An 18-year-old Arlington woman is facing a litany of charges after an reported bike theft led to violence.
The incident happened Sunday evening near the intersection of S. Walter Reed Drive and S. Glebe Road.
Police say they were called after a woman entered a home and stole a bike. Confronted by a victim a couple of blocks away, the woman allegedly “assaulted him, attempted to steal his jewelry, damaged a watch and struck him with a bottle.”
The suspect is also accused of kicking two of the police officers who subsequently took her into custody.
More, below, from the latest Arlington County Police Department crime report.
ASSAULT ON POLICE, 2024-03170214, 1700 block of S. Walter Reed Drive. At approximately 7:15 p.m. on March 17, police were dispatched to the report of a burglary in progress. Upon arrival, it was determined the female suspect allegedly entered the victims’ home and was verbally confronted by Victim One. The suspect then stole a bicycle, exited the home and fled the scene. Victim Two located the suspect with the stolen bicycle at 18th Street S. and S. Monroe Street and approached her. The suspect subsequently assaulted him, attempted to steal his jewelry, damaged a watch and struck him with a bottle. The suspect then assaulted a witness who attempted to intervene. As responding officers were detaining the suspect, she kicked two of the officers. Victim Two reported minor injuries and did not require medical treatment. [The suspect], 18, of Arlington, Va. was arrested and charged with Assault on Police (x2), Assault and Battery (x2), Malicious Wounding, Burglary, Destruction of Property and Attempted Robbery. She was held without bond.
Another notable burglary incident happened early Sunday morning in the Cherrydale area. A man tried to force entry into four homes before police were called and a 38-year-old suspect was taken into custody, according to ACPD.
ATTEMPTED BURGLARY (Series) , 2024-03170063/2024-03170064/2024-03170087, 4000 block of Vacation Lane/3900 block of Lorcom Lane/3700 block of Lorcom Lane. At approximately 3:20 a.m. on March 17, police were dispatched to the report of a burglary in progress. Upon arrival, it was determined the female victim was inside her residence when she heard loud banging and observed the male suspect allegedly attempting to force entry into her home by kicking a door. The suspect then left the scene and a short time later, three additional victims in the area reported an individual matching the description of the suspect attempt to force entry into their homes before fleeing the scene. A lookout was broadcast and responding officers canvassed the area and located the suspect. The suspect ran from officers and was subsequently located in the 2400 block of N. Lincoln Street and taken into custody. [The suspect], 38, of Arlington, Va. was arrested and charged with Attempted Burglary (x4).
This past weekend was spring forward for time. This week as been spring open for cherry blossoms.
Thanks to warm and sunny weather, tree blossoms have been opening at a rapid clip, and that includes those on Arlington’s cherry blossom trees.
Blossom seekers can enjoy the bloom by visiting some of the local sites with cherry tree clusters, including:
- Cherrydale Baptist Church (3910 Lorcom Lane)
- Arlington National Cemetery (1 Memorial Ave)
- Long Bridge Park in Crystal City (475 Long Bridge Drive)
- Quincy Park in Virginia Square (1021 N. Quincy Street)
- Welburn Square in Ballston (901 N. Taylor Street)
Arlington has a few events and activities planned coinciding with blossom season, including a pop-up market with local vendors at Metropolitan Park in Pentagon City and live music at the Crystal City Water Park.
The more famous Tidal Basin cherry blossoms in D.C., meanwhile, have reached the final stage before peak bloom. The National Park Service made the announcement this morning.
Here are some more pictures of the blossoms in stage 5: puffy white. Learn more about the blossom cycle & plan your visit at https://t.co/h04Gu0ksc1
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸/🌸#Cherryblossom #BloomWatch #WashingtonDC pic.twitter.com/phjKOaZXYF— National Mall NPS (@NationalMallNPS) March 15, 2024
A Cherrydale vape shop has closed less than a year after opening.
L.A. Leaf opened last spring, stocking a variety of CBD and vape products. Now, however, the store’s interior is empty and its phone number is answered with a dial tone.
