The culinary scene at Cedar Park Shopping Center is about to heat up, with three new restaurants planning to open this winter, even after one tenant recently bowed out of the Vienna strip mall.
Crepes & Karak Cafe (280 Cedar Lane SE) shuttered on Aug. 30 after more than four years at the shopping center. A sign posted to the door indicates that the eatery will be moving to a new location but does not mention where that might be.
“We want to make sure that we have enough kitchen space to provide our services,” the sign says. “Thank you for your support and understanding.”
Crepes & Karak did not return requests for comment by publication time.
When Cedar Park celebrated the completion of an extensive renovation in November, Crepes & Karak owner Ashraf Hamid told Tysons Reporter that he hoped the shopping center’s new look would attract more customers and foot traffic after his business saw a 60% drop in sales following its two-week shutdown for the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Meanwhile, Cedar Park’s revitalization could soon kick into a near gear, as property owner First Washington Realty has leased more than 6,000 square feet of space combined to a trio of restaurants.
Sushi Koji
Sushi Koji (262H Cedar Lane) has been a decade in the making for husband-and-wife owners Hyung Joon Lee and Grace Park.
Though he’s Korean, Lee has spent years training and working as a chef at Japanese restaurants in the D.C. area, including Sushi Taro in D.C., where he learned from owner-chef Nobu Yamazaki. He has also won National Sushi Society competitions and other awards in both the U.S. and Japan, according to Park.
However, this is the couple’s first attempt at starting their own restaurant.
“Hyung Joon has always wanted to make good quality food and is excited that he is able to do so by opening his own restaurant,” Park told Tysons Reporter. “He will constantly develop and change the menu using fresh ingredients for every season.”
In addition to sushi, the menu’s primary focus will be on ramen, which will feature fresh noodles made from scratch. Dishes will use shio koji, the fermented seasoning that gives the restaurant its name.
Park, who is decorating and working with professional designers to set up the restaurant, says they started looking for possible locations in August. The Town of Vienna stood out for its budding foodie culture, but actually landing the vacant, 1,500 square-foot site in Cedar Park took some luck.
“It actually is kind of competitive,” Park said of finding retail space in the town. “We were surprised we were able to open the restaurant in Vienna, so we’re very excited about that.”
Fairfax County issued electrical and plumbing/gas permits to Sushi Koji on Sept. 9. Lee and Park hope to open the restaurant in early December. Read More
A D.C. restaurant that started as a food truck has chosen Tysons West as the site of its first location in Virginia.
The family-owned Roaming Rooster is slated to open a 2,000-square-foot space this fall in the shopping mall at 1500 Cornerside Boulevard, property management company Rappaport confirmed.
“Roaming Rooster will be a great addition to the line-up of fast-casual dining options in Tysons and we are looking forward to announcing additional retail and services opening at Tysons soon,” Henry Fonvielle, president of Rappaport, said in a statement.
Existing restaurants at Tysons West, which is situated near the Spring Hill Metro station, include the fast-casual District Taco and Moby Dick Kabob. The health food-oriented chain B.Good opened an eatery at the mall in 2019, but it appears to have permanently closed during the pandemic.
According to its website, Roaming Rooster launched in 2015 and quickly expanded from one to three food trucks. It now has four locations in D.C., with an expansion into Maryland also coming this fall.
The company says its restaurants use free-range chickens that aren’t given antibiotics or chemicals.
The menu primarily features different flavors of chicken sandwiches, including fried chicken, buffalo fried, Nashville hot, and honey butter fried. There are also salads, wings, chicken tenders, and various comfort food sides.
Cha Tea House started from a place of familial love and a bit of naiveté.
Co-owners Sofhia and Usman Qamar and Suhail and Saba Kamran launched the family-run business with two food trucks and some outdoor seating behind Springfield Town Center on Oct. 17, 2020 out of a desire to recreate the relaxed, sociable atmosphere of the roadside eateries common in their native Pakistan.
However, none of the owners had any previous experience in the food industry, admits Sofhia Qamar, a high school teacher. Her partners in the venture are an accountant, a wedding decorator, and an entrepreneur.
As a result, the group had to learn to adapt quickly, a necessary skill for any small business owner even without the new anxieties introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The first weekend, we prepped enough for a thousand orders. We thought, okay, this will last us three days,” Sofhia said. “We ran out of food after two hours of being open on the first day, and it hasn’t stopped…The feedback that we’ve gotten has been absolutely amazing.”
Cha Tea House has proven so successful in its first year that the team is now preparing to open its first brick-and-mortar location at Tysons Corner Center, potentially as soon as the first week of November before the holiday season kicks into gear.
