Inca Latin Kitchen, a new South American restaurant at 2670 in Merrifield, is hosting a series of pre-opening events this weekend and next week before its grand opening on Feb. 1.

Today (Friday) and tomorrow, the restaurant will host its final Machu Pisco tasting. No reservations are required and the event is free to attend. Parking is also free after 6 p.m. in the nearby Metro station lot.

“We will be featuring our Machu Pisco collaboration beer that can only be drank at Inca or Crooked Run Brewing,” the restaurant said in a Facebook post. “You will also be able to enjoy our Pisco Sours as well as some of our classic Latin American cocktails like a Chilcano and our tasty sample menu for you to taste many of our menu items like Lomo Saltado, Inca Balls, Ceviche and so much more!”

The restaurant will have a soft opening Wednesday (Jan. 9) from 4-9 p.m.

Inca Latin Kitchen is also currently open to applications for positions from bartenders to managers.

Photo via Facebook

Across the next three days, there are three ugly sweater parties planned and two of them will give attendees the chance to win $100.

Tonight (Dec. 21)

• Holiday Potluck (8 p.m.) — The Mosaic Ballroom in Merrifield is hosting a free holiday potluck, with holiday drinks, food and dancing. For those who aren’t feeling festive, the event will include non-holiday songs.
• 2nd Annual Ugliest Sweater Party at Tysons Biergarten (9 p.m.-2 a.m.) — Tysons Biergarten says the harder your sweater is to look at tonight, the more likely you’ll be to walk home with $100 in cash. Participants must register online to win.
• Jingle 2018 (10:30 p.m.) — Greenhouse Bistro is hosting a Christmas party at 2070 Chain Bridge Road in Tysons.

Tomorrow (Dec. 22)

• Ugly Christmas Sweater Party (4-8 p.m.) — Coastal Flats in Tysons Corner Center is hosting a party for least fashionable, with prizes awarded accordingly.
• Open Road Ugly Christmas Sweater Party (7-8:30 p.m.) — Open Road Grill in Merrifield is holding an ugly sweater party with a chance to win a $100 gift card if yours is the ugliest. The Grill also requests attendees to bring a coat to donate.
• Pre-Christmas Party (8 p.m.-2 a.m.) — The Palladium (1424 Spring Hill Road) is hosting its pre-Christmas party featuring local Latin band Nfuzion.

Sunday (Dec. 23)

• Paint Party with Santa (3-5 p.m.) — Kiln & Co at 138 Church St. in Vienna will be hosting an afternoon of ornament painting and hot chocolate. For $10, parents can drop their kids off at the event to be supervised. Proceeds from the event benefit the Vienna Volunteer Fire Department.

Photo via Facebook

Across all of Fairfax County, Tysons has the highest concentration of cybersecurity companies with headquarters or major operations.

According to a list put together by the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA), Tysons has 119 cybersecurity companies, the most of any jurisdiction in the county. Tysons is followed by Reston with 79 companies and Herndon with 68 companies.

Economic groups have been working to turn Tysons into a Silicon Valley for cybersecurity. Bringing in more tech companies, and how that could impact education and infrastructure challenges around the region, was a major theme of the Tysons 2050 event

Some of the cybersecurity companies — or companies with cybersecurity components — in Tysons include:

• BAE Systems — a defense, security and aerospace company
• Centurum — a network engineering and infrastructure company
• Cyren — a cloud-based internet security services company
• Dell EMC — a data storage and management company acquired by Dell in 2016.
• HumanTouch — a private and public sector cybersecurity company
• Leidos — a defense and intelligence industry focused cybersecurity company
• Merlin International — a cybersecurity company focusing on both government and commercial contracts
• Microstrategy — a data analytics company
• MITRE — a not-for-profit company that operates research and development centers
• Nehemiah Security — a cyber-risk assessment business
• Novetta Solutions — a data-analytics focused business
• OBXtek — a technical and logistics solutions company which works primarily with the federal government
• Preferred Systems Solutions — an IT management, development, and operation company
• PFP Cybersecurity — a cybersecurity company utilizing analog signals to assess the integrity of digital information
• Raytheon — a major defense contractor
• RSA — a commercial-focused cybersecurity company
• Strategic Operational Solutions — an IT strategy and management consulting firm
• Tangible Security — a cybersecurity company
• Tanium — an endpoint security and systems management company
• Trustwave — a business-focused cybersecurity company
• Veris Group — a Tysons cyber-risk assessor that acquired in 2016 by cybersecurity company Coalfire
• Verodin — a cybersecurity management company

There are also several major cybersecurity companies located around the Merrifield area, including:

• Cisco Systems — an IT, networking and cybersecurity company
• Harris Corporation — a company built on improving business’ cybersecurity effectiveness
• Kingfisher Systems, Inc. — a cybersecurity contractor
• Lockheed Martin — a global security and aerospace company
• TEKsystems — an IT staffing company

Photo via FCEDA

(Updated 2:30 p.m.) If you’re looking for a last minute holiday gift, the Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association’s location in the Mosaic District will be offering (relatively) affordable art until this coming Sunday, Dec. 23.