The store is the latest in a string of businesses to pop up in one of the retail bays at the base of the condo building at 3800 Langston Blvd, only to shutter a short time later.
In 2015, Kite Runner Cafe, a critically acclaimed Afghan restaurant, closed after just two years in business. Gaijin Ramen Shop took over about two months later, likewise earning some local accolades and 4.4 stars on Google before closing in 2022.
Next door, House of Steep, a tea house and “foot sanctuary” that offered foot soaks and massages, lasted six years from 2012 to 2018. A Subway, meanwhile, survived seven years before closing in 2019, making way for L.A. Leaf.
Jim Todd, president of the Cherrydale Citizens Association, argued that poor accessibility may contribute to closures at this location.
“I think for a number of years, it just suffered from insufficient parking options,” he told ARLnow.
Metered street parking beside 3800 Langston Blvd is limited, and while the building has some retail parking in the back, Todd believes it could be advertised more obviously.
He also believes the county could do more to improve nearby crosswalks.
One of two crossings leading to the building lacks flashing beacons. The county instead provides pedestrians with a reflective “see me” flag to ensure motorists notice them.
Cherrydale, which has a neighborhood plan of its own, was not included in Plan Langston Blvd, a county initiative that passed in November with the goal of expanding public transit, housing and commercial development along the major road, while making it less car-centric.
Public parking was a sticking point, with some advocating it be included as a goal in order to support for existing small businesses. The plan encourages below-grade parking for new developments, shared parking across adjacent parcels and surface lots tucked away from the main road.
“[The county] basically is unwilling to admit that what makes retail successful is adequate parking,” the president said, arguing that large parking lots are key to the success of several nearby strip malls on the other side of the boulevard.
A recent county report, by contrast, argues that lower parking minimums could help spur investment in some local businesses. The report claims that requiring too many parking spaces for establishments such as fitness centers can deter investors from filling vacant space.
Though 3800 Langston Blvd currently lacks open businesses, at least one establishment hasn’t given up hope on the location.
As we reported in January, Burger Billy’s Joint is on track to open next door to the shuttered L.A. Leaf. It has yet to announce an opening date.
A serious crash shut down part of Miliary Road in the Cherrydale neighborhood this afternoon.
The crash happened shortly before 12:30 p.m. Tuesday on the 2200 block of Military Road, a block from Dorothy Hamm Middle School.
Initial reports suggest that a sedan was driven into the back of a trailer parked on the side of the road.
One person was trapped in the car after the crash and was freed by Arlington firefighters, who used rescue equipment to cut off the vehicle’s roof.
The trapped person and a second vehicle occupant were taken to a local hospital via ambulance. Both had potentially serious injuries.
An early report that one person was unconscious after the crash could not immediately be confirmed.
Dan Egitto contributed to this report
A new burger restaurant with a novel take on contactless service is coming to Cherrydale.
A sign for Burger Billy’s Joint has been installed above a ground floor retail space at the condo building at 3800 Langston Blvd.
There are no specifics on when the burger joint might open, but a Facebook page associated with the restaurant says that “Burger Billy’s Joint is coming to the Cherrydale community in Arlington, VA, very soon!”
Burger Billy’s Joint promotes quick and simple service, locally sourced ingredients and “food lockers” to get customers “in and out quickly,” the restaurant’s website says. Customers can place their order and pick it up from the no-contact locker system or have it delivered through an app-based delivery service.
“We love and appreciate you but we know you’re busy,” the website says. “That’s why our restaurants are designed to get you in and out quickly. Our Food Locker system will ensure you get the correct order, fast!”
The burgers at Burger Billy’s Joint will be fresh and made-to-order, using ingredients from Virginia farms, including grass-fed beef from Cottonwood Ranch in Front Royal and fries and hot dogs from Winchester, the website says.
The burger joint will join L.A. Leaf, a CBD and vape shop which opened in 2023, and an existing ATM-only Chase Bank vestibule, in the building’s street-facing retail bays.
