Del Ray’s ski lodge is closing after this Saturday night, and its owner says he’ll be throwing a party like snowbody’s business.
Aspen on the Avenue popup bar owner Bill Blackburn of the Homegrown Restaurant Group says that Saturday night will be the last chance for customers to enjoy delicacies like the ski lemon meringuetini.
“We’re going to spend the next three weeks transforming the popup into its next model,” Blackburn said. “We’re planning to open on May 1.”
The popup is located between HRG’s other Del Ray restaurants, Pork Barrel BBQ and Holy Cow. It was previously The Sushi Bar for eight years before closing at the end of 2021. Since then, the space has changed concepts as a popup every few months.
Blackburn and his partner “Mango” Mike Anderson went to extreme lengths with Aspen on the Avenue, lining the interior walls of the popup with used skis, installing a fake fireplace and two giant backlit photos of idyllic snowy scenes. Anderson also bought a two-seat gondola and parked it outside the restaurant.
Blackburn and Anderson are selling the skis for $25 to $200 per pair.
Blackburn said that the concept for the next popup is tightly under wraps and will be announced in the coming weeks.
After nearly a year of extensive renovation and expansion, Piece Out Del Ray is reopening next month, it’s owner tells ALXnow.
The expansion from 2,700 to 4,600 square feet includes a large, center-focused bar area, a brand new dining room in what was previously a neighboring yoga studio, booths, dart boards and 21-and-up-only shuffleboard. A small area for outdoor seating is still being leveled and rails need to be put in place, but otherwise the restaurant was ready enough to open for a March Madness pop-up event on Wednesday night.
Owner Larry Ponzi wouldn’t disclose how much he spent renovating the space, except to say that it was more than he’d expected.
“We’re just going to work next week on our staffing, post-construction organization, cleaning and finishing our menu development,” Ponzi said. “The following week we should be open.”
Ponzi and his wife Christine opened the pizzeria for delivery and takeout only during the pandemic in 2020. The restaurant became popular, and after distancing and dining restrictions were lifted, Ponzi said that the 2,700-square-foot space got overwhelmed with customers and the delivery option had to be scrapped.
After studio Body Logic moved across the street, Ponzi and the property owner agreed on absorbing the additional space into the restaurant.
“We’re doing our best to keep the feel and vibe of the old Piece Out,” Ponzi said. “We’re just in a space that we really feel is our own. We want to keep all the good things about Piece Out that people love and just make it a little better.”
Chef Johnny Mohl is working on an expanded menu with seasonal specials.
“I’m really excited to be here,” Mohl said. “With this modern layout, the whole restaurant just has this feeling of old and new coming together, which is something that I really love.”
The Ponzi’s PCG Restaurant Group owns St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub in Del Ray and Old Town North, Cafe Pizzaiolo (1623 Fern Street), Market 2 Market (116 E. Del Ray Avenue) and Red Drum Grill and Tap House in Nags Head, North Carolina.
Mediterranean restaurant La’Baik should open in the next several weeks in the former Rubia’s Tacos at 2309 Mount Vernon Avenue in Del Ray, its owner tells ALXnow.
Rubia’s, which was previously Stomping Ground for eight years, closed in January, and new restaurant owner Mohammad Abdel-Hay is keeping the interior and equipment and tables and chairs as-is, only changing the menu, staff and signage.
“If we get a couple more city approvals, I’m hoping to open in the next two-to-three weeks,” Abdel-Hay said.
La’Baik translated from Arabic means “at your service.”
Abdel-Hay, who lives with his family in Lorton, said that he’d been looking for the perfect location for six months. He signed a five-year lease with two options for extensions, and he said that the menu will include gyros, chicken, falafel, pita pockets, flatbread pizza and wraps.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be there for 10-to-15 years.”
He also said that customers should be able to get their food within three minutes.
“It’s going to be exactly like an assembly line,” he said. “The lamb, chicken, beef and the falafels are going to be pre-made and it will be ready to serve.”
It will be the first solo restaurant for Abdel-Hay. His family owns the New York Grill in northwest D.C., and he worked in the family business for most of his life. Abdel-Hay took a break from restaurants for the last eight years, and is co-owner of an auto body shop and dealership in Fairfax County.
Abdel-Hay says that diners should expect so spend less than $20 per visit. He also wants the restaurant to be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.
