Previous plans for an ax-throwing venue inside a forthcoming Clarendon restaurant have gotten the ax.
Three Notch’d Brewing Company no longer intends to let people throw axes at targets in its new restaurant on Barnes & Noble’s former ground floor. Instead, the Charlottesville-based brewery plans to focus the location primarily on dining, a whiskey distillery, tasting room and private event space, President Scott Roth told ARLnow.
“[Ax-throwing] didn’t fit the space, and there’s a lot of sound issues with ax-throwing that you have to mitigate,” Roth said. “It takes up a lot of space. I think we really felt like we wanted to sort of maximize our seating capabilities and private event capabilities, and it would have eaten that up. We tried all different kinds of designs.”
Three Notch’d currently has one location — a brewpub and distillery in Nelson County — that offers the activity. Seven other locations spread across Virginia and South Carolina focus primarily on the brand’s restaurant and alcohol production.
New renderings of the Clarendon space show a dining room with picnic bench-style seating and televisions, a full-service bar and a tasting room with barrel decor. Construction is currently underway, with an estimated late summer-to-fall opening date.
The upcoming menu will include classic pub eats such as pretzel bites with beer cheese, parmesan garlic fries and a variety of burgers, along with some as-yet unannounced localized libations and dishes. A liquor store is also planned on the premises, where customers can purchase bourbon and other whiskeys to take home.
Customers will also be able to participate in the outdoor shopping center’s “Sip n Stroll” policy, which allows guests to imbibe in the surrounding retail area. A similar policy took effect six years ago at the Village at Shirlington.
Three Notch’d also intends to offer “Fresh Beer Club” memberships in Clarendon. For $20 per month, members receive three “pint cards” and two handpicked packs of brews (six-packs of 12-ounce cans or four-packs of 16-ounce cans).
Roth said the new brewery will be able to seat about 350 guests inside and accommodate up to 150 people for private events.
“Casual dining, you know, it’s having a really nice moment right now, because price points of everything else are so high,” Roth said. “We’re just excited to bring great food and great beer to Arlington.”
A soft opening is planned over the next few months. Next door, Chinese fast-casual chain Xi’an Famous Foods is targeting an August opening.
Meanwhile, one floor above, Barnes & Noble is seeking to reopen in early May, a spokesperson told ARLnow. The store has been closed since last May, when it shuttered for a redesign.
It’s a consolidation for the bookstore chain, which previously occupied both floors. The renovated second floor will span a little over 14,000 square feet and carry “a curated selection of books, tailored to customer interest, with a complement of gifts, educational toys, games and puzzles as well as a selection of vinyl.”
“We look forward to unveiling our new space and welcoming back our customers,” the spokesperson said.