The condo building in Cherrydale has seen a few homegrown businesses open on the ground floor and gain popularity, only to close a few years later. Among them were tea house and foot-soaking “sanctuary” House of Steep, closed in 2018, and Gaijin Ramen Shop, which closed in 2022.
Photo via @alysonphoto/X
The owner of Tuna Restaurant in Cherrydale says she plans to rename the Thai and Japanese eatery “Siam Shinzo.”
The new signage, however, won’t be displayed until early next year. And the menu will stay the same.
“It is official on papers, but the signage is still in the process,” the owner, May Ditnoy, told ARLnow. “I probably won’t have it ready to be installed until early February.”
Located at 3813 Langston Blvd, the restaurant has undergone several changes over the years. Originally a spot for Thai cuisine, it became a sushi restaurant in 2015 following a change in ownership. In 2022, it transitioned to Laotian and Japanese cuisine under new management.
Ditnoy acquired the restaurant this past spring, marking its fourth ownership change in eight years. Despite retaining its name, the menu shifted to Thai and Japanese cuisine.
Ditnoy, a Leesburg resident who also runs a catering business with her mother, said she always intended to rename the restaurant. She chose not to delay the restaurant opening to wait for the name change paperwork.
Nearly eight months later, Ditnoy says she believes a name change will more accurately represent the restaurant’s menu offerings.
“Siam is the shortened original name for the capital of Thailand that is now Bangkok. ‘Shinzo’ means heart in Japanese,” she said.
Last year Charga Grill topped the Washington Post’s annual list of top casual restaurants in the region.
That sent a flood of new customers to the eatery at 5151 Langston Blvd. Now two other Arlington restaurants, including another along Langston Blvd, are bound to see a big influx of diners thanks to the latest WaPo rankings.
Food critic Tim Carman’s list of the 10 best D.C.-area casual restaurants of 2023 ranks King of Koshary in Bluemont at #6 and Bostan Uyghur Cuisine in Cherrydale at #10.
King of Koshary, at 5515 Wilson Blvd, was previously praised by Carman for its “Egyptian food fit for royalty.”
“The King’s koshary is actually a joint effort from Ayob Metry and Nadia Gomaa, a pair of Egyptian natives who used to challenge each other to make the best version of this carb-heavy dish when they worked in the prepared foods department at Whole Foods in Ashburn,” Carman wrote in his latest list, published Tuesday.
Bostan Uyghur Cuisine, at 3911 Langston Blvd, was also noted for its compelling origin story — in addition to the food.
“Faced with the threat of a Chinese ‘reeducation’ camp if he returned to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to renew his passport, Mirzat Salam opted to flee to the United States with his wife, Zulhayat Omer,” Carman wrote. “Trained as a doctor in Xinjiang, Mirzat slipped quietly into the hospitality industry, the same profession that his father, a chef named Abdusalam, had warned him about as a boy.”
Topping this year’s list, in the former Charga spot, is Woodbridge food truck Lechonera DMV.
Eighteen properties formerly within a special “revitalization district” in Cherrydale will soon officially be eligible for redevelopment with 2- to 6-unit homes.
On Monday, the Arlington Planning Commission unanimously adopted changes to the county’s General Land Use Plan map that removed 18 properties from the boundaries of the Cherrydale revitalization district, outlined in the 1994 Cherrydale Revitalization Plan.
According to Missing Middle ordinances, these properties would have been exempt from Expanded Housing Option, or EHO, development because they were intended for larger-scale redevelopment. But that was unlikely to happen.
“Since the redevelopment on adjacent properties did not also include these parcels as part of the site assemblages, it is unexpected and likely infeasible for the balance of properties to redevelop on their own consistent with the Cherrydale plan,” per a county report.
If the Arlington County Board approves the proposed map changes this month, these 18 properties could have a new path forward for redevelopment as EHOs, potentially creating a subtler transition from higher-density or commercial buildings to single-family home neighborhoods.
Since the revitalization plan was adopted in 1994, several properties in Cherrydale have redeveloped, becoming townhouses, for instance, but leaving a collection of single-family homes nearby.
