On top of all the new large-scale mixed use projects recently completed or now going up around the City of Falls Church’s 2.1 square miles, there are four crowd-pleasing renovations of existing commercial sites that have either just opened or will in the immediate period ahead. All involve food.
A Plethora of New Eateries At Redone Locations Due
Opening this week has been the Godfrey’s Bakery Cafe at 421 W. Broad Street which launched this Tuesday as a key aspect of the handsome new Meeting House building, former site of the Falls Church Florist, that also includes a renovated hotel and beer garden. A “family and friends” staff recognition and training event kicked it off last weekend, and now the family-run operation boasts sourdough bread from a 150-year-old starter and levain (look it up) are added to old-world artisanal techniques and farm-fresh ingredients, says the management.
Coming in just a couple weeks now is the revamped restaurant replacing the Liberty Barbecue at the corner of W. Broad and N. Virginia now known as “The Falls.” Its signage is already up. By the same people who set up the Liberty Barbecue not long ago, this new iteration will still feature slow smoked brisket, pork and ribs, adding trout filets, blue crab bisque, and array of unique salads and sides. Their sampling booth at the Falls Church Festival last weekend was highly popular.
Renovations Lead to Major New Restaurants in Downtown F.C.
A little further down the road but still much anticipated, if for nothing other than the removal of the remnants of the old Stratford Motel, which has become a singular eyesore downtown at 300 W. Broad, is a proposed indoor-outdoor restaurant used by the successful Dominion Wine and Beer further up the street. This will be a “by right” use, meaning it needs only to win site plan approval from the Planning Commission to begin the renovation that will include taking down one of the two buildings at the site and rehabbing the other building, the site of a former restaurant.
Lastly among currently coming-along redos in downtown is the former bank site at 603 W. Broad that is already renovated and its upstairs office spaces filled that will be home to a Smoothie King drive-through as soon as all the logistics are ironed out. The is the latest of the Young Group’s efforts in the Little City.
Meanwhile, the new restaurants in Founder’s Row One are humming along, with the Ellie Bird scoring major reviews on regional and even national sites. Highly successful in their opening of the Rooster and Owl in D.C. in 2019, the owners of Ellie Bird tout that they are both natives of Falls Church. “We were both raised in Falls Church, held our first hospitality jobs as teens on Broad Street, and live in the area; not to mention both our parents still live minutes from Founder’s Row. We wanted to provide the area with a chef-driven, fun, and approachable option for a fun dinner out, pre-movie brunch, or weeknight takeaway,” they say on their website.
In his presentation to the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce last week, Paul Stoddard, the City’s Chief Planner, touted the robust growth in the City, which at the same time has seen an actual 9.3 percent decrease in vehicular traffic, with almost 50,000 fewer trips daily running through the City owing to concerted efforts at City Hall to encourage alternative forms of travel.
