-foot shipping containers.

In addition to the central biergarten, which will have 20 German taps as well as sausages and pretzels, the restaurants will include Chalkboard BBQ & Craft Beer, the Asian fusion fast-casual joint Rollbär, and the Persian fast-casual establishment Salamati Grille.

The delays that ShipGarten has encountered could ultimately turn out to be a boon, since starting on May 28, Virginia will lift the capacity and social distancing requirements that have limited operations at existing restaurants and bars for the past year.

Rofougaran says the current plan is to require masks for staff and encourage social distancing, but that could change depending on how the next month unfolds.

“We believe we are about a month until we open so we will reevaluate everything once we get closer to [the] opening date,” he said.

ShipGarten’s opening will be a key step forward for Scotts Run, a 40-acre mixed-use development focused around the McLean Metro station that currently consists of The Haden — an apartment complex — and the 14-story Mitre 4 office building.

The Archer Hotel is expected to open later this summer, and additional residential, retail, and office development is still on the way.

The ShipGarten team saw Scotts Run as an ideal location to expand on the ideas that they introduced with Tysons Biergarten, which closed in November 2019 to make way for planned redevelopment around the Greensboro Metro station.

“The amount of room available allowed us to utilize the space to put together something that everyone in not just the tysons region but all of the DMV could come and enjoy,” Rofougaran said by email. “Plus being on top of a hill overlooking the Tysons Skyline was a great added bonus!”

Cityline Partners, one of several developers working on Scotts Run, says it looks forward to ShipGarten opening next month. The biergarten is expected to stay on the site as a pop-up for about three years as more of the surrounding development falls into place.

“We are delighted to have such an active and fun interim use at our development directly adjacent to the Scotts Run Stream Valley Park,” Cityline Managing Partner Tasso Flocos said. “The Shipgarten is a wonderful outdoor addition overlooking the urban neighborhood in the making and is an important venue to fill a much needed void for Tysons.”

Image via ShipGarten/Instagram