After the coronavirus pandemic altered plans to open Super Bit Video Games, owner Chris Jackson decided to temporarily shift his model so he could safely supply customers with video games and toys.
Instead of inviting people into the store (101 E. Broad Street), which sells retro video games and other similar items, Jackson said he set up a curbside pick-up system so customers could limit in-person contact.
“We were pretty much in a bad spot,” he said but added that between pick-up options, eBay sales and Instagram advertising, the business still ended up being sustainable.
Now, two weeks after customers have finally been welcomed into the store, sales have “substantially” picked up, according to Jackson.
“It’s been awesome to finally get to meet these people,” Jackson said. “The first two weeks have been outstanding.”
Though people were still stopping by for curbside pickup, many customers were awaiting the day when they could visit the interior of the store, he said.
“A lot of the people coming by seem to understand who we are and what we do,” he said. “Because of that, we have a good chance of this level of interest being maintained over a period of time.”
Since people aren’t really out-and-about like they used to be before COVID, Jackson also expects foot traffic to pick up in several months.
As a “destination retail location,” Jackson sees customers stopping by from all over the greater D.C. area, including Falls Church, Vienna, Arlington and even Maryland.
Because the store wasn’t open before the pandemic, Jackson isn’t sure if sales picked up because of quarantine boredom, but he did say the community seemed very supportive on social media before the pandemic hit Northern Virginia.
“One of the biggest reasons I wanted to open this place was to provide a place for the retro gaming community,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of places in this area that do this.”
Bestsellers so far, according to Jackson, include older Nintendo gaming systems along with GoldenEye, Super Mario 64 and even Sega systems, which he said he grew up with.
To keep customers safe, Jackson requests that customers wear masks and social distance while they browse.
“So far everyone has been great with that stuff,” he said, adding that they allow roughly four people maximum in the shop at any one time.
If people want to check out the shop, they can visit Wednesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Sundays from noon until 5 p.m. The shop is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
Photo courtesy Chris Jackson
After opening a little more than a year ago, City Works in Tysons closed its doors, according to a company spokesperson.
Located right outside the Capital One headquarters, the American tap house and eatery (1640 Capital One Drive N.) first announced a temporary closure due to COVID-19, but a statement to Tysons Reporter today says there aren’t any plans to reopen the spot.
“With the challenges presented in the current environment, Bottleneck Management is focusing its energy into well-established City Works restaurants in other markets around the country, while remaining focused on future national expansion,” according to the statement from Bottleneck Management, which operates City Works.
It is unclear exactly when the company decided to permanently close the location or what will happen to the spot.
“City Works is proud to have served the Tysons community, and thanks their guests for their patronage,” the statement said.
Image via Google Maps
After a temporary closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 24 Hour Fitness location in Tysons is now closed permanently.
The facility at 1500 Cornerside Blvd previously offered a variety of workout membership services, according to its website.
Guests who visited the website for the Tysons location were greeted with a notice that read, “This Location Has Closed,” accompanied by a link to find other facilities in the area.
The Tysons gym is also on a list of 24 Hour Fitness location around the U.S. that are closed: “24 Hour Fitness has made the difficult decision to close the following locations.”
CNN reported today that 24 Hour Fitness has filed for bankruptcy and permanently closed 100 locations in 14 states — about a quarter of its gyms.
The gym chain now only lists two locations left in Virginia.
For people who want to take advantage of the company’s offerings, they can visit the Falls Church location (1000 E. Broad Street), which is set to reopen July 7, according to the website.
Photo via Google Maps
The McLean Project for the Arts sent out an all-call for artists for the upcoming summer exhibition.
Curators are seeking submissions for a display called”SHIFT,” according to a press release, which added artists from across the mid-Atlantic region are welcome to apply.
“The works in this exhibition will focus on the concept of shift, change or exchange in paradigm, position, direction, tendency, viewpoint, atmosphere, needs, dreams, schedules, interactions, environment, perspective,” the release said.
Submissions are due June 26, and the exhibit will run from July 15 through August 27.
There is no cost to submit a piece for consideration, and artists can submit up to two pieces of any size, medium, form or weight, according to the website. Two jurors will each pick their favorite pieces for consideration.
“It will be interesting to see how the exhibits differ from one another,” the website said.
