Green Pig Bistro is expected to reopen soon after relocating a few blocks away from its original home.
The Clarendon restaurant of 12 years has completed the 0.2-mile move from 1025 N. Fillmore Street to the first floor of 2900 Wilson Blvd, PR rep Jill Collins told ARLnow.
Sister restaurant Buena Vida Gastrolounge, which formerly occupied all three levels of the building, will remain on the second level. Both eateries have the same owner, local attorney and restaurateur Fitzgerald Lewis.
“We’re just moving in with the family,” Collins said.
Pending some inspection results, the restaurant’s first day should be sometime later this week. The new location has about 30 to 40 fewer seats than the old address, but more space for parties and private events.
“We now have the whole top roof and a private dining room on the second level we share, that will allow us to do more than one party at the same time,” Executive Chef Laurence Cohen said.
The interior has been redesigned to match the restaurant’s French countryside aesthetic, featuring a mural of three green pigs where a Buena Vida mural used to be. There are three total kitchens split between the two restaurants, providing ample space for both to prepare separate menus.
While Green Pig gets ready to reopen its doors in Clarendon, a second location is now set to open overseas this week in Manila, capital of the Philippines. The idea is to transfer and share staff between the two sites, Lewis told ARLnow.
“I think the biggest challenge right now in our industry is just people. People left during Covid. They found other jobs,” Lewis said. “I think everyone in our industry is having that issue where we can’t find people.”
Green Pig’s vice president of operations will be on-site in Manila to train staff, “and then from there, bringing in people to help us here, based on our needs,” Lewis said.
The timing of the openings in Clarendon and Manila was serendipitous, he added.