There’s a new hair salon in Del Ray and it’s named after a Taylor Swift song. Enchant Hair Co. opened at 2202 Mount Vernon Avenue in January, and it’s named after Swift’s song Enchanted.
“I love Taylor Swift,” owner Monica Frias told ALXnow. “She’s like a reflection of my personality.”
The salon is the former home to Kiskadee, a boutique that closed in 2022. Frias toured the two-level building last October, signed the lease in November and spent two months renovating the interior and moving in equipment.
Frias grew up in the area and is a Mount Vernon High School graduate. At Mount Vernon, she took cosmetology and after graduating got her cosmetology license and started working in hair salons. It took her eight years to open her own business, which to this point has gotten a soft launch. She says that she’s working on a new website for the salon and will hold a grand opening and ribbon cutting sometime in March.
“I’m still really young, but I’m very good business-wise,” Frias said. “Right now, since I don’t have as many stylists as I eventually want to get, I have to do a lot of physical work to myself. I work all day here behind the chair and then I go home to like another three, four hours of editing videos, working on marketing for the salon, or working on my social media.”
Frias is active on social media, with more than 5,500 followers on Instagram and more than 55,000 followers on TikTok.
There’s nothing like numbing your aching body with a hot toddy after a long day on the slopes.
That’s the vibe that the owners of the Aspen on the Avenue popup (2312 Mount Vernon Avenue) have in mind. There’s a two-seat gondola parked outside the restaurant and bar greeting customers as they walk into a warm environment with a fake fireplace, a fake brick wall, lots of skis and two giant backlit photos of idyllic snowy scenes.
“Our gondola doesn’t go to Arlington,” joked popup owner Bill Blackburn of the Homegrown Restaurant Group. “It doesn’t go anywhere, but it’s great for selfies.”
“Mango” Mike Anderson, who owns the popup with Blackburn, found the gondola for sale at HomeGoods in Potomac Yard.
The popup is located between HRG’s other Del Ray restaurants, Pork Barrel BBQ and Holy Cow. It was previously The Sushi Bar for eight years before closing at the end of 2021. Since then, the space has changed concepts as a popup every few months.
“We get to create new concepts and decorate new restaurants and brands without having to deal with the back-of-the-house regulatory, mundane stuff that comes with opening a new restaurant,” Blackburn said. “I think it keeps us fresh.”
The bar menu includes craft cocktails, like the ski lemon meringuetini, a concoction made from Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Meyer lemon, Grand Marnier, lemon curd, Simple and brulee meringue, which is toasted at the bar with a torch. There are 11 appetizers on food menu, the most filling of which is the chicken chili bread bowl — Pork Barrel BBQ’s white chicken chili served in a bread bowl.
The seasonal popup will be open until late March and will reopen as a new concept in early April, Blackburn said.
Aspen on the Avenue is open Sunday to Wednesday from 4 to 10 p.m. and Thursday to Saturday from 4 p.m. to midnight.
Got dinner plans for Super Bowl Sunday? Benny Diforza’s 28-inch pies will be available in Del Ray starting this week.
The restaurant has been in the works since last summer in the former home of Sicilian Pizza at 1504B Mount Vernon Avenue. Manager Hayden Ko says the restaurant is waiting for one more permit approval from the city before the pizza oven gets fired up. She also said that the restaurant will open this week.
“I’m really excited to start working,” Ko said. “I have 15 employees and last week and we had a staff dinner with their families, and it was great to meet everyone and get the vibes up.”
The restaurant is well known for selling 28-inch pies that go for $5 to $6.50 per slice.
Benny’s first opened its Blacksburg location in 2011, and now has dozens of locations throughout Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wyoming. Each location has a different last name, with Del Ray’s Diforza literally translating to “of strength.”
According to the Benny’s website: “Order a whole pie and feed 2 families. We limit our toppings and we don’t count pennies so everything stays simple.”
Liquor store thefts jumped more than 200% in Alexandria in 2023, according to the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority.
There are six Virginia ABC stores in Alexandria. The store with the most incidents is the Arlandria store at 3815 Mount Vernon Avenue in the Del Ray North Shopping Center, which saw 43 incidents of theft last year, up from just eight reported incidents in 2022. The store with the highest amount of theft is at 501 Montgomery Street in Old Town North, which saw 23 incidents.
