Six years after it opened, Virginia Square’s Extreme Pizza has closed its doors.
The pizzeria, which boasts a unique twist on traditional pizza offerings, shuttered at 3444 Fairfax Drive on Saturday after battling the longstanding effects of the pandemic, franchisee Ernie Harris said.
“We have definitely felt the effects of what Covid did to us,” Harris told ARLnow. “Thinking about it now, I probably should have just closed the store during Covid.”
Harris’ portfolio, which included the Virginia Square location and two other D.C. area Extreme Pizza stores, remained open during the pandemic, although catering to a much smaller customer base than in prior times.
Federal relief funds and discounts on rent helped, but could only somewhat bridge the gap.
“When we got out of Covid, we were injured significantly from a savings perspective,” Harris said. “We couldn’t do any marketing, we just had no funds to do any marketing.”
With many area offices continuing to work remotely, there was less foot traffic — exacerbating an already rough situation. Harris began soliciting buyers for the Virginia Square store more than a year ago.
Opportunity after opportunity fell through, however, leading the building’s landlord to move in a different direction.
“I believed that we could make it work,” Harris said. “I believed truly that it was all going to work itself out because we’ve been successful in Pentagon City and I believed that we can be successful doing the same sort of thing there. I mean, for all intents and purposes, we executed identically.”
Despite the closure, Harris — a longtime Arlington resident — aims to continue expanding when the time is right.
“I do believe we will be back in Ballston or Clarendon at some point,” Harris said. “But we needed to pull back and reset.”
