A buzzy new Mediterranean restaurant in Clarendon has pushed back its opening again.
Kirby Club, which previously was set to be called Tawle, is now aiming for a March 2024 opening in the former IOTA Club space at 2832 Wilson Blvd, a restaurant spokesperson confirmed to ARLnow.
When it was first announced in May 2022 that a casual kebab-centric restaurant was coming to Clarendon, the hope was to open in about a year. That was later moved back to fall 2023. But, now, the eatery is looking at serving starting in early spring of next year.
No specific reason was given for the push.
“The restaurant plans are moving along as planned, just taking more time than originally planned,” a restaurant spokesperson told ARLnow.
Kirby Club comes from award-winning restaurateur Rose Previte, who recently won a RAMMY award for her work with D.C.’s Compass Rose and Maydan.
This will be the second location of the Eastern Mediterranean-inspired casual restaurant, with the other opening in Mosaic District late last year to plenty of fanfare and has received a number of accolades ever since.
A restaurant spokesperson said that diners should expect Clarendon’s Kirby Club to be “similar” to the Mosaic District location.
In an interview last year, Previte told ARLnow that she was excited to open in Clarendon because she had attended school at nearby George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and also had worked for Arlington Economic Development as part of a fellowship. While going to school and working, she often went out to Clarendon restaurants and bars.
“I maybe had too much fun in Clarendon because I was 25,” she said at the time. “So, to think we are going to have a bar and restaurant there is very cool.”
A petition filed by a Union Kitchen employee is calling for the end to its relationship with its labor union, but the union is dismissing the effort as a ploy by management.
It was announced on Friday that a Union Kitchen employee has filed a petition with the National Labor Review Board (NLRB) to end its relationship with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400. The petition has reportedly been signed by a number of Union Kitchen employees, including those who work at the Ballston location
This would effectively end UFCW Local 400’s ability to bargain and support unionized employees at Union Kitchen.
“Employees of five Union Kitchen Grocery locations in the Washington, DC, metro area have filed a petition seeking to end United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400’s monopoly bargaining power over workers,” reads a press release. “The employees submitted their decertification petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 5 with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.”
But a UFCW Local 400 spokesperson insisted that this effort isn’t legit, accusing Union Kitchen management of being involved in the petition and using potentially illegal tactics, like intimidating employees, to sign the petition.
“Our take is that it’s basically bullshit,” Travis Acton said. “We knew this was coming. This is not a surprise. The only thing, honestly, that caught me by surprise is how blatantly illegal they’re going about it.”
It was just over a year ago when employees at five Union Kitchens voted in favor of forming a union, including the one in Ballston on Wilson Blvd. That came after a long-running effort that was delayed due to challenged ballots and charges of unfair labor practices. It has continued to be a contentious relationship ever since.
In November, the NLRB determined that Union Kitchen management violated 26 counts of labor law including union-busting tactics and wrongfully terminating employees. In March of this year, the union filed a wage theft lawsuit against management. And just last month, the union called for a boycott of all Union Kitchen locations.
The boycott remains ongoing, Acton said.
The employees who are calling for the decertification are being provided “free legal aid” by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a non-profit with a mission to “eliminate coercive union power and compulsory unionism abuses.”
In the press release sent out by National Right to Work, the organization said that a single employee submitted the petition but it has been supported “by the vast majority of her coworkers.” The employee claimed in a letter sent to Union Kitchen CEO Cullen Gilchrist that close to 90% of workers signed the petition, as reported by the Washington Business Journal.
Acton said that those numbers might be misleading. He told ARLnow that in recent months the company has significantly added to the list of employees that are eligible to be represented by the union. Acton claims that a number of those added employees are actually people in management roles, those who own brands sold at the store, and those who might have personal relationships with Gilchrist.
“Nobody’s ever seen them work in the store or work an actual shift in the store,” he said.
Plus, Acton claimed, that he’s heard from employees who felt like they were forced to sign the petition or they would get fired.
“Based on our experience over the last six months to a year of them firing anybody who comes to the bargaining table, who supports the union, I believe them,” he said.
Intimidation of this nature is potentially illegal, according to federal law.
As expected, Union Kitchen CEO Cullen Gilchrist supports the petition to end the company’s employees’ relationship with the union and specifically noted the ongoing boycott as the reason for his support in the following email to ARLnow.
A new “live music and event venue” is coming to Ballston, posting up right next to El Rey.
The Filling Station is set to open soon on Wilson Blvd in Ballston, per an Instagram post last week. It aims to be a “great new spot for live music, comedy and more,” reads the post
The Filling Station will be adjacent to El Rey at 4201 Wilson Blvd and, like El Rey, owned by brothers Ian and Eric Hilton.