Located on the mall’s second floor between &Pizza and Cava Mezze Grill, the cafe will offer indoor and outdoor seating with a patio that will be outfitted with lights and heaters for when the weather gets colder.
While the menu will be mostly the same, with paratha rolls and other entrees, snacks, milkshakes, and mojitos in addition to the signature teas, the Tysons site will allow Cha Tea House to expand its offerings with more fresh pastries, desserts, and salads, Sofhia says.
The company also hopes to expand its customer base outside of the community of South Asians, many of them immigrants, that have coalesced around the cafe in Springfield.
“Part of our drive to open it was to be able to share that feeling of home with people who are expatriates, who are foreign and miss that from the country that they left behind,” Sofhia said. “But the other part was to share it with people who don’t know a lot about Pakistan, so we thought Tysons would be a great place for that, because it is still very diverse.”
The dhabas that inspired Cha Tea House are roadside restaurants or food stalls that sell tea and snacks to patrons who consume them while sitting outside. They tend to be modest in appearance, but Sofhia says they’re “the best places to get food.”
She describes their function as closer to that of a bar than the on-the-go mentality of an American coffee shop. With tea substituted for alcohol, particularly in Muslim-majority countries like Pakistan, patrons visit as much for the opportunity to socialize as the food and drink.
“In our culture, tea is basically the thing that you surround yourself with when you’re having social gatherings, so our tea houses are where everyone goes to connect and talk and hang out,” Sofhia explained to Tysons Reporter.
In that same spirit, Cha Tea House hosts performances by local musicians and other artists every Saturday night, a tradition that will carry over to the Tysons Corner Center location with an emphasis on young students, singers, poets, and writers.
Cha also strives to cultivate a feeling of community by donating a portion of its profits to select nonprofit organizations. The current beneficiary is the Karachi Down Syndrome Program, which provides support and resources to individuals with Down syndrome who live in the Pakistani city.
Sofhia, whose daughter has Down syndrome, says the program seemed appropriate for their mission and background, but Cha hopes to support more organizations as it expands.
“We’re looking forward to making partnerships at Tysons and being not just in the community, but being a member of that community,” she said.
An old school Italian-style deli is looking to transform a vacant restaurant space in Tysons previously occupied by Jimmy John’s.
The D.C.-based Capo Deli is moving forward with the planned new location, but the timeline is unclear, spokesperson Natalie Flynn said. It will be located at 8359B Leesburg Pike near the Greensboro Metro station.
“We are opening a spot in Tysons,” she said. “As we look to expand our business, Tysons is a great opportunity.”
Fairfax County began processing an interior alteration permit in July and approved it on Sept. 16. Passersby can see an empty restaurant inside and notices posted on the storefront.
“It’s a vastly populated part of northern Virginia,” Flynn said of the company choosing the Tysons market. “It’s a huge hub for shopping, dining, eating out.”
The company had not yet made hires for the new location as of Thursday (Sept. 23).
Originally started in Florida in 1985, Capo Italian Deli opened in D.C. in June 2017. The eatery is known for its sandwiches, “secret” cocktail bar, and most recently, the “Fauci Pouchy” — a line of pouched cocktails named after National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci that has kept the business afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Per the company’s DC website:
Reminiscent of the old school, traditional Italian deli’s found in NY, Philly and Boston, Capo Italian Deli is opening in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. No gimmicks, no fancy names or unheard of ingredients, just traditional classics found in your hometown deli. Capo will feature our special homemade Italian dressing, freshly made seeded sub rolls, Boar’s Head meats properly sliced in front of you, in-house cooked roast beef, chicken parmigiana, meatball subs, homemade Marinara sauce, Italian combos, pre-made salads and Italian specialties and desserts. We do not compromise on quality and we do not take short cuts.
Shake Shack wants to take over a closed restaurant in the Mosaic District.
The burger-and-shake chain has been working through Fairfax County’s permitting process to move into the former Choolaah space at Suite 110, 2911 District Avenue, but it still lacks health, building, and other approvals.
Construction Journal and the Washington Business Journal previously reported the news, though the latter noted that plans could fall through. That was the case with a former Arby’s location that Shake Shack had planned for North Bethesda.
According to the WBJ, Shake Shack’s plans include an outdoor patio and bar-style seating inside:
Per the Mosaic plans, drawn up by Gensler, the Shake Shack will break down as 4,070 square feet inside and 668 square feet on the outdoor patio. Inside there will be bar-style, linear and open seating and four order kiosks. In addition to Gensler, the team includes Henderson Engineers, engineer KPFF and TriMark, a food service consultant and supplier.
An email sent to a Shake Shack spokesperson yesterday (Wednesday) wasn’t returned by the time this article was published.
