Less than a year after it first opened, Sauca restaurant at 4707 Columbia Pike has apparently closed.
The eatery was shuttered and dark last night, with only a single piece of printer paper in the door to announce its demise. It read: “Regretably [sic] Sauca has closed this location. Thank you for your patronage and wishing you all the health and happiness in the world.”
The food truck is the brainchild of Gauri Sarin and Michelle Nguyen. Sarin studied communications and public relations at George Mason, but after graduating she got the itch to start a food business. Nguyen studied finance at Virginia Tech, and worked for a government contractor until Sarin wooed her into the catering world.
“I have always enjoyed entertaining and cooking at home,” Sarin said. “I somehow convinced her to leave her secure desk job and come on the road with me.”
With creatively named dishes like “Bikini Beef” and “Hot Girl Salad” it’s obvious the owners like to have fun at work. They’re so confident about their food’s quality that they’re letting customers try free samples.
“No good? No charge. Guarantee!” owner Leopold Liao said.
The Lemongrass truck will serve a limited Vietnamese-inspired menu that includes banh mi sandwiches, banh mi-style tacos, a salad with homemade lemongrass dressing and three varieties of bubble tea (iced coffee, Thai iced tea and green tea).
The truck’s arrival should fill the void left by last year’s launch and subsequent closure of the Rebel Heroes bahn mi sandwich truck. The Lemongrass truck’s proprietors — a husband and wife team — say the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs inspired them to quit their jobs and launch a food truck.
“It’s too good to be true,” she said of the lines that formed outside the truck while it was parked in Rosslyn last week. “It’s amazing.”
The Gorees, along with their one full-time employee, were serving between 200 and 250 customers a day last week. By 1:30 p.m., most of the menu was sold out. And that was perfectly okay with Anna.
A new food truck is promising to bring some of the flavors of New Orleans to the streets of Arlington.
Willie’s Po Boy truck expects to make its Arlington debut on Monday. Its Twitter and Facebook pages are up and running, while its web site is still a work in progress. The truck’s menu will include:
On Monday, the new “Seoul Food” truck will have a “soft opening” at an undisclosed location in Arlington. The truck will serve “Korean fusion” food, including Korean-style maki rolls (vegetarian maki, caramelized kimchi maki, spicy tuna maki) and bibimbap bowls, according to its Twitter page.
The ingredients used to make the dishes include “local beef from grass-fed cows, organic tofu, all-natural chicken and ingredients from local farms,” according to the truck’s Facebook page.
The Red Hook Lobster truck made its public Northern Virginia debut in Ballston today.
Camped out near the corner of N. Stuart Street and Fairfax Drive, the truck served lobster rolls, shrimp rolls, Whoopie pies, Maine Root sodas and other New England-inspired fare to Ballston lunchgoers.
The “Sweet Fleet” truck is making its public debut today in Ballston, Rosslyn, Courthouse and Shirlington. The truck features cupcakes, cookies and other treats baked by Jason Reaves, a pastry chef and an upcoming competitor on TV’s Food Network Challenge.
Prices range from $3.00 to $3.50 for individual cupcakes and $2.00 for cookies. The truck will serve “all of Arlington,” managers say. You can follow its location on Facebook and Twitter.
“The history of this place has not been good,” admitted owner Farhad Assari, a former international investment banker who left a lucrative gig in Dubai to move closer to his family and pursue his culinary dreams. Like many other food entrepreneurs these days, Assari started small — launching several food trucks that served hearty world cuisine — before trying to translate his street success into a four-walls-and-a-roof restaurant.
Despite the building’s ignominious past and off-the-beaten-path location near Four Mile Run, Assari said he couldn’t imagine opening the restaurant anywhere else.
The restaurant will be located at 4707 Columbia Pike, formerly the home of Bob & Edith’s Diner II and a Roy Rogers. Workers are busy prepping the building for a possible late May/early summer opening.
Yesterday we reported that two of Sauca’s District-based food trucks were for sale in the building’s parking lot. Last night, owner Farhad Assari confirmed that the trucks were being sold so he could focus on the new restaurant.
It appears that two District-based food trucks are dying an inglorious death in a Columbia Pike parking lot.
The trucks — Meathead Mobile Eatery and La Gloria Mexicana — were spotted cooling their heels last night in the parking lot of the former Bob & Edith’s Diner II location at 4707 Columbia Pike. Once free to roam the streets of D.C. and serve meals to hungry office workers, now they sit food-less on the Pike with “for sale by owner” signs in the window.