Image courtesy McLean Project for the Arts
After noticing harm done by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vienna community members banded together to help D.C. residents in need.
Lydia Russo, who organized the fundraiser on the Vienna VA Foodies Facebook group, said that the group raised roughly $20,000 to support Martha’s Table, which works to support education programs, healthy food and family outreach.
Russo told Tysons Reporter that she was impressed with Martha’s Table’s work East of River and wanted to partner with them to benefit the Barry Farm neighborhood, which is near one of the centers for Martha’s Table.
“I wanted to go with a well-known charity because they have a well-organized program that is intertwined in the neighborhood and has a good system going,” Russo said.
In the first two days of the fundraiser, Russo said the effort raised $18,000 — far exceeding her expectations.
“My first ‘goal’ was only $1,000. Then it increased to $5,000,” she said. “Within the week, we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people donate — children, teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, people I’ve met, people I’ve never met, people who heard about the fundraiser from a friend.”
The check is set to be hand-delivered to Martha’s Table this week by Russo and both of Vienna’s incoming and outgoing mayors, Russo said.
“My hope was to show that we are all part of one larger community, and we should think of our neighbors and put our thoughts and words into action,” Russo said.
Though the fundraiser ended yesterday, Russo encourages people to organize their own fundraisers or donate to Martha’s Table directly, since the nonprofit accepts donations year-round.
Photo via Martha’s Table/Facebook
After her graduation from McLean High School in 2018, Isabel Romov received a prestigious scholarship that allows her to study a rare heart disease that can cause sudden death in young adults.
Romov is an upcoming junior studying biotechnology at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. As the inaugural Beckman Scholar, Romov will assist JMU Chemistry Professor Nathan Wright with research over the course of a roughly 15-month period, according to a press release.
Romov will focus on arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. The disorder is transferred genetically from someone’s family and causes arrhythmias and thickens the walls of the ventricles in the lower chambers of the heart, the press release said. It affects roughly one in 5,000 people, according to Boston Childen’s Hospital and can cause sudden death, cardiac arrest or the sudden loss of consciousness.
Though Romov hasn’t worked with Wright before, she first expressed interest in his work after viewing one of his guest lectures.
For the research, the team is looking at the DNA, learning how to block the disease mutation and creating a “molecular Band-Aid” to cover it up, Romov said.
The scholarship includes $18,600 to funnel into her research.
Romov said the scholarship is competitive, and she thinks she was chosen because of her dedication to perfection, high grades and drive to help people after her mother passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) almost two years ago.
“It has given me a motivation I don’t think anyone else has unless they’ve been in that situation,” she said. “I want to help people and the fact that science works for me and I love it is secondary.”
Growing up, Romov said she struggled during high school because many of her teachers didn’t realize what was going on in her family life, but she said she was thankful for the competitive curriculum that helped her prepare for college.
Now at JMU, Romov serves on the board for Delta Gamma, a social sorority she said strives towards high grades, and is also a member of TriBeta, an honor society for biology students.
After college, she hopes to work with a biotech company or another institution that will help her pursue a graduate degree. Since Romov said she has been working since she was 14 years old, one of her main goals in life is to become financially independent.
“Going to a job is very exciting for me and I’m excited to learn and work in the science field.”
Photo via JMU/Facebook
(Updated at 5:20 p.m.) As the Black Lives Matter movement sweeps across the world in response to George Floyd’s death, Fairfax County locals are taking to the streets to call for racial equality.
Already, there have been protests and marches in Reston, Falls Church and Vienna. An upcoming protest is slated to take place in McLean on Wednesday.
Tysons Reporter interviewed Sean Perryman, the president of the Fairfax NAACP, to gain insight into underlying issues in the community and how the group is advocating for solutions.
After graduating from the Vanderbilt University Law School and working as a civil litigator, Perryman decided to join the NAACP back in 2016 after Donald Trump’s election. Since becoming president in 2019, he has led the group to promote the NAACP’s mission to “ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race.”
“I threw myself in because I didn’t like what I was seeing at the national level and wanted to get involved at the local level,” he said.
The Fairfax NAACP actually originated in the Falls Church area, which Perryman said is historically significant because the county government unjustly took land from Black owners in the area.
