Mayor Hardi Looking Forward to Falls Church Restaurant Week, Jan. 31 - Feb. 9
Are you ready for “Ten Days of Deliciousness”?
Then prepare your palettes, people. The City of Falls Church – now a hotspot for regional foodies – will be offering its second-annual Restaurant Week (FCRW), from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9.
For this article, The Falls Church Independent interviewed Falls Church City Mayor Letty Hardi to find out why FCRW is a high priority for her and the City, how it has served the City in the past, and what the city-wide celebration of local cuisine means to the Mayor and her family.
What’s Falls Church Restaurant Week All About?
“2024’s inaugural FCRW was such a huge success that the city is making it an annual tradition,” Tricia Barba, owner of Preservation Biscuit Company and FCRW’s coordinator told The Falls Church Independent.
“Restaurant Week gives local diners a chance to save, while getting a taste of ‘The Little City,’ a buzzing destination full of international, immigrant-owned, innovative, and award-winning eateries. In fact, 20 new restaurants are opening soon in Falls Church, or have opened in the last few months,” Barba said.
FCRW is designed to “entice diners to sample or return to local eateries by offering special menus or other exclusive money-saving offers.” This year, 40 restaurants from the City will be taking part, all located within the City’s 2.2 square-miles.
The celebration is sponsored by the City of Falls Church Economic Development Authority (EDA) and run by the City’s Economic Development Office staff member Sarah Swinton, with the goal of “promot[ing] and increas[ing] visitors to restaurants and businesses within the City of Falls Church and to increase awareness and consideration of Virginia’s culinary experiences.”
Mayor Hardi’s Take on FCRW
“Restaurant Week is just a really great way to celebrate the small businesses we have in Falls Church. I think one of the things that make us unique compared to other communities is that we have so many different restaurant offerings,” Mayor Hardi told us. “And they’re mostly all small businesses.”
“We know that late January is the post-holiday season and it’s a slower time for businesses, so this is a good way for the City to kind of show some love back to our small business community by promoting them and encouraging people to shop and eat locally – which we do a pretty good job of – especially during the holidays,” she continued. “So, it’s a great way to promote economic development and encourage more visitors and tourism, especially with our burgeoning restaurant scene.”
“We’ve kind of ‘made the map’ in the D.C. region for being kind of a foodie destination,” she said. “So there have been multiple reasons why we wanted to make Restaurant Week a thing.”
Last year, Ellie Bird at 125 Founders Ave. in the City of Falls Church made The New York Times list of the "top 50 restaurants its critics, editors, and reporters are most excited about," Northern Virginia Magazine reported in September.
Coming from a family with a small business and restaurant background, Mayor Hardi is especially interested in boosting the City’s local restaurants. “On a personal note, I actually grew up in a small business family… And the reason we actually moved to Virginia is my family owned Fortune restaurant which was originally in Bailey’s Crossroads in Seven Corners. But then, my dad opened the sister restaurant, Fortune, in Reston, back in the 90s. So, having grown up in kind of a restaurant family, it’s been part of my upbringing of wanting to support the families and the livelihoods and the stories behind the businesses we see. So, personally, it’s been quite important to me,” Hardi said.
While last year's FCRW “was great,” thanks in part to coordinator Tricia Barba, this year will have even more participating restaurants, Mayor Hardi said. Given that there are no payments or buy-in costs from restaurants to participate and that the City covers the marketing costs, FCRW is really a win-win for both the participating restaurants and the City.
Asked if the Mayor could say offhand how well FCRW did last year, she laughed and said, “If you didn’t know that about me already, I’m kind of a data nerd, and the first thing I asked [the EDA last year] was ‘What kind of lift did we get?, Did restaurants see more sales traffic? And, were there increases in meals taxes [going to the City]?'.... What I always make sure we do is that any time we have an investment, or any time you put City resources into something, you want to make sure there’s good return on investment for the taxpayer.”
“Anecdotally, [the restaurants] certainly did very well,” Hardi continued, though she recalled the City had a snow storm over three days of the celebration, “which wasn’t great timing.”
After our interview, the Mayor forwarded the following charts from an EDA briefing last spring to show that the inaugural 2023 FCRW was indeed a success with over two-thirds of participating restaurants reporting higher sales, despite the snow:
Asked if the Mayor had plans to attend any particular restaurant(s) during FCRW, she chuckled and said, “It’s like people asking, ‘Who’s your favorite son?’ Well, you can’t pick favorites among your own kids, of course! But the good thing is I like to eat!”
