Thursday, April 14, 2011
Burger chain has restaurants everywhere but calls Lorton home
Even though its corporate headquarters is on Furnace Road, Lorton didn’t get its own Five Guys restaurant until 2007. The wait made no difference; the store on Ox Road offers the same burgers and fries that have made Five Guys a Washington D.C.-area institution since the first one opened in Arlington 25 years ago. The Furnace Road location is a corporate training restaurant, so it typically has more staff present, but other than that it’s just like every other Five Guys, of which there are more than 770 in 40 states and Canada, said Molly Catalano, director of communications. Five Guys was founded by Jerry and Janie Murrell and their four sons (a fifth son was born later) and now all “five guys” are still very much involved in the business…
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Lorton business is open again after fire
Ten months after it was gutted by fire, Sub Shop on Richmond Highway is back in business. It still sells a few convenience items, but this shop has a new name and a new direction. Owner Lawrence Reese has renamed it Sub Shop Old Fashioned Sandwiches and the emphasis is now on Reese’s first love – food. The shop opened in July 2009 as Sub Shop Convenient Store and did an “unbelievable” business, Reese said. He remembers closing as usual the night of June 7, 2010, but a few hours later, fire began in the dentist’s office next door and spread to Sub Shop. Reese rushed to the store from his home in Lorton, but it was too late. Already recovering from a serious illness, the next thing he knew, he was so overcome he had to be treated in an …
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Restaurant chain finds that location is everything
Don’t expect someone named Vinny to greet you at Vinny’s Grill and Pizzeria 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’…
38.705029
-77.208511
Vinny's Italian Grill
7730 Gunston Plz, Lorton, VA
/articles/neighborhood-bites-vinnys-grill-and-pizzeria
422487
/locations/3852864
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Its slogan: "A purveyor of pork perfection and Bar-B-Que magic"
It’s the first nice Friday evening of the year, and David Saville is smiling as he tends his grill. “Put another fresh dip in a hot lick on another rack of ribs. Ring that bell,” Saville shouts, as Ed “Woody” Woodard of the Mason Neck Lions rings the bell. Saville takes a rack of ribs that were cooked in his workhorse “cater car,” dips it in a vat of barbecue sauce made from the recipe that his late father formulated, and freshens it on the grill. Hence, the dip in a “hot lick.” Friday is the only night of the week that American Bar-B-Que & Catering is open for dinner. Saville teams up with the Mason Neck Lions for the Friday Nite BBQ, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Lions. Despite its popularity and the explosive growth that…
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Funky restaurant helps transform Lorton
Even though he owned a successful restaurant in Burke, Kostas Daskalakis knew he was taking a big gamble in starting a restaurant in Lorton. The area was ripe for development with the closure of the District of Columbia’s sprawling prison in the early 2000s. However, the site that would become the Lorton Station Town Center was nothing but trees when Daskalakis first saw it in 2003, and he believed that the first tenants in a shopping center typically fail. Despite Daskalakis’ reservations Fireside Grill has been a hit since it opened in April 2007, with its urban chic look and a menu not seen in Lorton before. “We try to give simple food but prepare it in an elegant way,” Daskalakis said. There’s no fried food on the menu—not even …
Thursday, March 10, 2011
A new chapter for longtime Korean restaurant
Don’t let the name fool you – Hunan Deli is neither a Chinese restaurant nor a deli. Rather, it is a well-established Korean restaurant that continues to flourish despite the sudden death last year of the driving force behind the family business. It’s easy to miss Hunan Deli, which is sandwiched between two other “delis” in the more industrial part of Lorton. Whan Yi and his wife, Sang, took over the location in 1998, transforming a barbecue restaurant into a Korean/Chinese restaurant that serves traditional Korean dishes as well as “Koreanized” Chinese food. The Yis’ two young daughters helped in the restaurant as well and business was good from the start, said the younger daughter, Hyun-Jung, who goes by H.J. and now runs the restaurant…
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Still a family business in Gunston Plaza
A more fitting name for Father & Son Seafood these days may be Husband & Wife Seafood, but no matter who’s frying the fish, this longtime Lorton restaurant remains a popular destination for seafood lovers. Diners come from as far away as Fredericksburg for such staples as fish and chips, steamed shrimp and fresh crabs in season, said Jung Cho, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Kye. The Chos took over the carryout restaurant in 2001 from the father and son who opened it in the Gunston Plaza Shopping Center in 1989. Jung Cho said they kept the name because everyone already knew the restaurant as Father & Son. Kye Cho had dreamed of opening his own business after the couple moved to the United States from South Korea in 1990. “…
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Old Lorton meets new Lorton
It’s not a stretch to say that Polo Grill was the only sit-down, full-service restaurant in Lorton for a long time. That’s not the case anymore with the transformation of the Lorton area in the last decade, but Polo Grill’s owners say growth is good for everyone. Mike Kiros and Archie Zaro have been running Polo Grill since 2008, taking over from Alexandria restaurateur Ralph Davis, who had run it since 1991. Polo Grill was opened in 1989 by American Bar-B-Que & Catering, which is still operates on Telegraph Road in Lorton. Not much has changed on the outside of the Gunston Plaza Shopping Center mainstay since it opened. Some touches of the “polo” décor remain on the inside, mostly framed prints on the wall, but Kiros and Zaro have put …
38.703742
-77.208432
Polo Grill Restaurant
7784 Gunston Plz, Lorton, VA
/articles/bites-nearby-polo-grill
422034
/locations/3493978
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Popular Italian restaurant's owners saw potential where others did not
It was just a mound of dirt in a part of Fairfax County he considered to be an “armpit.” But to David Abella, it was the perfect place to build the Italian restaurant he had always dreamed of. Out of that dirt rose Pane e Vino, which opened in January 2007 and appears to be the best known restaurant in up-and-coming Lorton Station Town Center. The Italian restaurant added a wine room at the end of 2008 and a wine bar late last year. It was popular from the start. And even as neighboring restaurants were closing because of the poor economy, Pane e Vino had to expand because customers were being turned away for lack of room. The patriarch of Pane e Vino is Salvatore Li Rocchi, who owned a pizzeria in Brooklyn, N.Y., before moving to …
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Lorton's Indian restaurant owner paid his dues
My Karma Indian Bistro is proof that there’s truth in the old saying that “timing is everything.” Subhash Gavri was looking to open his own restaurant after years of working in other restaurants just as the Lorton area was being transformed. “It was my dream to open a restaurant,” Gavri told Lorton Patch. “This area just happened to need an Indian restaurant.” And the rest is history. My Karma has enjoyed good karma, in the form of a loyal following and good reviews, since it opened in February 2007. Gavri explains how the restaurant got its name this way: “Karma is a word of ancient origin meaning action or activity. It is commonly understood as a term to denote the entire cycle of cause and effect as described in the philosophies of …
Tracy Bank
1:45 pm on Tuesday, May 24, 2011
We visited the Sub Shop for lunch this past Saturday. It was short-staffed, but the owner was friendly and excited about his food (and made sure we had everything we needed despite the lack of staff). We enjoyed the Wings/Macaroni and cheese special (yum!) and my daughter had the tuna and french fries (again, good!). We ate out on the patio where it was quiet and clean. I know we'll be back for … more ›