When the Missing Middle ordinances were adopted, county staff recommended studying the Cherrydale Revitalization District boundaries as part of Plan Langston Blvd, which outlines how the county can leverage private development to turn car-centric Langston Blvd into a leafy, walkable corridor with more housing, retail and open space.
Notably, Cherrydale had been left out of Plan Langston Blvd because its redevelopment plan had yet to be fully realized. Still, with this recommendation, staff sought to find homes unlikely to be assembled for larger-scale redevelopment and free them up for EHO development.
The map shows other blocks with a few single-family homes are still included in district, meaning the county still has high hopes developers could assemble these properties for larger-scale developments.
The Planning Commission adopted the changes this month after a month-long delay.
In November, the County Board decided to postpone hearings on the map until December because a copy of the map “was inadvertently omitted” from meeting materials in October, when the Board heard staff’s request to advertise hearings, the report said.
The item is now teed up to go before the County Board on Saturday, Dec. 16.
The long-time former owner of Essy’s Carriage House has died.
Essy Saedi died on Thanksgiving, November 23, at the age of 76. He owned the beloved family-owned Cherrydale restaurant before its closing earlier this year. As he told ARLnow, Saedi was looking forward to traveling in his retirement.
“I’m excited… I get to go to Las Vegas more,” he said.
Saedi immigrated to the United States from Iran in the 1960s and helped open the restaurant Langston Blvd near the corner of N. Quincy Street and Cherry Hill Road in 1975. He took over as full owner a year later, renaming the eatery after himself — Essy’s Carriage House.
In nearly five decades, Saedi’s restaurant became a local staple, serving up steak, liver and comfort food to a loyal customer base. It had the “best crab cakes we’ve ever had. Anywhere,” according to one customer.
Even as he closed in on retirement, Saedi still did much of the prep work at the restaurant, including the sauce-making and meat-braising.
Essy’s Carriage House was known for its white-clothed tables and fresh-cut flowers on each table. Throughout its run, the restaurant served judges, military brass, lawmakers, lawyers, and, even “four-star generals,” according to Saedi. He primarily ran the restaurant with his wife, Janet Saedi, whom he married in the 1980s.
“It’s really been fundamentally the two of us running this place,” Janet told ARLnow in February. “But it’s been beautiful.”
But it was Essy who was the face of the restaurant and a big reason why customers kept coming back for close to five decades.
“I guess I’m just cute,” Essy said earlier this year.
He was known for “his warmth, his story telling, his mixed metaphors and his sometimes inappropriate sense of humor,” his obituary reads. Saedi could be seen on most nights at his restaurant running between tables, chatting with customers, and telling everyone what to order.
Essy had a “quirky sense of humor that some people adore… and there are people who don’t quite get it,” Janet said.
He embraced his quirkiness and was once named “the most colorful character in Arlington” by a local newspaper, notes his obituary. Saedi often called himself the “Luckiest Persian Alive.”
In the weeks before the restaurant was set to close, Essy was still busy at the restaurant and doing what he did best: sharing laughs with customers.
“They’ve become family and friends. We’ve done this for 50 years and we see [many] like once a week,” Essy said in February, taking a long pause. “Maybe I’ll pass them at the grocery store someday.”
Essy Saedi is survived by his wife Janet, daughters Lorena and Tonya, and sister Mehry. The family is planning a private burial and, in lieu of flowers, is asking for donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
(Updated at 11:35 a.m.) All around Columbia Pike — and increasingly elsewhere in Arlington County — one graffiti message has been popping up: “hate.”
At first, it seemed to be concentrated around a stalled development project on the Pike, but now, the graffiti has been seen farther north in Cherrydale. It appears not to be confined to Arlington, either, as it was spotted earlier this year in Georgetown.
The persistent tagging is troubling a number of Arlington residents. It is also vexing those who report not seeing action taken after using Arlington County Police Department’s channels for recourse, including a non-emergency phone number and an online reporting system.
The most recent tag was on the building that is home to the Columbia Pike Partnership and the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington at 3045B Columbia Pike.
