Walk down Clarendon Boulevard past the old Barnes & Noble this month and you'll pass two storefronts that used to be one bookstore. On one side, a Charlottesville brewery is expected to open its first Northern Virginia location. On the other, a New York noodle chain is serving cumin lamb out of a room built for dozens of people who used to have to drive to Alexandria for it. Together, they show how Clarendon's restaurant scene is changing, with one business already serving diners and another still expected to open.
That's the detail easy to miss under all the "new restaurant" headlines this summer. Some of what's opening in Clarendon and Ballston connects to businesses with locations or customers elsewhere; in one case, an Alexandria location closed before an Arlington storefront opened. If you live here, that's worth understanding before Clarendon Day and Rosslyn Jazz Fest turn the calendar over to festival season in a few weeks. The restaurant scene you're about to walk through on two Saturdays in September is different from the one you had at the start of summer, with several new businesses joining it.
The noodle shop that gave up its other Virginia address
Xi'an Famous Foods spent the last year running a ghost kitchen out of a shared facility in Alexandria, the kind of setup where you order on an app and a stranger's kitchen makes your food. That Arlandria kitchen broke the chain's own sales records after it opened. It closed anyway, at the end of July, timed to a lease expiring with the ghost kitchen operator Four Mile Food Co. CEO Jason Wang told Washingtonian the timing worked out well enough that staff and equipment could move straight from Alexandria into a new Clarendon storefront rather than sit idle.
That storefront, at 2800 Clarendon Boulevard in the Crossing Clarendon shopping center, opened its doors in early August with a grand-opening celebration on August 15. Reported seating runs anywhere from 66 to 84 depending on which account you read, but every account agrees on the model: quick-service, no tipping, opening prices with many dishes around $10. Wang has said he wants to invest further in the region, and Xi'an Famous Foods already has an October storefront planned for Rockville. Clarendon is the only stop in Virginia that gets a room to sit down in.
That move from Alexandria to Clarendon is one backstory; Ballston's shops arrived by different routes.
The bagel shop that asked its customers where to go next
A few minutes away in Ballston, a different kind of expansion tells a similar story. Call Your Mother, the deli chain known for babka and everything bagels, is bringing a fourth location to 4000 Wilson Boulevard. Co-owner Andrew Dana didn't frame the choice as a market study. He framed it as customer mail, telling Arlington Magazine that Arlington has been "the No. 1 request" from customers asking where the chain should open next. The company already runs a kiosk in National Landing's Water Park and a storefront in McLean, so this isn't a brand discovering Northern Virginia for the first time. It's a brand hearing the same request often enough from the same zip codes that Ballston moved to the top of the list.
Bagel Uprising's Ballston shop followed its original Del Ray location. Owner Chad Breckinridge opened that first shop in 2019, four years after he started selling small-batch bagels at the Four Mile Run Farmers & Artisans Market. The second shop opened at 901 North Glebe Road on July 28. Breckinridge told Arlington Magazine, "This isn't a chain store. It's a second shop aimed at becoming part of the Ballston community, just as we have in Del Ray."
What opened or is expected, and where it came from
| Business | Where | When | The backstory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xi'an Famous Foods | Clarendon, 2800 Clarendon Blvd | Opened Aug. 7, grand opening Aug. 15, 2026 | Closed its only other Virginia location, an Alexandria ghost kitchen, before opening here |
| Three Notch'd Brewing Company | Clarendon, 2800 Clarendon Blvd | Expected second half of 2026 | First Northern Virginia location for the Charlottesville brewery |
| Bagel Uprising | Ballston, 901 N. Glebe Rd | Opened July 28, 2026 | Second shop, seven years after its Del Ray original |
| Le Méridien rooftop brasserie | Rosslyn, 1121 19th St N | Opened July 27, 2026 | New restaurant built into an existing hotel's fourth floor |
| Call Your Mother | Ballston, 4000 Wilson Blvd | Expected 2026 | Owner says Arlington was the top city requested by customers |
The list brings together several different backstories: an Alexandria kitchen followed by an Arlington storefront, second locations, a first Northern Virginia brewery location, and a brasserie built into an existing hotel. Together, these openings add options in Clarendon, Ballston, and Rosslyn.
Two September Saturdays, two festivals
The businesses matter because of what they're opening into. Rosslyn Jazz Fest returns to Gateway Park on Saturday, September 12, starting at 1 p.m., an afternoon of live jazz that's run long enough in Rosslyn to be a fixture rather than a novelty. Two weeks later, Clarendon Day takes over Clarendon Metro Park on Saturday, September 26, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., pulling in more than 20,000 people for live music, food, drink, a KidZone, and enough exhibitor interest that the Clarendon Alliance has already put a waitlist on new booth applications.
Both festivals predate this summer's restaurant wave by years. What's different this September is what's within walking distance of them. The Le Méridien's fourth-floor brasserie is nearby, though its happy hour is a weekday offering: it runs from 4 to 7 p.m. with $6 beers and $8 wines. The brasserie also offers a view of planes landing at Reagan National and the National Cathedral across the river. Someone doing Clarendon Day two weeks later is doing it a few blocks from a noodle shop that didn't exist in July and a planned brewery location a few doors down from it.
A month that actually uses both
If you're sequencing the next month around the two festivals, the openings give you a version of Arlington that didn't exist when you made your summer plans.
- September 12: Rosslyn Jazz Fest at Gateway Park from 1 p.m., with the Le Méridien's fourth-floor brasserie nearby if you're coming from the Metro side of Rosslyn.
- The two weeks between: a reason to actually try Xi'an Famous Foods, which opened in early August with opening prices on many dishes around $10.
- September 26: Clarendon Day at Clarendon Metro Park from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., with the Crossing Clarendon's two newest tenants close enough to fold into the day without a detour.
None of that requires thinking about real estate. It requires noticing that the blocks you've walked past all summer have changed since June, with new businesses opening in Clarendon and Ballston.
This season brings several new openings to Clarendon and Ballston. Together, those openings make for a broader story than any single restaurant opening, and that's what's playing out on Clarendon Boulevard this month.
If you're curious what a season like this signals about the neighborhood underneath it, whether you're renewing a lease or thinking further ahead, Premier Partners DC spends every week on these blocks and is always glad to talk through what it means. Contact us anytime.