It was just before midnight on Tuesday night when Two Nineteen Restaurant was forced to temporarily close down.
Really it was more like three businesses closing at once since the building at 219 King Street is home to The Bayou Room, an upstairs cigar lounge and the New Orleans-style French Creole restaurant. Old Town was quiet by the time the doors shut at 11:59 p.m. and there were hardly any cars or people outside.
The Alexandria City Council on Tuesday sent staff the proposed King Street Place pedestrian pilot program back to the drawing board.
The original plan would have turned a section of King Street near the waterfront into a pedestrian-only zone between Lee Street and Union Street on weekends, but more recent plans have included a single lane of traffic through the area that was going to be car-free.
After selling the parking lot on King Street next to Bloomers, the City of Alexandria is preparing to review plans to build a new mixed-use development in its place.
Galena Capital Partners LLC plans to replace the parking lot with a four-story building. The development will have retail facing King Street on the first floor and residential uses on the floors above, with open space on the roof.
The owner of a new Vietnamese restaurant at 606 King Street says that he plans to open for business in May.
Quang Nguyen, the owner of the Gaithersburg-based Pho Nam restaurant, tells ALXnow that he’s excited to expand to Old Town after nearly a half year of construction.
Need to escape? Escape Room Live, on the second floor of 814 King Street in Old Town, wants to give you an extra hour each day to do so.
Last month, the escape room — which is kind of like a live-action game of Clue — filed a special use permit request to be open for an hour longer on weeknights and weekends, and to also close on Mondays for special events.
The King Street Trolley runs from the King Street Metro down to the waterfront, but a section of the new Transit Vision Plan could extend that path down to the Eisenhower Metro station.
“The 2030 and 2022 Vision Plan Networks include the King Street Trolley with a potential extension from the King Street Metro to the Eisenhower Metro Station via the Carlyle and Eisenhower East districts,” the plan said. “This could provide a frequent connection directly between the large and dense activity center around Eisenhower Avenue Metro and Old Town.”
After months of construction, Old Town’s newest sushi restaurant officially opened its doors on Wednesday.
The Handover and King’s Ransom — two different concepts from the owners of The People’s Drug (103 N. Alfred Street)– opened to the public at 728 King Street. The previous occupant of the space, Eamonn’s Dublin Chipper and the PX cocktail bar, closed last summer.
(Updated at 3:25 p.m.) After 14 years in business, the Walgreens at 615 King Street in Old Town will shut its automatic sliding doors for good at the end of business on Monday, March 2.
“The rent went up and Walgreens is out, so we gotta go with the flow,” a store employee told ALXnow. The nine full and part time staffers at the convenience and drug store will be moved to other locations, we’re told.
A man is in critical but stable condition after an overnight crash in Alexandra.
The crash occurred around 2:15 a.m. at King Street and Chesterfield Road, within the city’s northern border. The driver was initially trapped in the mangled car, a white Lexus, after crashing into a utility pole near the intersection. He was extricated from the wreck by firefighters.
It’s Valentine’s Day and if you’re stumped on what to do for a date, fret not, because several businesses in Old Town have some ideas.
ALXnow went around a few blocks of King Street to some of the city’s more romantic shops to get ideas for how to spice up an Old Town date. Here’s what we found:
Along with locations in Arlington, Tysons and the rest of the national chain, Papyrus in Old Town (721 King Street) is closing.
Signs in the window say everything in the shop is 40-60% off. The store remains about half stocked, with remaining cards and merchandise filling the front half of the store. Other items include journals, gift bags, and assorted stationery.