Virginia ABC said that there were a total of 100 reported thefts from Alexandria stores last year, versus 31 thefts in 2022, an increase of 222%. The increase in thefts isn’t just being felt in Alexandria, but throughout Virginia.
“Sometimes there were more than two thefts in one day,” an employee of the Arlandria store tells ALXnow. “They just walk in, take bottles and walk out. We don’t stop them, we just call police and they come in and review the security footage and sign insurance forms.”
Virginia ABC does not employ security guards in its network of 400 stores, and is undertaking a “multi-pronged approach to address retail and internal theft,” according to Pat Kane, a public relations specialist for Virginia ABC.
“No product in our store is worth risking the safety of our team members and customers,” Kane said. “Virginia ABC values its relationships with local law enforcement. Staff are trained to gather actionable information to generate usable suspect information and leads.”
Kane said the changes include:
- Emphasizing staff interaction with customers
- Minimizing the quantity of high-theft products that are placed on shelves at any one time
- Moving products for maximum visibility by staff members
- Enhancing camera systems
- Ensuring the sight lines of camera systems
- Lowering inventory levels at stores
- Adding additional in-store staff
The Alexandria Police Department said that liquor store thefts pose a significant risk to the public, and that any suspicious activity should be reported by calling 911.
“Larceny with intent to sell or distribute stolen products is a felony and can result in jail time,” said APD Communications Manager Tracy Walker. “APD is aware of this crime trend occurring nationally and within our community and we make patrol of these store areas a part of our daily field operations and the broader strategy to suppress retail robberies.
If you need a break from those harsh winter conditions, Del Ray’s seasonal popup bar will resemble a ski lodge in Aspen, Colorado, when it opens early next month.
“Aspen On The Avenue” is the latest effort from Homegrown Restaurant Group owners Bill Blackburn and “Mango” Mike Anderson. The bar and restaurant is being outfitted with skis on the walls, fake fireplaces and more.
“We’re going to create our version of an Après-ski cocktail lounge, and make you feel like you just finished a day on the slopes and you’re going to relax with a craft cocktail,” Blackburn told us. “It’s going to have a very warm feel. Think rough timber, fur, brick, fireplaces, skis and snowboards, hot toddy’s, sharable appetizers and our twists on classics.”
Blackburn said that the bar will open early next month, and will then close at the end of the season and reopen as a new concept in the spring.
“It’s going to be a cold winter,” Blackburn said. “We’ve got a couple more snows in us and it’s going to be a great place to warm up.”
A Del Ray restaurant is planning on expanding its footprint with a 750-square foot patio addition.
Noe Landini, owner of Junction Bakery & Bistro (1508 Mount Vernon Avenue), wants to build on the northern end of the restaurant on a repurposed area of the parking lot used for outdoor seating the last several years.
Landini is asking the Planning Commission on March 5 to approve his request to increase the restaurant’s floor area ratio.
“Unlike other locations, the sun impacts that particular side of the building, which is the north side, all day,” Landini wrote in his application. “It is extremely uncomfortable and excruciatingly hot for local customers and neighbors in some parts of the spring, summer and fall. A canopy with fans would provide comfort to our guests.”
Landini wrote that the addition will also provide lighting to guests at night.
“(W)e will actually be able to see in the evening, which will enhance our guests’ dinner experience and safety,” Landini wrote.
via City of Alexandria
(Updated 1/9) A set of Complete Streets changes for Mount Vernon Avenue through Arlandria is headed through city review starting later this spring.
The City of Alexandria released a set of ‘preferred alternatives’ for changes to several Mount Vernon intersections. One of the biggest changes will be to the intersection with Glebe Road.
The staff report says the angle of the current intersection encourages drivers to take fast turns and multiple people have been killed walking on those intersections.
The preferred alternative is a roundabout with an odd, elongated shape meant to suit the intersection better.
The roundabout aims to reduce vehicle speeds and reduce the opportunity for crashes, with large pedestrian refuge areas installed at every crossing.
North of the Glebe Road intersection, twelve parking spaces would be removed at the intersection with Russell Road to make way for curb extensions and green space, with a bus shelter on the east side of Mount Vernon Avenue.
Smaller curb extensions would also be installed at the intersections of Four Miles Road and Executive Avenue with Mount Vernon Avenue.
The proposals were scheduled to go to the Traffic and Parking Board for a public hearing on Monday, Jan. 22, but the city said in a release that the consideration was deferred to an unspecified date this spring.
