New French restaurant Josephine is opening at 109 St Asaph Street in Old Town this week and folks are already losing their heads over it.
According to the website, the new restaurant has classic French cuisine like trout amandine and beef bourguignon along with some original creations from Matt Cockrell, described by Washingtonian as a staple of the DC French restaurant scene .
The menu also features an extensive bar with “an expertly curated cheese list devoted exclusively to French offerings.”
On the wine side, Josephine offers a collection of 350 French wines ranging from traditional vintages to more modern wines.
Josephine is scheduled to open on Wednesday, June 7, but a few locals had a preview of the menu at an event this weekend.
The restaurant will be open Sunday through Thursday from 5-10 p.m. with the bar open until 11 p.m., and open Friday and Saturday from 5-11 p.m. with the bar open until midnight.
Bonjour from Josephine! Tonight, I had the opportunity to preview the amazing food from Chef Matthew Cockrell at this lovely new restaurant in Old Town. #alexandriava #smallbusiness pic.twitter.com/DbcSexyZvD
— Alyia Gaskins (@Alyia4ALX) June 5, 2023
Image via Josephine Old Town/Instagram
This reporter’s already noted that Alexandria bears a passing resemblance to the province of Skyrim* and that Nordic connection is only getting stronger: the Landmark neighborhood is getting a new axe throwing bar.
Bad Axe Throwing is opening a new location in Van Dorn Station at 617 S Pickett Street.
The location was originally listed as opening this spring, but staff at Bad Axe Throwing said estimate is now at the more nebulous “soon.” The alcohol license for the location is still listed as pending.
“Our axe throwing coaches will teach you how to throw an axe while helping you improve your axe throwing technique and make you into an axe throwing pro in no time,” the website said. “We offer fun & unique axe throwing games as well as individual and team-based tournaments for an unforgettable experience.”
Bad Axe Throwing is an international chain with nearby locations in Washington D.C. and Fairfax.
Image via Bad Axe Throwing/Facebook
*Technically the only thrown weapons in Skyrim are Riekling spears
Potomac Yard’s microbrewery Hops Grill and Brewery didn’t live to see the new Potomac Yard Metro station open, but the Washington Business Journal reported the location at 3625 Richmond Highway could see new life as a bank.
The Business Journal reported that JPMorgan Chase & Co. has leased the microbrewery as part of a broader push throughout the region.
The bank won’t take up all of the 6,900-square-foot space, the Business Journal said, as about half of it will be subleased.
The new location is not far from the planned Virginia Tech campus and a stone’s throw from the new Potomac Yard Metro station that opened last month.
Image via Google Maps
After several months of delay, French bistro Gostov Boulangerie & Brasserie (2213 Mount Vernon Avenue) is set to open next Tuesday in Del Ray.
The notification that the bistro is opening was made by the Del Ray Business Association (Visit Del Ray) on Facebook and Instagram.
“We are so excited —Â @gustaveboulangerie (finally!) opens on Tuesday, May 30 at 10am,” Visit Del Ray posted.
Owner Abderrahim Moussaif bought the 14,300 square-foot Del Ray property at the corner of Mount Vernon and E. Del Ray Avenues for $3 million in 2019. The bistro is the former home of Bean Creative, which also closed in 2019. Moussaif also runs four Madison Day School child care centers in Alexandria.
The restaurant will serve macarons and feature an espresso bar, although the rest of the menu is under wraps. The company’s website promises an “authentic and traditional French experience.”
Moussaif could not be reached for comment. He previously wanted to open the restaurant earlier this year, and said that the bistro will be able to serve 47 customers at a time, and that there will be outdoor seating.
The restaurant will be open 7 a.m.-10 p.m. every day, except Sunday when it will open at 8 a.m.
Image via Facebook
There’s a new kickboxing gym in Old Town.
On Saturday, 9Round Fitness will hold a grand opening ceremony at its new location at 123 N. Pitt Street (suite 150) in Old Town.
Franchise owners Liana and Zach Sansom opened last month, offering 30-minute full body kickboxing workouts with no set appointment times necessary.
“9Round is built to work for any fitness level,” the owners wrote on Facebook. “Zero kickboxing experience is required to have a kickin’ good workout and feel stronger in 30 minutes.”
It costs between $150 and $170 for monthly membership, and otherwise about $25 to drop into any given class. Customers in Alexandria can get a free introductory session by texting “9Round” to 703-910-0885.
There are more than 600 9Round Fitness franchises in 18 countries, and the Old Town location is the seventh in Virginia. There are also gyms in Springfield, Manassas, Richmond, Charlottesville, Yorktown and Virginia Beach. The company was founded in 2008 by kickboxer Shannon “The Cannon” Hudson.
9Round Fitness is open from 6 a.m. to noon and from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday and is closed on Sunday.