“We are checking camera footage,” museum president Scott Taylor told ARLnow, noting this is the first time the building has been tagged with the now ubiquitous slogan. “Police have been notified… We are saddened.”
Alyssa Trembeczki, who lives near Bob & Edith’s Diner, has seen the graffiti while out for runs and bike rides around the Pike, though she also reported seeing it at the corner of Langston Blvd and Military Road.
“I would love for whoever is doing this to stop since it’s making me feel unsafe in my own neighborhood and I’m sure others feel the same way,” she said.
She said she learned from police officers that whoever is tagging property is targeting places without security cameras.
Resident Tim Starker says he called the non-emergency number in early July to report one incident he noticed on S. George Mason Drive and Columbia Pike — and then twice more — but received no follow-up at any time.
“After about six weeks of no remediation, I emailed the [Arlington County] Board and got a canned response from a staff member advising to use the graffiti reporting function on the website,” he said. “The staffer eventually told me it was on private property so they had limited options.”
Another anonymous tipster, sharing photos from of similar graffiti in Cherrydale, echoed the dilemma of going to the county for issues on private property.
“This has been reported to Arlington County via their website but not sure they can intervene since these are private building(s) and utilities,” the tipster said.
Starker says he is waiting on a response from any County Board member, which he says is surprising.
“It’s an easy opportunity to address a constituent and at least explain the problem,” he said, noting the graffiti on S. George Mason Drive still there.
Later this morning, a county spokesperson said the graffiti at the location had been removed.
Tackling the graffiti and finding the culprit have been top priorities for Penrose Civic Association President Alex Sakes. He says last week, he met with ACPD, County Manager Mark Schwartz, Board Chair Christian Dorsey and Board Vice-Chair Libby Garvey for the second time to discuss solutions.
Sakes says ACPD recently completed a study, specifically for Penrose, about how to prevent crime through what he calls “environmental design.”
“We’re working on getting security cameras and motion-sensing lighting available to our Columbia Pike businesses… and a registry for existing security footage and data for current businesses that ACPD needs,” he said. “I’m beyond ready to get this stuff funded, purchased and installed. [I’m] tired of all these meetings.”
County Board spokesman David Barrera said the Board is aware of the graffiti concerns, noting they are most prevalent in Penrose and along Columbia Pike.
Essy’s Carriage House in Cherrydale appears to have been sold, but it remains a mystery to whom.
The long-time, well-known restaurant on Langston Blvd closed in March and went on the market shortly thereafter for two million dollars.
Now, an “under contract” sign has appeared next to the building. The listing webpage also notes that an offer is “contingent.”
“Rare offering of the Essys Carriage House restaurant and parking lot located behind Essys that totals 17,269 Sq Ft,” reads the listing. “The restaurant is sited on a 2,099 Sq Ft lot that is zoned C-2 and is approximately 1,800 Sq Ft with two basements for storage and utilities. The parking lot is comprised of two parcels totaling approximately 15,170 Sq Ft that is zoned R-6. The property is vacant, conveys as-is & a majority of the restaurant equipment & personal property has been removed.”
ARLnow contacted real estate firm Yeonas & Shafran and they did confirm the former location of Essy’s is currently under contract, but could not disclose any more information than that. We have also reached out to a prominent local restaurant group that has been rumored to be behind the purchase but have yet to hear back as of publication.
The steak and crab cake Cherrydale eatery closed a couple of months ago after serving the community for nearly fifty years. The married couple who had run it, Essy and Janet Saedi, decided to retire.
That portion of Cherrydale has seen a good deal of turnover in recent years with the shuttering of several long-time restaurants.
In September 2021, Portabellos closed but was replaced only a few months later by Pines of Florence itself making a comeback after stints in Virginia Square and Columbia Pike. Tuna Restaurant serving Laotian and Japanese cuisine opened in October 2022, replacing Maneki Neko Express. But that restaurant was quickly sold to new owners who re-opened last month with a more Thai-focused menu.
Well-regarded Gaijin Ramen Shop at 3800 Langston Blvd also shuttered in September 2022, citing “irrecoverable business losses” due to the pandemic. It had been there since 2015.