Around Town

Ice cream shop coming to Crystal City, but flavor unknown

Ground floor retail construction at 1900 Crystal Drive (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

(Update at 2:10 p.m.) A new ice cream shop is coming to Crystal City, and it might be trendy New York-based chain Van Leeuwen.

A ice cream shop is going into 1900 Crystal Drive, according to a permit applied for earlier this month. It’s expected to be on the ground floor in one of the two residential buildings going up at the site.

The address is 269 19th Court S., per the permit, so it may be located in some sort of alleyway.

After this article initially published, a tipster reached out to note that in a June presentation to the Crystal City Civic Association about the forthcoming construction, a logo for Van Leeuwen was on one of the slides. The company recently opened several D.C. locations, including in Georgetown.

It is not immediately clear which ice cream shop will be going in there, if not Van Leeuwen. ARLnow reached out to developer JBG Smith, which owns the buildings, but the developer declined to comment, per a spokesperson.

Arlington has a number of ice cream shops, several of which are in the midst of or recently have opened new locations. That includes Jeni’s in Shirlington, Mimi’s in Pentagon City, and Toby’s in Westover.

Mimi’s Handmade Ice Cream is opening its second location in the Mosaic District in August or September, and has leases signed for locations in Annandale, Falls Church, Chevy Chase, and Rockville. Owner Rollin Amore tells ARLnow that the forthcoming Crystal City shop is not his.

Toby’s, meanwhile, is set to open a shop in nearby Pentagon City, likely taking them out of the running.

Construction on the residential towers where the new ice cream shop will likely be located began in March 2021. Work could be completed as soon as next year.

Hat tip to Chris Slatt