Neighborhood Bites: Vinny's Grill and Pizzeria

Don’t expect someone named Vinny to greet you at in the Gunston Plaza Shopping Center. For one thing, the real Vinny doesn’t work there, and secondly, the owner prefers to keep a low profile, especially if you’re a new customer.  

That’s because the owner is a Korean-born businessman who didn’t know the first thing about Italian food until a chance meeting with the Vinny behind the Fredericksburg-based chain. But Hyung Choi has thrown himself full throttle into the business since joining Vinny’s in 2002, doing everything from washing dishes to mopping floors to cooking.

He tends to work behind the scenes “so people don’t think it’s a Chinese restaurant,” he quipped, but once they know him they don’t care that he’s Korean.

After a successful stint in Fredericksburg, Choi was sent north to open a franchise in Prince William County but when the deal fell through, he opened the Lorton restaurant in 2007 in what used to be a doctor’s office.

Lorton is the farthest north of the 12 Vinny’s restaurants in Virginia (there also is one in North Carolina.) But for a variety of reasons, it has not been able to duplicate the success of the others.

Opening in 2007 didn’t help, with the restaurant business starting to see the first signs of the slowdown before the recession hit in 2008. Choi also said the Lorton location does not draw a dinner crowd like the Vinny’s he ran in Fredericksburg despite the growth that has come to Lorton in the last decade.

“The success is not here,” he said, noting that he has come close to shutting down. Things were so slow that in 2009 he decided to close on Sundays, although other Vinny’s are open seven days a week.

Lunch is Vinny’s busiest time of the day, with workers from Fort Belvoir and other local businesses filling the place. But when the workday ends it’s a different story.

“Whoa, it’s a ghost town,” Choi said. “What happened here?” he said he thinks when he sees how well other restaurants are doing elsewhere in Lorton. He said people give his restaurant good ratings online, so he believes the location is hurting him. 

Choi said all he can do is give good food and better service in a festive setting complete with paintings of Italy and carts displaying pasta, tomato sauce, olive oil and other ingredients used in Italian cooking.

Choi is used to hard work. He moved to the United States from South Korea at the age of 22 even though he couldn’t speak a word of English. He learned the language from watching television and speaking English with his American co-workers. The restaurant business was always a dream, but he has worked a variety of jobs, including fixing cars and installing floors.

For now Choi can pay the bills and just hope and wait for business to pick up. “It’s not really good. It’s not really bad,” is how he sums it up.

Vinny’s Grill and Pizzeria, 7730 Gunston Plaza, 703-339-7447. Open Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Prices: Subs start at $5.95, with the Philly Steak being the most popular. Specialties start at $7.75 for house pasta, $8.95 for the baked spaghetti and $11.75 for chicken marsala. A large pizza with the works is $15.95.

Owner’s favorites: Any kind of sub, especially Vinny’s Club Sandwich, baked spaghetti, pizza with the works.