Though Fairfax County is thought of as a progressive and liberal area, “there is a history of violence here that often gets overlooked,” Perryman said.
Throughout the last several years, Perryman recalled several incidents of alleged police brutality and discrimination against Black individuals that he claims were overlooked by the public.
Just recently, a Fairfax County police officer was charged with three misdemeanor counts of assault and battery after using a stun gun on a black man, the Washington Post reported.
Fairfax County hired a research team to look into the use-of-force incidents by Fairfax County police after a study found a disproportionate impact on black individuals. The research team is expected to reveal its findings early next year.
“The use of force here is disproportionate here for the police department [against black and brown people],” he said, adding that it is still better than some surrounding jurisdictions.
How Photos Can Influence the Perception of Law Enforcement
Roughly a week ago at a Black Lives Matter rally in Vienna, Mina Salama captured a photo of Vienna Police Chief Jim Morris kneeling, maskless alongside hundreds of other protesters.
Though Salama said she didn’t know that the officer in the photo was the police chief at the time, she said the moment and his position intrigued her.
Tysons Reporter is working to schedule an interview with Morris to talk about the photo and will update this story.
“I thought it was great — he wasn’t in the middle of the crowd. He was doing it on his own and just really feeling like he was a part of it,” Salama said.
Perryman said he didn’t want to be “cynical” and possibly discredit Morris’ true intentions behind the image, however, he said he wants to see progressive policy changes instead of social displays of support. He added that “nice” images of police kneeling don’t always portray an accurate representation of a situation.
“I don’t care about police chiefs kneeling or holding Black Lives Matter signs. Get your officers in check,” he said. “Make sure they are not abusing people. Give us transparency and data. Make real change, and anything short of that can just be seen as a photo opportunity.”
The Vienna police chief photo happened on the spur of the moment, Salama said.
Before Salama ultimately decided to post the photo on Facebook, she said she struggled with the decision but decided that the image helped to accurately describe the atmosphere at the event.
“I kind of went back and forth about posting the picture [on social media] because in a lot of communities it’s done as a photo opp and this was more organic,” she said. “Nobody promoted him.”
NAACP’s Demands for Reform
Perryman claims students of color and students with disabilities are taken into police custody disproportionally compared to their white peers in Fairfax County Public Schools.
“Sometimes these were for issues like disorderly conduct,” Perryman said. “What does this mean? For a kid, does that mean they were just being bad in school?”
Perryman said that Fairfax NAACP’s efforts have been able to reduce arrests in schools by 60%. Still, he wants to see more done: “I’ve always said we need to get the cops out of schools and put in more counselors.”
In terms of One Fairfax, Perryman said he thinks the policy is good for “looking at things through an equity lens,” but added that the county’s school board and Board of Supervisors have a long way to go before the policy is more than “lip service.”
“You can’t have One Fairfax when you have a Robert E. Lee High School, and the school is named after a Confederate general who wanted to enslave black people,” he noted as an example.
The Fairfax County School Board voted in 2019 to consider renaming seven schools, including Mosby Woods Elementary School, named after people with Confederate ties.
Recently, the school board resumed its process to consider renaming Robert E. Lee High School.
In the next several months, Perryman said that the group will continue to push for police reform at the county, state and national levels.
The NAACP wants to see qualified immunity eliminated, Perryman said. “It ensures trust in the system. If you have trust in the system, you don’t have people going through the streets looking for justice,” he said.
If elected officials are determined to enact changes, Perryman said new policies could be in place within a year. For a complete list of NAACP’s agenda items, people can visit the organization’s website.
Ways Community Members Can Support
For people who want to keep rallying and showing up to protests, Perryman said that he hopes people will try to keep in mind precautions such as wearing masks and social distancing. Last week, Fairfax NAACP held a car rally where people could listen and participate in their cars.
If people want to support the NAACP, they donate or ask how they can be of service. Though some people requested that the NAACP help them organize rallies, Perryman said that isn’t the purpose of the group.
People can become better allies by educating themselves about systemic racism in American history, Perryman said.
“One of the best things to do is to Google the origins of policing,” he said. “Our policing system is relatively new and in the course of American history, the way we do policing originated out of slave patrols,” he said. “I think a lot of people are shocked by that.”
