Here’s a roundup of all the events, live music, and entertainment happening around Alexandria this weekend, Friday, August 2, through Sunday, August 4, 2024.
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Old Town
Hard Times (1404 King Street) is scheduled to close sometime this year to undergo extensive interior renovations, but a new Special Use Permit said those plans could now include new second-floor outdoor porch seating.
The SUP says the plan is to “add new second floor outdoor porch with seating for 30, located in rear of the existing restaurant.”
This weekend the city of Alexandria is celebrating the 250th birthday of the Friendship Fire Company, the first volunteer firefighters in the city, with the annual Friendship Firehouse Festival.
The free festival is on the 100 block of South Alfred Street from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 3. It will feature antique fire equipment on display alongside current equipment, as well as hands-on activities, face painting, live music and more.
Old Town’s Mount Purrnon Cat Cafe and Wine Bar (109 S. Alfred Street) is taking a dig at neighbor JD Vance after the Trump running mate’s “childless cat ladies” comment.
A 2021 interview in which Vance called Democrats being “childless cat ladies” who “want to make the rest of the country miserable too” resurfaced. Vance also advocated for parents to cast additional votes based on their number of children.
Wizards and muggles are invited to a special tour in Old Town on Sunday (July 28).
In recognition of Harry Potter’s birthday, the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum (105-107 S. Fairfax Street) is hosting a magical tour and potion-making clinic.
When Kristin Cowan comes to work each day she doesn’t have much time to relax.
Her days are full of cleaning, lots of it. Assuring that most of her “employees” have a clean place to go to the bathroom is essential. Making sure they are healthy and that none of them have made a mess of the garbage overnight barely makes a dent in her to-do list.
A new pop-up exhibit in Old Town will highlight one of the most exciting archeological discoveries in recent Alexandria history — a set of 18th-century ships buried to lay the foundation of the waterfront.
The new windowfront display at the corner of The Strand and Pioneer Mill Way opened in April and shows off-scale models of three 18th-century vessels excavated in 2018. On Friday, July 26, experts from Alexandria Archeology will be on-hand to talk about the building and burial of the ships.
Alexandria’s Summer Sidewalk Sale is returning to Old Town and Del Ray next month, followed shortly by Alexandria Restaurant Week.
The annual Alexandria Summer Sidewalk Sale is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 10, according to Visit Alexandria. The streets around Old Town and Del Ray will likely be lined with local boutiques setting up shop outside of their storefronts and offering discounted summer merchandise. A list of participating shops is available online.
A new hair salon with offerings like laser hair removal opened earlier this month in Old Town.
SEV, a national ‘medspa’ chain that started in California in 2010, opened on July 8 at 106 N. Washington Street, formerly a Chase Bank. The Alexandria location is their first in Virginia.
Over the last 15 years, yarn shop fibre space (1319 Prince Street) has become a pillar of Old Town’s retail community.
Beyond just its notable exterior mural and unique triangular building, the crafting shop has endured through the rise of online retail, a Metro shutdown, and Covid. This summer, the shop is celebrating its 15th anniversary.
There’s a new boutique hotel on King Street in Old Town.
On Tuesday (July 9), Archer Hotel Old Town Alexandria officially took over operations at the 107-room hotel that was previously home to the Lorien Hotel & Spa (1600 King Street) for 15 years.