The company’s only other location in Fairfax County is at Tysons Corner Center. It opened in 2014.
Choolaah, an Indian fast-casual food chain, opened in the Mosaic District in 2016 and temporarily shuttered amid the pandemic before announcing in January that the closure would be permanent.
Health, building, mechanical, and other reviews are listed as incomplete after Shake Shack saw permitting setbacks in September. Its application to the county was processed July 13 and is still listed as pending.
The new McLean location for grocery chain Lidl will be accompanied by regional favorite pizza and beer chains when it opens sometime next year.
Construction on Lidl, which is replacing the Safeway at 1330 Chain Bridge Road, is now underway, with plans to open next spring.
As first reported by the Washington Business Journal, Reston-based Thompson Hospitality is subleasing some of the space in Lidl to add D.C.-area chains Matchbox — a series of pizzerias spread predominately through Northern Virginia — and Big Buns, a burger eatery with locations in Reston, Ballston, and Shirlington.
According to an email from Connie Collins, senior vice president of the Thompson Retail Food Group, Matchbox and Big Buns are scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2022:
We believe the Mclean customer is quite adept at recognizing quality providing us with the exciting opportunity to deliver best-in-class product and service [by our flagship Matchbox and Big Buns brands] aligned with the needs of a discerning and deserving consumer. Our breadth of menu offerings provided a rounded environment to dine at various times of day and experiences to a wide variety of diners from children to retirees and everyone in between.
Both restaurants will take up a 6,200 square-foot space and will have their own seating areas. Matchbox will also have a patio space, like the pizzeria’s Mosaic District location.
Big Buns confirmed to Tysons Reporter in July that it is adding a location in the Town of Vienna, taking over the site in Danor Plaza previously occupied by Elevation Burger.
(Updated at 9:05 a.m. on 9/23/2021) Nicole Liberatore has come a long way from handing cannoli to customers in a parking lot.
Less than two years after they started selling traditional Italian baked goods out of their Annandale home, Liberatore and her husband Dominick have turned their Bisnonna Bakeshop into a brick-and-mortar store at Tysons Corner Center, which welcomed its new arrival on Saturday (Sept. 18) with much fanfare.
“This has definitely been a real Cinderella story for us,” Liberatore told Tysons Reporter while piping creamy ricotta cheese filling into tubes of fried pastry dough.
The fairy godmother came in the form of Tysons Corner Center’s first-ever DreamStart competition, a “Shark Tank”-style contest where entrepreneurs pitched a product, service, or business concept for the opportunity to get three months of free rent at the mall, among other prizes.
Tysons Corner Center launched the competition in May with the dual goal of supporting local businesses and attracting new tenants to fill its vacant spaces, including the corner spot across from Barnes & Noble that Bisnonna has taken over from the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant.
While the 53-year-old shopping center has been insulated from some of COVID-19’s effects, the past year has still required a whirlwind of adjustments, as the pandemic accelerated some trends, like the shift to online shopping, that were already challenging traditional retailers and the malls that relied on them.
“Everybody’s been affected in different ways, so it’s all about being nimble and making sure we’re able to adapt not just to the pandemic, but all the things that change in the retail industry,” Tysons Corner Center Senior Manager of Business Development Services Becca Willcox said.
After the competition’s 21 applicants were whittled down to nine finalists, Bisnonna was named the grand prize winner on Aug. 11. The runners-up were fashion boutique Garçon Melanie, which opened on Aug. 28, and The Popcorn Bag DC, which is still in the works.
Willcox says the winners stood out as much for the narratives that their owners told as the products they sell. The property team from Macerich, which owns Tysons Corner Center, was especially drawn to Liberatore’s story of starting Bisnonna with recipes passed down from her and her husband’s grandparents.
“The family roots that they have…the way they take a traditional Italian pastry and infuse the cultures that are prominent here in the Northern Virginia area really stood out to us,” Willcox said. “It made us see that there was a big hole in what we offered here in Tysons and an opportunity to be able to really connect with the community through delicious food and product.” Read More
(Updated at 7:30 p.m.) The Capital One Center development in Tysons is ramping up with lodging and dining.
The Watermark Hotel, featuring 300 luxury rooms, will open tomorrow (Tuesday), and the Wren — a Japanese-American bar and small plates restaurant — opens Friday (Sept. 24), said Tara McNamara, the hotel’s sales director.
“Our inspiration is derived from ‘izakaya,’ the Japanese concept of having a place to gather together to relax and chat while enjoying good food and drink,” chef Yo Matsuzaki said in a news release.