The brothers’ growing list of bars and restaurants include Cafe Coline on Langston Blvd, which was named one of Washingtonian’s Top 100 Restaurants earlier this year. Originally on U Street NW in the District, taco spot El Rey opened its second location in Ballston in late 2021.
The new venue is set to host a variety of events including stand-up comedy, live music, private parties, salsa brunches and podcast recordings, a spokesperson told ARLnow. A link on El Rey’s website has a sample menu that includes typical pub fare, like nachos, chicken wings, loaded fries, and 17 beers on tap.
It’s not immediately clear when The Filling Station might open, with the website noting only that it’s “coming soon.” ARLnow reached out to a restaurant spokesperson who replied that they were still “ironing out exact details” and more information be available in the future.
Signs have been up for The Filling Station since at least August 2022, but the business has faced delays related to its live entertainment permit application, ARLnow was told last year.
There’s been a bit of a shifting in Arlington’s live music scene. B Live opened last year, looking to fill the void left by Iota Club’s closing in 2017. But last month, the venue announced it was moving away from original acts to host more karaoke. The Renegade in Clarendon remains open with a full live music calendar, though.
(Updated on 7/25/23) A tricycle serving Turkish coffee has started serving in Ballston.
The three-wheeled coffee contraption is from long-time restaurant veteran and local author Isa Seyran, who told ARLnow late last year he was working on a new concept that would come after leaving his server job at The Salt Line.
This mobile, custom-designed red tricycle offering Turkish coffee and baklava is that new business. It has been parking along the 4000 block of Wilson Blvd after opening earlier this month.
Seyran named the small coffee stand “Ballstonian,” in homage to the neighborhood in which he has lived for over two decades.
The coffee tricycle is currently open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. (or until supplies last) seven days a week.
“I was a waiter for 23 years and worked with some of the greatest chefs in our region. Some of the food I served, like [at] Rasika and Zaytinya, was simply divine, but it was never my thing,” Seyran told ARLnow about why he decided to open a Turkish coffee spot in Ballston.
“So I decided to sing my own song at my own humble stage and wanted to bring a piece of Anatolia, Medietterrenea and Mesopotamia, a cradle of civilization where I spent the first half of my life, to Ballston, where I spent the second half of my life.”
Besides coffee and baklava, Ballstonian also serves cheese pastries and masala chai from a recipe Seyran learned while working at D.C.’s famed Indian restaurant Rasika.
The Ballston resident worked at some of the region’s most popular and renowned restaurants, including Zaytinya, Bombay Club, and Fiola Mare in D.C., before ending his tenure at The Salt Line in Ballston.
Beyond those jobs, Seyran is also an author, playwright, and filmmaker often producing art based on his experiences as a waiter in the D.C.-area. And, now, he’s added entrepreneur to that list.
He told ARLnow that the first few days have gone well so far and he’s been “humbled by the overwhelming support and love Ballstonian received from my fellow Ballstonians.”
But Seyran is not particularly surprised by the reception, noting that no other Ballston business is selling Turkish coffee.
“At The Salt Line… I got to know my client base, their spending habits, who they are and what they want,” Seyran said. “Having done my market research, I knew people were hungry for something different.”
His ambitions go beyond a coffee stand. The hope is one day to set up an “urban oasis” in Ballston with a tent, cushions, coffee, and books where “members of the community could take a breather from the bustling urban landscape around them.”
He also would love to do coffee ground fortune tellings, like he did while working at Zaytinya, and introduce “Bark-lava,” which would be “a bone-shaped, dog-friendly baklava.”
But, for now, all of that will have to wait, including the coffee ground fortune telling.
“That requires time and space to seat people so that I could serve the coffee in a ceramic cup as opposed to a paper cup,” Seyran said. “[A] food truck parked on the side of the road is not suitable for that ancient tradition but I hope to do that in the near future.”
A long-time Rosslyn sushi spot has closed.
Kanpai Japanese Restaurant inside 1401 Wilson Blvd and near the intersection with N. Oak Street had its last day of service on Friday (June 23), per the restaurant’s Facebook page. Additionally, online ordering is no longer available and the phone number is disconnected.
A sign is also now on the door of the former restaurant appearing to thank the owners. It reads, “Thank you, Kanpi. The best sushi. The best neighbors. The best friends. We will miss you so much.”
Kanpai appears to have been open since at least 2006, according to Yelp reviews. Its menu consisted of sushi, tempura, and other Japanese favorites.
ARLnow has attempted to reach the Kanpai’s owners about the closure, but it’s likely due to the pending redevelopment of 1401 Wilson Blvd. The building is nearly 60 years old and aging. The plan is to build newer, more modern office and retail space in its place. Earlier this month, owner Monday Properties got a two-year extension on the project.