Looking for something different when it comes to fitness? Something more engaging and fun? Look no further than the 9Round studio here in Old Town Alexandria. Kick and punch your way into a healthier you, a stronger you, and a more confident you! Get right before the summer… pic.twitter.com/hoz00McPgB
— CarlylePlaceApts (@CarlylePlaceApt) April 8, 2023
Image via 9Round Fitness/Facebook
This could be the start of something big.
In February, Alamgir Mia opened AJ Tobacco & Mini Mart at 1037 W. Glebe Road in the former Look Sharp Cleaners. It’s the first business for the Bangladeshi-born owner, who signed a 10-year lease and hopes to open more convenience stores in the future.
“The landlord gave me a very good deal,” Mia told ALXnow. “The plan is to open more, but first I need to hit my targets with this store.”
The mini-mart carries standard convenience store fare at slightly lower prices than the 7-Eleven next door. The store also sells a wide assortment of tobacco, hookah and vape products.
“You can find most of what you want cheaper than 7-Eleven,” Mia said. “Like a 20-ounce Coke will be 50 cents cheaper here. I can do that because this is my own company, and I can sell products for less.”
Married with two kids, Mia moved to the U.S. 16 years ago. He previously worked as a driver for Amazon, the U.S. Postal Service and Uber, in addition to 10 years working in customer service for United Airlines at Washington Dulles International Airport.
“I gained weight as an Uber driver” Mia said. “I picked up and dropped off more than 40,000 rides, and my stomach used to be flat. You do a lot of sitting and eating fast food with that job. Now I need to work that off.”
Mia’s move coincided with the March reopening of the West Glebe Road bridge, which borders Arlington. The bridge was closed for nearly two years, and all the establishments next to it — Pizza Hut, two Liberty gas stations and a 7-Eleven — saw declines in business.
“All of my jobs have been in customer service,” Mia said. “From USPS to Amazon and Uber driving, you need to be friendly with the customers and satisfy them. That’s what I’m doing with my shop.”
AJ Tobacco & Mini Mart is open every day from 10 a.m. to midnight.
The brothers behind the new Dos Hermanos Tex Mex restaurant in Del Ray want to open by this summer.
On April 1, Wilmer and Elmer Cruz Villatoro signed a 10-year lease for the 4,000-square-foot space at 1603 Commonwealth Avenue. The interior renovations are nearly finished, with bright red and yellow walls adorned by colorful sombreros and prints of Mexican paintings.
Dos Hermanos is under City review for a special use permit and the public comment period for their application ends on May 11.
“It’s a family restaurant,” Wilmer said. “We are going to do real Tex-Mex. That means fajitas, enchiladas, a solid steak, burritos, chimichangas, and great salads.”
The space is the former longtime home to Monroe’s, which closed in Dec. 2015, after which it became Live Oak and Elo’s Italian, the latter two owned by The Garden‘s Justus Frank and Jeremy Barber.
“I buy very good quality meat,” Elmer said. “You won’t hear any complaints about our chicken fajitas. I pay four times more for chicken breasts than anyone else around here.”
Wilmer moved to Alexandria from El Salvador when he was 18 years old in 1999, getting his first restaurant job at the former Chicken Out in Old Town. He learned more about the industry working at California Pizza Kitchen in Arlington and then as a cook at Hops Bar & Grill in Potomac Yard. In 2004, Elmer followed his big brother to Alexandria, and got a job as a dishwasher at Hops. Two years later, Elmer transferred to a Hops in West Palm Beach, Florida, and then worked for seven years at Mexican/Spanish restaurant La Bamba in North Palm Beach.
Wilmer later started working at Dos Amigos when it opened 535 E. Braddock Road near the Braddock Road Metro station in 2013. In 2019, he partnered with the company’s owners and they opened a Dos Amigos at 7375 Boston Boulevard in Springfield. He even convinced Elmer to return to Alexandria to help run the family business. Then the pandemic hit in 2020, putting the breaks on positive growth.
“It was hard to make a living,” Elmer said. “But things got busy again. We had a lot of business until we had to close.”
The Springfield Dos Amigos closed on March 31, after the partners were bought out of their lease due to Costco wanting to install a gas station on the property. The buyout had Elmer consider moving back to Florida, and he even tried talking Wilmer into tagging along.
“I have a 14-year-old son and I need to be here for him,” Wilmer said. “I told him I’d love to go, but I cannot move right now. Then we found this place and I convinced him (Elmer) to stay.”
The brothers plan on employing about 15 people to work in the restaurant, and to be open from 11 a.m. to 1o p.m. Sunday to Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. They also plan on having daily happy hour specials from 3 to 7 p.m. daily and then bar menu includes a dozen margaritas, Central and South American wine and signature drinks like a mojito with mezcal, piña coladas, flavored daiquiris and sangrias.
The restaurant will also feature a $11 kids menu with enchiladas, tacos and quesadillas.
“The menus are all ready,” Elmer said. “We have until May 11 to see if the city has to say something about our application. Once they approve, we’ll open soon after. We’re hoping for June.”
Do you take your yoga with coffee or tea?