Perryman suggested books such as “Stamped From the Beginning” and “How to Be an Anti-Racist” both by Ibram X. Kendi, who runs an anti-racism center at American University in D.C.
“Historical context helps you to solve a problem and look at things in a different light,” Perryman said.
Photos courtesy Sean Perryman
Gov. Ralph Northam announced this afternoon at a press conference that Northern Virginia localities can move into phase two starting Friday (June 12).
Northam said that the COVID-19 metrics for Northern Virginia continue to improve.
“Our hospitalizations for COVID are trending downward, particularly in the last week,” Northam said, adding that hospitals are under capacity.
The rest of Virginia entered phase two last Friday (June 5).
At the same press conference, Northam also released a plan to reopen public schools for the 2020-2021 school year. Changes will include social distancing measures and adaptations to perform health checks, according to Northam.
Students will not be required to wear face coverings, according to the Virginia superintendent, but they will be encouraged for older students.
Image via Governor of Virginia/Facebook
After announcing a temporary closure on March 18, the Cheesetique Mosaic location has closed permanently.
An employee at another location in Del Rey said that the location will not reopen but added she wasn’t at liberty to give a reason.
The eatery used to serve lunch, dinner and brunch, the website said, adding that it also sold cheese for take-home consumption.
Tysons Reporter reached out to the location’s owner to find out why the location closed and is awaiting a response.
Only a few days before its then-temporary closure in March, the eatery posted on its social media page, asking people to purchase gift cards. It is unclear if these will be accepted at the other two Northern Virginia locations.
Photo via Cheesetique Mosaic/Facebook
For roughly 500 kids in Northern Virginia, the annual Pride Prom hosted by Tysons-based NoVA Pride was a time where they could have fun and connect with their peers.
Though COVID-19 has put a damper on in-person Pride celebrations this year — and led to Pride Prom’s postponement twice — NoVa Pride is still working to support members of the LGBTQ+ youth community. Pride month is meant as an inclusive, celebratory event commemorating Stonewall.
Amy, the director of youth outreach for the group, said they decided to set up virtual activities where participants can connect with their friends.
These kids need extra support in the age of COVID-19 since LGBTQ+ youth may not have as much support at home, according to Amy, who added that a lack of peer support and contact could put them at risk.
“Many kids rely on schools for affirmation and validation,” Amy said. “They’re the ones who are experiencing more social isolation.”
The digital events, which Amy said are held every other week, include Netflix parties, Q&As with student leadership and an Instagram chat option.
Anyone who wishes to get involved with these events can check out NoVA Pride’s website and social media.
For the next meeting, NoVA Pride will be teaching a DIY drag tutorial, according to Amy.
Though many of NoVA Pride’s events are aimed at kids in ninth-12th grade, the organization also works with adults, serving as a resource to help connect new community members with LGBTQ-friendly churches and groups.
“From what we’ve seen, adults aren’t really looking for anything online,” Amy said.
Regarding the Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the country, Amy said she wants people to remember that Pride festivities were inspired by the Stonewall Riots, which were sparked by transgender women of color and other members of the LBGTQ+ community in response to police raids.
🏳️🌈Pride as we know it began with a riot. We stand in solidarity with the recognition that one’s race should not endanger them, one’s gender should not hinder them, one’s sexuality should not isolate them. Equality & equity are essential for freedom. 👊🏼 #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/XDamOtjQMo
— Northern VA Pride (@northernvapride) May 31, 2020
NoVA Pride’s mission is “to cultivate and grow a coalition to educate, advocate and celebrate in service to the [LGBTQ+] community of Northern Virginia and our straight Allies.”
“Nothing we have done has changed, we are a very diverse and inclusive organization in general,” Amy said. “The same youth leaders who are serving as Pride Prom leaders are the ones in their communities advocating for racial justice and racial equity.”
For anyone struggling with their identity, depression or social norms, the Trevor Project aims to prevent suicide and self-harm in LBGTQ+ youth across the country, according to its website. Though it has no official affiliation with NoVA Pride, Amy said it is a wonderful resource.
Currently, Pride Prom is scheduled to be held in August but Amy said it is unclear if they will be forced to cancel with how quickly things seem to be changing with COVID-19.