The restaurant’s fare includes oysters, sashimi, baby beet salad with yuzu pistachio vinaigrette, and grilled Black Angus ribeye — all of it prepared in front of guests. It will be open to the public from 5 to 10 p.m. with the bar operating from 3 to 11 p.m.
The Wren is located on the 11th floor by the hotel’s lobby, overlooking part of Tysons as well as The Perch, the recreational space featuring a park, brewery and other amenities that opened in late August. The park is located above Capital One Hall, a new performance venue opening Oct. 1 with Josh Groban.
This past weekend, a three-day festival showed off the sky park’s amenities. Superheroes rappelled down a side of the hotel to wash windows for the event.
Grab-and-go options in food truck façades are slated to be added by The Perch in the coming spring in a portion of the roof that construction crews are still preparing.
Capital One Financial owns The Watermark Hotel and is rolling out its debut with rooms for employees as the company navigates a return-to-work policy this November that keeps telecommuting in place on Mondays and Fridays.
The hotel’s suites feature local artists’ works that adorn everything from soap holders to wallpaper sponge paintings.
Jonathan Lee with B.F. Saul Company Hospitality Group, which is operating the hotel, shared with visitors how Capital One executives tested out which mattresses to pick for the hotel.
One was a base model, another was the kind used at the Ritz, and a third was ultra luxury: Without knowing which was which, the executives’ preferences centered on one choice, Lee said, causing the mattress budget to go through the roof.
A Capital One Center spokesperson later denied that executives had tested the hotel mattresses, calling the account inaccurate.
Given Bonchon’s overall ubiquity, it might surprise some residents to learn that the Korean fried chicken purveyor has yet to make an entry into the Tysons area.
That will change next year, when Bonchon opens its first Tysons location at 8603 Westwood Center Drive near Route 7 and the Spring Hill Metro station.
The restaurant chain announced today (Wednesday) that it recently executed a lease for Suite 100 in the Westwood office and retail complex, which counts Paisano’s Pizza and the Indian restaurant Bombay Tandoor among its current tenants.
Bonchon anticipates opening its new 2,600 square-foot restaurant in May 2022.
“Bonchon has been wildly popular across the state of Virginia but in particular in the DMV area,” Bonchon CEO Flynn Dekker said in a press release. “With each new Virginia location, we are reminded just how much the taste of our ‘hometown’ has been welcomed into the hearts and homes of so many.”
With a name that translates to “my hometown” in Korean, Bonchon was founded in South Korea in 2002 and expanded into the U.S. in 2006. It now boasts more than 370 restaurants worldwide and over 100 American sites, more than 20 of them in Virginia.
Right now, however, the eatery closest to the Tysons area is off of Old Lee Highway just outside the City of Fairfax. Korean fried chicken fans have also been able to get their fill from rival chain Chi Mc, which opened a location in the Town of Vienna in June 2020.
Other Bonchon locations in Fairfax County include Reston, Herndon, Centreville, Annandale, and Springfield. There are also sites in Arlington and the City of Alexandria.
The company says it plans to open two dozen new locations in 2022.
The Tysons Bonchon will take over the space most recently occupied by I-Thai’s Side Street and Sushi Bar, which has been reported closed on Yelp.
The Thai restaurant’s website remains up, but the phone number is no longer in service, and Tysons Reporter didn’t immediately receive a response from the listed email address.
I-66 West Lane Closures Start Tonight — I-66 West in the Vienna area will be reduced to a single travel lane around 10 p.m. today (Friday) and tomorrow with one lane remaining closed during the day on Saturday. The closures are needed to shift the westbound travel lanes between Gallows Road and Nutley Street to new pavement as part of the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project. [VDOT]
Two Injured in McLean House Fire During Storm — Two people went to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries after a house in the 6600 block of Osborn Street caught fire around 9:10 p.m. on Tuesday (Aug. 10). The fire, which displaced five occupants and resulted in approximately $25,000 in damages, was caused by an unattended candle placed too close to curtains during a thunderstorm-induced power outage. [FCFRD]
Craft Beer Restaurant Planned for Tysons Galleria — “Yard House, the casual, craft beer-focused restaurant with a growing Greater Washington presence, will open a new location inside the redeveloped former Macy’s store at the Tysons Galleria. Building permits filed this week with Fairfax County describe the project as eventually spanning 14,236 square feet and entailing an outdoor patio at the redone Galleria space.” [Washington Business Journal]
Falls Church Adds Affordable Housing — Falls Church City bought properties at 310 and 312 Shirley Street for $925,000 each on Wednesday (Aug. 11). The 2,560 square-foot buildings consist of four one-bedroom apartments that will be preserved as market-rate affordable units, joining the 16 such units that the City already owns at 208 Gibson Street and 302 Shirley Street. [City of Falls Church]
