A popular West Coast-inspired burrito shop and cafe from D.C. is opening for business next week at Crystal City’s Water Park.
Monstera Burrito opens Monday at 1721 Crystal Drive, bringing its signature San Diego-style, French fry-packed burritos and an extended menu of burgers, bowls, sandwiches and other bites. It’s the restaurant’s second location, joining a residency inside Georgetown’s Grace Street Coffee Roasters that opened in 2024.
Arlington ended 2025 with 23% more residents unemployed than at the start of the year.
In December, 4,676 Arlington County residents were looking for jobs and 147,611 were employed in the civilian workforce, equating to a 3.1% unemployment rate. That’s a sharp increase from January 2025, when 3,814 were unemployed for a jobless rate of 2.5%.
This sponsored column is by Law Office of James Montana PLLC. All questions about it should be directed to James Montana, Esq., Janice Chen, Esq., and Victoria Khaydar, Esq., practicing attorneys at The Law Office of James Montana PLLC, an immigration-focused law firm located in Falls Church, Virginia. The legal information given here is general in nature. If you want legal advice, contact us for an appointment.
USCIS administers immigration benefits. In the time-honored tradition of government agencies since the days of Ur and Uruk, USCIS uses forms to collect, store, and interpret information. Immigrants complete these forms in order to obtain benefits. Most U.S. citizens have no idea what reams of paperwork these forms require. An ordinary green card application is comprised of ninety-seven pages of bare forms, which typically are supported by several hundred pages of supporting documents.
In better times, forms are a necessary evil. In the times we actually live in, forms are just another weapon with which to thwack your political opponents.
In the second iteration of the Trump Administration, USCIS has discovered a new, extremely petty way to make immigrants’ lives more difficult – by releasing new form versions which make utterly minute changes, and then decrees that yesterday’s official version is obsolete as of today.
The Office of Management and Budget, by the way, requires that all government forms have an ‘edition date’ and an ‘expiration date.’ USCIS evades this neatly by making the expiration date purely notional – the form can be valid after the expiration date, and it can be decreed obsolete at any time before or after the expiration date. (The edition date is notional, too – in the first months of the Trump Administration, USCIS persistently released forms backdated to January 20, 2025, seemingly just for the inaugural vibes.) The forms altered in the last two weeks are highlighted below.
Falls Church and business leaders celebrated the reopening of a renovated police substation at the Eden Center yesterday (Wednesday).
“This really represents a recommitment,” Mayor Letty Hardi said at the ceremony. “We are really excited. Public safety works best when it is rooted in the community.”
Pentagon MMA has brought a special honor home to Arlington from the birthplace of Muay Thai.
The Arlington Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu Academy is now officially a certified and registered Muay Thai Gym Partner through the Sports Authority of Thailand and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Thailand, making Pentagon MMA the only Muay Thai academy on the East Coast to have earned this distinction.
Days Inn Site for Sale — The site of a shuttered Days Inn at 2201 Arlington Blvd is on the market, entitled for an eight-story, 251-unit multifamily building. The 2.4-acre property was approved for redevelopment in July 2023 but the owner did not proceed. Cohn Property Group expects to issue a call for offers by mid-April. [WBJ]
Knox Eyes Crystal City — Cybersecurity startup Knox Systems is nearing a deal for office space in Crystal City that would house up to half of its planned 120-person workforce. The company, which helps tech firms meet federal cybersecurity compliance standards, recently closed a $25 million Series A round. [WBJ]
Memorial Bridge Closure Saturday — Memorial Bridge and Circle will close from 7–10 a.m. Saturday for the Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon. Visitors to Arlington National Cemetery should use the Route 110 exit ramp to access the cemetery via Memorial Avenue. [Arlington National Cemetery, ANC/X]
ACFD’s Busiest Engines — Arlington’s three busiest fire engines of 2025: E102 in Ballston led with 3,330 calls, followed by E105 in National Landing with 3,287 and E104 in Clarendon with 3,179. [ACFD/X]
Sands Capital Raises $1.1B — Arlington investment firm Sands Capital has raised $1.1 billion for its third global innovation fund, the largest raise of its kind in the firm’s 34-year history. The oversubscribed fund will target late-stage AI, industrial technology and infrastructure companies. [WBJ]
100KM Closes First Fund — Arlington venture capital firm 100KM Ventures closed its first-ever fund at about half its $25 million target, citing a tough fundraising climate for emerging managers and diversity-focused funds. The firm has made 11 investments so far in early-stage companies with diverse leadership teams. [WBJ]
F.C. Budget Update — Falls Church is expected to fare better than its neighbors as local governments across N. Va. confront budget shortfalls tied to federal layoffs, a weakening office market and the Iran conflict. A budget vote is expected in early May. By contrast, Fairfax County is projecting a shortfall approaching $300 million, while Arlington faces a gap of about $25 million. [FCNP]
Va. Session Wrap-Up — “The just-concluded Virginia general assembly session in Richmond, now with a Democratic Party “trifecta” in charge, turned out better than expected due to the fact that revenues to the state did not nosedive, due to federal program cuts, as many had feared. Falls Church’s state delegate Marcus Simon laid out the picture to the monthly luncheon of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce at the Italian Cafe Tuesday.” [FCNP]
It’s Thursday — Expect mostly sunny skies with a high near 55 degrees and a gentle south wind at 5 to 7 mph. Thursday night will be partly cloudy with temperatures dropping to around 40 degrees. [NWS]
There’s more local news to explore. Check out WSHnow, with stories from around the region.
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Good Wednesday evening, Arlington. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.
The following articles were published earlier today — Mar 18, 2026.
Here is what’s going on Thursday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Expect mostly sunny skies with a high near 55 degrees and a gentle south wind at 5 to 7 mph. Thursday night will be partly cloudy with temperatures dropping to around 40 degrees and a light south wind. See more from Weather.gov.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
– Thomas Edison
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
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Women’s sports fans could soon have a bar of their own in Arlington.
Sarah White, a longtime local restaurateur and partner at Westover Taco, is in the process of buying out of the taqueria at 5849 Washington Blvd. After that?
Last spring’s postseason results were the most successful ever in the same season for Arlington’s high-school varsity soccer teams.
Of those six public-school squads, three played in region-tournament championship matches — one winning a title — and all three advanced to Class 6 state tournaments.
National Landing is gearing up for another round of free cherry blossom-inspired events this spring.
Pink in the Park, the annual event series produced by the National Landing Business Improvement District in collaboration with Amazon and the National Cherry Blossom Festival, returns for its fourth year with programming running from March 21 through April 10.
EagleBank’s Ballston branch is relocating to a new space just one block away.
The branch at 4420 Fairfax Drive — currently slated for redevelopment as a 22-story residential building — is coordinating a move to nearby 901 N. Glebe Road this fall, Director of Banking Operations Joe Clarke told ARLnow.
We love fall at Art House 7 and can’t wait for you to explore all our offerings. Painting, drawing, ceramics, and sewing/crocheting are our perennials, along with less traditional mediums. Kawaii Style Drawing and Digital Art are among our new classes for kids. We offer an excellent 6-week program for high schoolers preparing their college portfolios. Want something shorter? We have 3-week classes, including linocut notecards. Love ceramics? We have a dedicated studio that comfortably accommodates wheel and hand-building classes.
Fall 1 Session begins Tue. Sep. 8.
