A restaurant called “The Celtic House,” from a company called “Green Brigade LLC,” has applied for a permit to serve wine, beer and mixed beverages at 2500 Columbia Pike, in the Arlington Village Shopping Center. That’s the current home of Manee Thai restaurant, which has been open for 13-14 years.
“Mo,” a man identifying himself as the owner of Manee Thai, told ARLnow.com today that he is in talks to sell the restaurant and retire. But he said nothing has been finalized.
The 19th annual Columbia Pike Blues Festival was held Saturday afternoon.
The festival benefited from warm and sunny weather that seemed mild compared to the sweltering heat of past years.
Another Flash Flood Watch — It’s Friday the 13th and Arlington is under another Flash Flood Watch today. The watch is in effect from noon through 10:00 p.m. Forecasters say an approaching cold front will spawn scattered showers and thunderstorms, some of which will be strong and result in very heavy rain. [National Weather Service]
Library to Launch Tool Lending — Arlington residents will soon be able to use their library cards to borrow garden tools from Arlington Central Library. The library is currently looking for volunteers to run and maintain its new “tool library,” which was established after being set as a priority by the county’s Urban Agriculture Task Force last year. [Arlington Public Library]
Police are looking for a man who allegedly used his iPhone to photograph a woman using the bathroom.
The incident happened Tuesday night on the 4200 block of Columbia Pike. Police say the woman looked out the window, saw a hand holding an iPhone and screamed, scaring off the suspect.
The Blues Festival runs from 1:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the intersection of the Pike and S. Walter Reed Drive by the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. There will be plenty of food and beer, but as Takis Karantonis, the executive director of the event organizer, the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, says, the food and drink are secondary to the music.
“We think the blues is the Pike’s music,” Karantonis told ARLnow.com yesterday. “It corresponds to the personality and flavor of the Pike. Our artists on Saturday, they’re such different personalities and they all converge on the platform of the blues.”
The alleged incident took place at 5:00 p.m. this past Monday, on the 1000 block of S. Cleveland Street.
“A subject was seen masturbating in his car in front of a daycare as children were playing in the front yard,” according to the ACPD crime report. “Police arrived on scene and took the suspect into custody.”
Drivers heading eastbound on Columbia Pike near S. Courthouse Road last night and this morning received an ominous warning courtesy of a hacked road sign.
“DANGER ZOMBIES AHEAD,” the sign read, startling some drivers en route to I-395 or the Pentagon.
(Updated at 5:55 p.m.) The combined cost of the Columbia Pike and Crystal City streetcar systems is now estimated at $585 million.
Presenting an overview of her proposed FY 2015-2024 Capital Improvement Plan to the Arlington County Board this afternoon, County Manager Barbara Donnellan and her staff said that the cost of the streetcar systems had risen $190 million from the 2013 CIP due to changes in the size of the streetcar vehicles, higher engineering and start-up costs, higher inflation and a larger project contingency.
The new stops cost between $362,000 and $672,000, depending on size. They will serve riders of buses and — eventually, as currently planned — streetcars with a large, angled canopy, concrete seats and an electronic real-time arrival display.
The cost of the stops has been significantly reduced since the county put a halt to the “Super Stop” design that resulted in the infamous $1 million bus stop at the corner of the Pike and S. Walter Reed Drive.
Mazagan Restaurant, the Moroccan eatery and hookah bar next to the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse, is open to the public starting at 4:00 p.m. today.
The restaurant replaced the quirky electronics store Venus Stereos & TVs at 2901 Columbia Pike, and the interior has completely been redone with wood floors, stone wall and a glass-enclosed, “privately insulated” hookah bar, which owner Riyad Bouizar said allows hookah smokers to still feel like they’re part of the restaurant without their smoke disturbing those simply there to eat and drink.
The incident started just past 10:00 p.m. on Saturday.
Arlington police were notified of an armed robbery that took place near Kenmore Middle School, just over the border in Fairfax County. Two men robbed a pair of sisters at gunpoint in a parking lot on the 3100 block of S. Manchester Street in the Falls Church area, according to Fairfax County Police. The suspects allegedly robbed the 17- and 24-year-old of cash and possessions, then took off on foot.
The restaurant, located in the Penrose Square shopping center at 2501 Columbia Pike, is “relaunching” after a year in business due to lower-than-expected sales, according to co-owner Doug Baj.
“It’s been a little bit challenging, the whole Columbia Pike corridor,” Baj said. “I’m probably not the only business owner to voice that.”