By this summer, the Harold family of Alexandria want to add a third business in Old Town — Connect & Sip Cafe at 1320 Prince Street. The proposed cafe would be located next door to their PIES Fitness & Yoga Studio at 1322 Prince Street. If all goes well with the permitting process, they’d like to open up by mid-summer.
“The building is completely gutted right now,” owner Marsha D. Banks-Harold told ALXnow. “Our yoga studio is very unique and that we’re a community, so people come here, they sit before class and each other, check in on how everyone’s family is doing. We’re really about connecting and that’s where the wellness piece comes in. Especially post pandemic where people have been so isolated, it’s really an opportunity for people to come together sit down sip on a cup of tea, or a cup of coffee and really get to know their neighbors.”
The property is located on the corner of Prince Street and N. West Street, directly across the street from popular knitting shop fibre space (1319 Prince Street).
The cafe would sell coffee, tea, small plates of food, pastries and CBD products. The 2,100-square-foot property is envisioned to seat 50 people inside and 12 outside on a 600-square-foot area in the rear of the property. Their proposed operating hours during the week would be from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Wednesday, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Public comments on their special use permit application expire on May 4.
Last October, Banks-Harold, her husband Jefferey and son Gabriel reopened PIES Fitness & Yoga in Old Town. The move came after the family lost the least to their studio at 33 S. Pickett Street, which first opened in 2008. Also last year, the family launched a CBD business, Daydreamers Oasis, and started selling those products in the studio.
The problem with the new Old Town space, Marsha said, is that it lacked a waiting area for people to hang out before and after workouts, crushing the vibe fostered in the previous West End location.
“With the cafe, they’ll have a place to continue those conversations,” she said. “It gets a little crowded in the studio.”
Incidentally, Marsha and Jefferey are both full-time patent supervisors at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. They got married in 1992 in Shiloh Baptist Church, which is about a block away from the building they now own in Old Town.
“This whole part of town has gone through gentrification,” Jefferey said. “Just for us to be able to get back into town and have a place here is special.”
Jet’s Pizza, a Detroit-style pizza chain, is opening its first location in the region at 6 E Glebe Road in the Lynhaven neighborhood, the Washington Business Journal first reported.
The new shop will be taking the place of the now-closed Auburn Cleaners. The Washington Business Journal said no opening date has been announced yet.
INCOMING: @JetsPizza has signed on for the former cleaners space next to Northside 10 in Alexandria (around the corner from my home!) https://t.co/PKAL32jQKP
— Drew Hansen (@Drubaru) April 26, 2023
Detroit-style pizza is a deep-dish pie topped with a brick of cheese that caramelizes against the sides of a heavy rectangular pan — originally baked in steel trays designed for use as automotive drip pans.
While Alexandria already has a well known deluge of pizza locations, a plurality of ALXnow readers said there’s not enough good pizza in Alexandria.
Stop this! We have enough pizza!!! pic.twitter.com/Lsi0B1EAzP
— Becky Hammer (@beckyhammer) October 13, 2022
Image via Jet’s Pizza/Facebook
Need an eyelash extension? A new studio just opened up in Alexandria’s West End that will keep your lashes lush for weeks on end.
April Nickens opened her first Amazing Lash Studio franchise in the West End Village shopping center at 374 S. Pickett Street on March 24.
“I always say super heroes don’t always wear capes,” Nickens told ALXnow. “We wear lashes, too.”
Customers pay between $112 and $140 for membership for two eyelash extension refills every month. It takes about two hours to attach the extensions to individual lashes with a strong adhesive. The lashes stay on for about two weeks. Starting next month, the studio will also offer lash and brow tinting, brow eliminations and brow waxing.
Nickens has eight employees and 12 lash rooms, and says that she has room to grow in the space.
“I wake up every morning feeling beautiful and confident,” Nickens said. “The business part is good. I have a good group of young ladies who work with me, who started with me from the beginning.”
The Alexandria shop is located the former home of PIES Fitness Yoga Studio, (now at 1322 Prince Street). This the first of two franchises that Nickens has opened, and she’s currently shopping around for another location in D.C. and southern Maryland.
“We’re not shopping too aggressively now because we’re getting the Alexandria location up and running,” Nickens said. “We’ll hopefully be opening another studio within the next year.”
Nickens is also the director of operations for a political polling strategy company in D.C. She was drawn to eyelash extensions two years ago after her two daughters gave them as a gift for her 25th wedding anniversary.
“My daughters thought to dress me up with lashes,” she said. “I loved the way it made me feel. Afterwards, when we were looking at a number of franchises, I always came back to the lashes, mainly because of my daughters.”
Amazing Lash was founded in 2010, and is part of WellBiz Brands Inc., a franchise portfolio company operating Amazing Lash Studio, Fitness Together, and Elements Massage. There are more than 250 Amazing Lash franchises around the country, including locations in Ashburn, Woodbridge, Burke, Manassas, Forest and Gainesville.
The store is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. A grand opening will be held on Monday, May 1, at noon.