The ≤500 exhibit features a range of art types with a focus on affordability, all items being priced at or below $500. The artwork in the gallery includes painting, photography, and glass mosaics.

The gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

After the ≤500 exhibit closes on Sunday, a new exhibit called “Voyages” will run from Dec. 26 through Jan. 27 and “MicroResidencies” from Jan. 30 through March 3.

The Mosaic gallery is managed by the Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association. The Mosaic gallery opened at 105 District Ave in April this year, on a one-year lease, after a short run in November 2017 as a pop-up gallery.

Tysons Agenda is a listing of interesting events for the week ahead in the Tysons area.

We’ve scoured the web for events of note in Tysons, Vienna, Merrifield and McLean. Know of any we’ve missed? Tell us!

Today, Dec. 17

Free Movie Screening: Bumblebee
AMC Tysons Corner (7850 Tysons Corner)
Time: 6:30-9 p.m.

ThingstodoDC.com is hosting a free screening of the new movie Bumblebee, the latest in the long-running Transformers series. Reviews have been surprisingly positive so far.

Final Meeting – Mclean MRC
Longfellow Middle (2000 Westmoreland St)
Time: 7-9 p.m.

This will be the final vision plan presentation discussing plans to renovate downtown McLean, which currently include turning a street into a pedestrian avenue and adding a new roundabout.

Tuesday, Dec. 18

In the Mix: NOVA Holiday Mixer
Tower Club (8000 Towers Crescent Drive)
Time: 5:30-7:30 p.m.

A networking event at the Tower Club in Tysons aims to bring Northern Virginia community members together to form new career and business connections to start 2019 with. Tickets are complimentary for Tower Club members or $10 for guests.

Cheesetique Trivia Night
Cheesetique (2985 District Ave)
Time: 7-9 p.m.

A trivia night in the Mosaic District held alongside an extended happy hour running until 9 p.m.

Wednesday, Dec. 19

Ugly Christmas Sweater Workout
CrossFit Route 7 (8504 Tyco Road)
Time: 6 a.m.-9 p.m.

The Tysons CrossFit studio is hosting an all-day ugliest Christmas sweater or t-shirt contest, culminating with a class photo to commemorate a day of bad taste.

Second Story Toy Drive
Tysons Biergarten (8346 Leesburg Pike)
Time: 4-6 p.m.

The Biergarten will host its third annual toy drive for Second Story, a nonprofit youth shelter in Vienna. New or gently used toys can be brought to the Biergarten at a donation bin near the front door.

Thursday, Dec. 20

Devils Backbone Tap Takeover
Blackfinn Ameripub – Merrifield (2750 Gallows Rd)
Time: 5-7 p.m.

The Virginia-based Devils Backbone Brewing Company will take over the bar with the beers like their Vienna Lager or Gran-cose available on tap.

Merrifield has always been anchored by its movie theater. While Fairfax County’s aerial photography shows the site’s growth from fields to an urban center, the theater has been there since some of the earliest photos.

In photography from before 1960, Merrifield is mostly fields and farmland. But in 1954, the Washington area’s largest drive-in theater, the Lee Highway Drive-In, opened at the site. That’s the cone-shaped development in the middle of the aerial photography.

The theater featured a 50×120′ CinemaScope screen and a rotunda-style dining area. At its capacity in 1983, the drive-in could fit 1,353 cars.

The drive-in is still visible in the 1976 photography, with other development sprouting up nearby. In 1984, however, the drive-in was closed and replaced with a multiplex theater nearby. Like the drive-in at its heyday, the new theaters that opened were state-of-the-art.

But by the mid-2000s, the once modern multiplex was showing its age, like the drive-in had before it. The site gained some notoriety in 2005 after a man leaving the theater was attacked by several assailants, one of whom wielded a machete and cut three fingers off the man’s hand.

In 2009 the site’s owner, National Amusements, sold the site and plans began to emerge for a more pedestrian-friendly urban center today known as the Mosaic District. Photography from 2011 shows the area mid-development; in 2012 the Mosaic District opened with a mix of handpicked local boutiques and national retailers.

Prior to that, Rep. Gerry Connolly described Merrifield as a “waste” in a New York Times article on the emerging development.

Mr. Connolly… is familiar with Merrifield’s past and present. He remembers thinking to himself, “What a waste of land,” after being elected in 1995 to the Fairfax County board of supervisors. “We have this aging movie theater that’s surrounded by acres of surface parking,” Mr. Connolly said.