The building’s parking garage is noted for being the spot where reporter Bob Woodward secretly met with Deep Throat during the Watergate investigation. A historical marker was placed in front of the building in 2011.
Hat tip to Matt Siniscal
Rosslyn’s Thai Select is adding a sushi bar in the former home of a spin studio.
The four-year-old Thai food restaurant located just off Wilson Blvd in the Colonial Village Shopping Center is expanding, a restaurant representative confirmed to ARLnow.
The restaurant is adding a sushi bar and a small dining area in the space that formerly housed Good Sweat. The independent spin studio at 1711 Wilson Blvd closed back in May 2022.
It’s expected the sushi bar will open sometime in October or November, the representative said, though it depends on when county permits are received.
The expansion was needed because their original space “is tiny” and it often gets very crowded when there are both customers and drivers picking up food orders packing into the space, we’re told. The restaurant’s take-out and delivery business grew significantly during the pandemic, the representative said.
Colonial Village Shopping Center in Rosslyn has seen a good deal of turnover in recent years, with a French pastry shop replacing a coffee shop and a Brazilian steakhouse moving into the former home of Ben’s Chili Bowl.
One thing that has not changed is the well-known, cash-only Pho 75, which has been in the shopping center for years.
Hat tip to anonymous and Ben L.
B Live “has decided to pivot” to having live band karaoke for most of the weekend, decreasing the number of live original acts the local music venue will be hosting going forward.
Co-owner Christal Bramson tells ARLnow that the restaurant and live music venue, at 2854 Wilson Blvd in Clarendon, is shifting away from hosting a full slate of original musical acts all week long and towards more live karaoke.
The reason, Bramson said, is that Thursday night’s karaoke has proven to be so popular and has garnered so much “positive feedback” that it made sense for B Live to lean into it.
“We will still have live bands, but will have more nights of live karaoke,” she wrote. “Our Thursday evenings, we have received a lot of positive feedback on the live karaoke band.”
Bramson said B Live is “responding to demand” since there is no other dedicated live karaoke venue in Clarendon.
It’s unclear when this shift in programming might happen. The June calendar still has a number of weekend shows listed to appear later this month. Bramson said her team is “currently working on the calendar”
B Live, owned by wife and husband team of Christal and Mike Bramson, opened just over a year ago in the long-time space of Whitlow’s — which has since moved to the District — with a promise of allowing guests to “engage with the local music scene.”
In an interview last June, Mike Bramson told ARLnow that they wanted to open B Live in Clarendon because of the neighborhood’s long history of being home to live music venues. With several closing in recent years, including the beloved Iota Club in 2017, the hope was to fill that live music void for locals.
B Live is also making several other changes in the coming weeks. This coming weekend, the venue is opening an outdoor/lawn space complete with a “launch party.”
And, by the end of the month, a restaurant pop-up will be launching out of B Live. Wicked Buns from local chef Nacho Olivera, who also has worked at Detour Coffee and the Rebel Taco food truck at the Lot, will be serving double-patty burgers, kobe beef hot dogs, and fried chicken sandwiches at the venue.
The long-planned “tropical glam” bar coming to B Live’s rooftop is also planning a much-anticipated debut next month. Coco B’s, as the rooftop venue will be called, is described by Christal Bramson as the “female version” of B Live.
“We are awaiting a couple more inspections,” Bramson said. “But anticipate an early July opening date.”
A growing Northern Virginia juice shop chain is now coming to Courthouse, in addition to a previously-announced location in Ballston.
The Ballston shop will be squeezing itself into the former home of Philz at 4121 Wilson Blvd, which closed late last year. The hope is that it will open next month, perhaps by July 15, co-owner Reese Gardner tells ARLnow.
The second Arlington location is set for Courthouse, moving into the one-time home of Rāko Coffee at 2016 Wilson Blvd. That shop quietly closed late last year as well, claiming it was just temporary due to a “out of order” espresso machine. The next month, however, pieces of equipment and furniture were put up for public auction by the county, with the money going towards the company’s tax bill.
It’s not clear when Greenheart will open in Courthouse, though signage is now in place above the door.
This will be the juice shop’s fourth and fifth locations, with other shops in Vienna, Leesburg, and Aldie, Virginia. The menu is focused on cold pressed juices, smoothies, salads, and bowls.
In addition to co-owning the juice shop, which he acquired a few months ago, Gardner also owns a number of other local bars and restaurants. That includes Dudley’s Sport and Ale in Shirlington, Quinn’s on the Corner in Rosslyn, and Brass Rabbit Pub in Clarendon.
There’s now a new spot to get a Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino in Ballston.