The mayor then spoke enthusiastically at length about the City’s increasingly vibrant food and cafe scene. “Given that I have no official offices, it gives me a chance when I take meetings – I just hit a bunch of coffee shops, which is why I like office hours in coffee shops. It makes me accessible, though I probably drink way too much coffee! [Laughs]. So, coffee shops are always great!”
“I often say that the number of coffee shops we have is directly related to the growth in our city,” Hardi continued “When I started on City Council, we had just opened our first independent coffee shop.... and I think we’re up to six now?.... We had Starbucks and we had Panera, but Cafe Kindred was the first to open, I think in 2015, and since then we’ve added, I think, six more independent coffee shops with maybe three more on the way?”
“So that’s a good sign, obviously, that we have enough population and customers to support independent coffee shops,” Hardi said. “As much as people love their Starbucks, I love that I can support the Rare Birds, the Northside Socials, the Cafe Kindreds, and the Bake Shops – and we’ll have several more to add to that!”
Pressed on whether the mayor and her family had any particular dining plans for FCRW, the mayor finally hinted at what they’ll be up to. “Well, it is winter. And winter is kind of Pho season. So we do spend a lot of time at the Eden Center getting noodles... and there’s nothing like a big bowl of warm noodles and soup!”
“But we have tons of favorites up and down Broad Street,” she hedged. “Mostly, I love the diversity in cuisine we have. So, regardless of what people are in the mood for, it’s nice that we have enough offerings for everybody.”
It turns out, the mayor’s family will be supporting a lot of local participating restaurants during FCRW. “One of the family traditions we have is – and it’s kind of the product of Covid – is that Friday night is sort of our takeout night. And we have a rotating system where everyone in the family gets to pick what they eat that week,” she said. “So, during Restaurant Week, I would just have to say, ‘We’ll just have to get takeout or go out every night of the week to maximize it.’ Because we’ll only have two Fridays, I think.”
The mayor's pride in the broad range and diversity of the City of Falls Church’s culinary offerings also shone. “We’re kind of like the United Nations of eating,” she said. “We have so much to choose from that it really is a good excuse to kind of have a meal out at every place. So, I love that the value we kind of hold dear in Falls Church is really reflected in the cuisines we have.”
For example, she said, “Dolan Uyghur is the new restaurant in town and most people might not have heard of Uyghur cuisine. So that’s a great chance to kind of experience that. And we have all the traditional things people like – whether you want Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, or Mexican – we’ve got all the kind of normal traditionally diverse cuisines people think of. But, then, we also have pretty interesting new ones too, like between Borek-G and Dolan Uyghur, it’s really great that we’re adding so many new restaurants to chose from. And I certainly look forward to all the new editions coming too.”
The City has also vastly expanded its outdoor dining options, the mayor noted. “I was actually just at Godfrey’s for a meeting and it was so crowded inside, so we sat outside,” she recalled. “And with the heater, I was like, ‘It doesn’t matter that it’s 35 or 40 degrees,’ because it was actually really pleasant right next to the fire outside. I think so many outdoor spaces have been transformed post-Covid and people have been really intentional about building those gathering places.”
For the mayor, gathering to enjoy a meal together is what community’s all about. “So, for me, eating is not just about eating. Eating’s great and I love to eat. But, it’s also the gathering and the communal aspect of people getting together,” she said. “And I love that Restaurant Week is also about community building. It’s certainly good economic development, but the community-building part is also really important to me too… One of the best parts of the job [of serving as Mayor] is that when people come together, you know, you break bread together and you share a meal, and it really brings people together nicely.”
“Happy eating, Falls Church!,” Hardi said in conclusion. “I look forward to seeing everyone out there!”
Here's a link to Mayor Hardi's recent Instagram reel announcing FCRW:
Participating Restaurants
Participating restaurants include widely acclaimed establishments like Ellie Bird (offering a three-course prix-fixe menu for $65 per person that includes house-made focaccia with miso butter), and Thompson Italian, as well as some exciting up-and-comers and local favorites like:
- Borek-G: the mother- and son-owned Turkish restaurant, which The Post’s Tim Carman called “sublime” (offer coming soon).
- Dolan Uyghur: which opened in November and is committed to preserving the food and flavor of Uyghur culture (offer coming soon).
- La Tingeria: from Chef David Peña, which evolved from a Mexican food truck to a brick-and-mortar and is now opening additional locations (offer coming soon).
- Luzmila's: a woman-owned Bolivian restaurant known for its salteñas, is offering 10 percent off for diners who mention FCRW.
- Midori Tea House: a Japanese matcha house and bakery (offer coming soon).
- Panjshir: a thriving Afghan eatery (offer coming soon).
- Seoul Prime, a Korean steakhouse, which opened this month.
See all you foodies out there!
By Christopher Jones
Member discussion