A biscuit spot has closed its doors and a popular American restaurant has changed hands in the latest shake-ups in the Falls Church dining scene.
Preservation Biscuit Company ended its five-and-a-half-year run at 102 E. Fairfax Street last week, while Harvey’s owner Thomas Harvey sold his business and departed at the end of September.
Customers showed up in droves to send off Preservation Biscuit, whose owners wrote on Facebook that their last week was one of their busiest since 2021 — so much so that they ran out of both buttermilk and flour, and decided to bump the closure back by one business day.
“There are so many people who have been part of Preservation along the way — our staff, our regulars, our neighbors, the people who brought their families in on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and everyone who told someone, ‘You have to try this biscuit place,'” owner Tricia Barba wrote. “Thank you. Really.”
Preservation Biscuit sold both sweet and savory biscuits with toppings ranging from peach, apple and strawberry to steak, guacamole and slow-roasted pulled pork. The establishment also sold Southern-style sides such as coleslaw, sausage gravy and house-made jams.
“When we opened, we had no idea what the next five and a half years would look like,” the restaurant wrote. “We just wanted to make really good biscuits and build something special in Falls Church. Somehow, we got to do exactly that.”
Harvey’s, meanwhile, will carry on serving dishes like shrimp and grits, chicken parmesan and buttermilk pancakes at 513 W. Broad Street, but under a trio of new owners, the departing owner wrote on Facebook.
Harvey opened the restaurant in March 2022 and played an active role in the community, participating in Falls Church Restaurant Week and earlier this year hosting a fundraising fair for the Arlington nonprofit Our Stomping Ground.
“Harvey’s will stay Harvey’s and my amazing staff will be staying on,” Harvey wrote. “To all staff past and present I cannot thank you enough for all you have done. I might have dreamed up Harvey’s but you all made it what it is.”
The changes prompted messages of support from many in the community, including the Irish pub Ireland’s Four Provinces.
“It always hurts when we see friends lose what they worked so hard to build, and it feels especially raw for people like Thomas and Tricia,” Ireland’s Four Provinces wrote. “Restaurants, and the people who breathe life into them and keep them running, do not exist in a vacuum.”
The pub credited both restaurants with helping “to create a special community in what has become a crowded and competitive restaurant scene in Falls Church.”
“The loss of their businesses is a loss for all of us in the City, and it’s a warning shot: If we don’t support our locally owned and operated businesses, we cannot survive,” Ireland’s Four Provinces wrote. “Tricia and Thomas, thank you, good luck to you, and please bring your smiling faces back to see us often.”