The new Starbucks at 4000 Wilson Blvd held its grand opening this morning (Monday). It’s located in the ground floor retail space of the View Apartments, in the former home of Lebanese Taverna’s quick-service concept LebTav, which closed earlier this year.
ARLnow first reported in late February that a Starbucks was set to move into that location.
Starbucks store No. 71315 has some indoor seating and an outdoor patio. Seating, in general, appears to be rather limited, however.
This morning, employees were outside the store shouting “happy opening day” and providing free samples to passers-by.
The new location gives the densest census tract in Virginia and the entire D.C. region its own adjacent Starbucks.
There are at least four other Starbucks stores within walking distance, however. Among them: next to the Virginia Square Metro station, at the bottom of the Marymount University building at the intersection of N. Glebe Road and Fairfax Drive, inside of the Westin Hotel on N. Glebe Road, and adjacent to the Ballston Metro station.
There are also several other non-Starbucks coffee options nearby, including Compass Coffee, Dunkin’, and Slipstream, which opened in March.
A new Japanese barbeque restaurant has started sizzling in Ballston.
Gyu San BBQ opened late last month at the corner of N. Glebe Road and Wilson Blvd, a restaurant spokesperson confirmed to ARLnow.
ARLnow first reported last September the restaurant was coming to the space that was formerly occupied by Bangkok Bistro, which closed in 2020.
It’s in the Ballston Point building, which it shares with the coffee shop Slipstream, which opened recently, albeit on the opposite side of the triangular building. World of Beer, at the building’s “point,” closed in April.
Gyu San is from Ivea Restaurant Group, which owns a number of other restaurants in Arlington and across the region. That includes Chinese dim sum eatery Tiger Dumpling and Japanese izakaya-style restaurant Izakaya 68, which are set to open next to each other on Washington Blvd in Clarendon. No word yet on when those establishments might start serving.
While Gyu San BBQ has only been up for a short time, Yelp reviews are already generally positive.
“Fun new spot in Ballston that did not disappoint,” reads one. Several reviews did note that it gets busy on weekends.
Gyu San is competing with at least one other local Japanese barbeque restaurant, Gyu-Kaku, which opened several years ago in Clarendon.
(Updated at 1:15 p.m.) Chicken + Whiskey is preparing to open in Clarendon later this week, a co-owner confirmed to ARLnow.
The new South American rotisserie chicken restaurant and whiskey bar at 3033 Wilson Blvd aims to start serving this Friday (June 9), co-owner Des Reilly said, provided a Virginia ABC liquor is in hand by then. A grand opening is set for next weekend, June 16.
In September, ARLnow reported that Chicken + Whiskey was crossing the river to get Clarendon to open its first location outside the District and fourth overall. The menu consists of Peruvian-styled chicken, arepas, and sandwiches, plus a full cocktail and whiskey bar.
What makes Chicken + Whiskey different, said Reilly, is the chef.
“I bet you five bucks we are the only fast-casual restaurant on the East Coast that has a Michelin star,” he said. “Chef Enrique Limardo is really the uniqueness of it all.”
Limardo is “commonly credited as the pioneer of modern Venezuelan cooking in the U.S.,” so says the Huffington Post. He’s also the head chef at Immigrant Food and D.C.’s Seven Reasons, which was named one of the most important restaurants of the last decade by Esquire.
“Getting a guy like that who can make $8.50 Peruvian chicken with all the beautiful… Venezuela sides, that’s different,” Reilly said.
The nearly 6,000-square-foot space the restaurant is moving into was once Hunan Number One, which closed three years ago.
Reilly said that Clarendon had been “on their radar” for years and they very nearly leased out the exact same space in early 2020. However, the pandemic put expansion efforts “on the backburner.” When they came back a few years later, the 6,000-square-foot space at 3033 Wilson Blvd was still available.
The other businesses in the neighborhood are a big reason why ownership is so optimistic about Clarendon and this block of Wilson Blvd in particular.
“We always look at the other operators in the area. We like to see other brands… doing well, other restaurants thriving,” Reilly said. “There’s Ambar… Bar Ivy, which is in the same building as us… Wilson Hardware is across the street. There’s a whole sort of plethora of other great restaurants and bars that populate this area and makes it a real sort of critical mass location for us.”
While Chicken + Whiskey is set to hold its “soft opening” this Friday, there will be giveaways, food specials, and entertainment during its “grand opening” on June 16. That includes branded swag, a chance to win free chicken for a year, a $150 bar tab, and a lunch special of a chicken meal with two sides for five dollars.
As Reilly kept pointing out, the draw of Chicken + Whiskey will be the food at a decent price.
“To have a [chef] so highly rated doing a restaurant of a per person average of really $16… it’s pretty remarkable,” he said.