In fall 2012, the Angelika Film Center opened an 8-screen theater in Mosaic District, continuing Merrifield’s movie legacy established more than half a century earlier.

Past and Present is a Tysons Reporter series looking at locations in our area as they’ve changed over the last century. Check out our articles for Tysons Corner Mall,  Tysons Galleria/Leesburg Pike, Tysons East, and Maple Avenue.

Friday Night Fire in Merrifield — “On Friday, November 30 at approximately 11:59 p.m., units from Fairfax County Fire and Rescue and the City of Fairfax Fire Department were dispatched for a reported kitchen fire in the 9400 block of Lee Highway in the Merrifield section of Fairfax County.” [FCFR]

More on Bluestone Lane Coffee Shop — “Bluestone Lane plans to break into the Northern Virginia market next year at the Boro development in Tysons Corner in mid-to-late 2019… The global brand from Australia is known for its ‘avocado smash’ toast, cold-pressed juices, custom teas, and other healthy fare.” [Eater]

PSA: Don’t Illegally Park in Accessible Parking Spaces — “With the holiday shopping season underway, finding parking at shopping centers can be harder than tracking down the hottest toy of the year. As a result, shoppers sometimes illegally park in accessible spaces reserved for people with disabilities. Approximately 75,000 county residents have a disability, so it is critical that these parking spaces remain available to them.” [Fairfax County]

Winchester Woman Arrested for Vienna Assault — “Vienna police officers went to Park Terrace Court, S.E., on Nov. 5 at 1:42 a.m. after authorities received a 911 hang-up call. Police located a resident who advised she had been assaulted by her girlfriend.” [InsideNova]

Fairfax Tax Deadline Extended — “Fairfax County Government Offices will be open Wednesday, December 5. However, because Wednesday has been proclaimed as a national day of mourning to honor the passing of former President George H.W. Bush, the due date for 2018 second installment Real Estate tax payments has been extended until December 6.” [Fairfax County]

A gas line rupture near the Mosaic District has prompted at least one road closure.

Eskridge Road is closed between Lee Highway and Williams Drive, according to Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, after workers struck what is believed to be a two-inch gas line at the intersection of Eskridge and Merrifield Town Center.

Firefighters have established a “safety perimeter” and are checking nearby buildings, including adjacent townhomes.

Drivers are being encouraged to avoid the area.

UPDATE – gas leak on Eskridge Rd at Merrifield Town Center: situation stable and under control. Awaiting arrival of @washingtongas . Some units are going back in service. #fcfrd #news https://t.co/OuiSIBZMlv

— Fairfax County Fire/Rescue (@ffxfirerescue) November 26, 2018

Map via Google Maps

(Updated at 12:50 p.m.) If you’re looking to chase your Mosaic District shopping with a stiff drink, the MacMillan Whisky Room — opening early next year at 2920 District Ave — could be your style.

The bar and restaurant is part of a series of new venues scheduled to move into the Mosaic District, according to the Washington Business Journal. New stores include Robert Redford-helmed Sundance and a new Barnes & Noble.

According to Derek Anderson, co-owner of the bar along with his wife Emma Hand, MacMillan Whisky Room will be a high-end neighborhood bar offering a variety of international whiskies and local beers.

“We like the whisky bar scene in Washington, D.C.” said Anderson. “My wife and I live nearby. Mosaic is a great location. There’s a built-in customer base here in the Mosaic District and they really need a high-end neighborhood bar.”

This is Anderson’s first restaurant, but helping out with the opening is his brother, Keith Anderson, who Derek says has worked as a chef at several restaurants and will be the head chef at MacMillan Whisky Room. The MacMillan Whisky Room will serve burgers along with classic British bar fare like scotch eggs, fish and chips and other dishes.

Derek Anderson said is all of the permitting goes well, the restaurant will likely be opening by the end of January 2019.

Whisky photo via Facebook. Exterior photo via Google Maps.

Barnes & Noble is expected to move into the Mosaic District, but a novel approach may have the store scaled down to a novella.

According to the Washington Business Journal, the Mosaic District’s Barnes & Noble will only be 8,630 square feet in size; substantially smaller than the typical store.

The smaller stores are part of a turnaround initiative for the company, which faces declining sales. Many of the new locations will be roughly half the size of most Barnes & Noble stores.

The scaled-down Mosaic District Barnes & Noble is scheduled to open at 2921 District Avenue, adjacent to the West Elm furniture and home accessories store, in June 2019.

The Barnes & Noble is part of a slate of new stores in the Mosaic District, including the recently opened Sundance and Erin Condren.

Photo via Google Maps