Out to Lunch

How’s everyone doing? Warm enough for ya?? At least it’s been a slow national news week [checks headlines] nevermind. Well ok, the weather is awful and the news is awful but at least it’s been a full week of schoo– [puts finger to earpiece] oh, we’re going to miss two and a half days this week? Is that right? Hmmm. [Editor’s note: should the sound of desperate teeth grinding be “grgrgghs” or “rrrrrrrrgg”].

So it’s not looking like the best week for us to have something to talk about–oh, here’s something! Alexandria got a restaurant in the top ten of Washingtonian’s Top 100 Restaurants! That’s pretty cool! I wonder how many other places we got on the list [skimming and flipping magazine pages sounds] Jesus Christ, really? One? One entire restaurant on the entire list?? [Editor’s note: surely it’s “grndsgrndsgrnds”].

Fine. Let’s talk about this! What’s up with Alexandria’s dining scene that we consistently seem unable to produce the kind of restaurants that garner acclaim and the attention of critics. And yes, let’s establish at outset that critical attention is not the be-all end-all measure of a successful or enjoyable restaurant. We have many, many fabulous and beloved restaurants in our city at a variety of price points and types of cuisine [Editor’s note: if you mention pizza I swear I will fucking cut a slice out of you]. This discussion is not meant to imply that we are somehow lacking in places to eat or that the quality of those places is somehow deficient. Please don’t yell at us. And as for our one entry on that list, Nasime is awesome–if you haven’t been you should totally go, it’s a fantastic experience.

With all that throat clearing aside… it would still be nice if we could nurture and sustain more attention-grabbing eateries! It’s been well covered both here and in other outlets that a major pillar of our economy is based on tourism and visitor revenue, particularly visitors from the immediate region. Buzzy restaurants draw visitors! But we’ve been coming up short in that area for quite some time, maybe as far back as Restaurant Eve (and the greater Armstrong empire) packing up shop and moving across the river.

Neither of us are restaurant industry pros (as much as we wished loving restaurants qualified as some sort of credential in this context, because we both really do love restaurants) so our speculation here is of the uninformed variety for sure. But it seems that the causes of this flagging dining scene must have roots in some combination of high rent in our destination neighborhoods (read: Old Town), a lack of complimentary neighborhood activation (read: there ain’t shit to do after your nice meal), low barriers to competition (read: it’s real damn easy to just go out in DC instead), and an insufficient base of supportive regulars (read: we’ve got some people with impossibly high standards and an itchy Yelp finger). All of that put together seems to foster an environment that isn’t necessarily going to draw culinary talent on the come-up, in addition to repelling established toques looking to open new concepts.

Would an entertainment district in Potomac Yard have helped on this front? Sure would have! Would more neighborhoods (*cough* Del Ray *cough*) having a scene that stays activated later than 8:30pm help? It would! Should we acknowledge the crutch that comes from serving a one-and-done tourist base that you’ll likely never see again? We should!

It’s also true that we have some great-to-excellent date night spots that don’t necessarily garner the laurels you might expect them to. Vermilion is pretty fantastic, but only Tom Sietsema seems to cape-up for them. Kiln in the Hotel Heron is attention worthy for sure, but can’t seem to break out beyond local press yet. Thompson Italian is ably filling the old Hank’s space on King Street and they put some special dishes on the table, but our location often feels like a throw-in to the Falls Church original.

Where are we going with all this–we have no idea, but this felt like a nice change of pace topic rather than focusing on the various and sundry horrors unfolding this week [Editor’s note: I’ve got it, it’s “krshkrshkrshkrsh”]. We’re not going to claim to have solutions (some kind of subsidized incubator program through AEDP??) but as a bare minimum, winter Restaurant Week is coming up from Jan. 31 through Feb. 9 and you can get out there and sample some local places and show your support… and maybe keep that Yelp gripe to yourself.

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• A hot new collab might be dropping in our future, and everyone is trying to get in on the DASH x ACPS launch. It’s the coolest thing that’s happened in student transportation since popping the emergency exit door on the back of a school bus.
• A lot of people know that David Lynch went to high school in Alexandria, but did you know that he took his inspiration for offbeat characters like Log Lady, the Man from Another Place, and BOB from commenters at city council public hearings?
• One of the adoptable dogs in this year’s Puppy Bowl is from Alexandria!!! Her name is Abigail, and–we don’t say this lightly–we would kill for her. Abigail is described as “the pup who brings the chaos, the joy, and a whole lot of zoomies,” just like Jesse when he’s playing pickleball. The Puppy Bowl includes a pupularity contest element and while Abigail was still in contention when we wrote this, she may have been eliminated by the time this issue went out. If she’s made it through to the next round, YOU ALL HAD BETTER FUCKING VOTE FOR HER. WE ARE DEAD SERIOUS. WE NEED THIS!!!!!

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. Resistance Spice (Last week: NR). This month a surprisingly high percentage of Alexandria households received a mysterious, unsolicited box of “Resist!” spice blend packets from Penzeys Spices. It turns out the company’s owner decided to send thousands of boxes to customers in the DC metro area for… moral support? Advertising? Perhaps Bill Penzey saw a way to make these 2 goals Become 1 through this bizarre marketing scheme. It was an act so confusing that it distracted us from *gesturing vaguely at everything* for like three entire minutes–although in retrospect it wasn’t really that surprising coming from a company whose website section headers are “Gift Boxes,” “Trial Bags,” and “About Republicans.” Now all of us whose Lives were involuntarily Spiced Up have to figure out how to get rid of Too Much pepper blend that’s medium-to-mild spicy and heavy on the paprika. It’s kind of like a Wannabe chili powder that’s pretty decent on scrambled eggs and in bean soup. Please Say You’ll Be There to leave us additional usage suggestions in the comments before we follow the example of other Alexandrians and start leaving packets in little free libraries and in the Old Town Trader Joe’s flower display.
2. Generation Why? (Last week: NR). Financial technology company SmartAsset (not to be confused with SmartAss–that’s what our mothers call us) is out with a new study showing that Alexandria ranks first in the country as the U.S. city attracting the most millennials. ALX experienced the highest influx of millennials relative to its population, with nearly 20,000 members of the Oregon Trail Generation moving to our city in 2023. This is obviously great news as millennials are objectively the best generation, but we’re just wondering… what’s going on here? We know our city is great, but what about it is particularly appealing to 25-to-44-year olds? It’s called Old Town, not Early Middle Age Town. Whatever the reason, this news had better mean that we’re finally getting an avocado toast truck on every corner and a Blockbuster Video pop-up inside Yates Pizza Palace (coming soon!).
3. Off the Veep End (Last week: NR). Speaking of millennials who moved here in 2023, we were thrilled to wish a warm farewell this week to our favorite local eyeliner model. It felt great to see the backside of him [Editor’s note: that’s not… never mind] as pulled the ol’ Mayflower trucks at midnight maneuver and skedaddled out of town. What’s that? Where was he moving to? Never mind that’s not important right now. Let’s just focus on the positive. Judy Lowe Park is back! The toddlers can go fucking nuts in that fake hollow log again! Meditation practicers can wander the city’s only labyrinth without getting frisked by men in black polo shirts (some people might consider this a negative)! The concrete barriers have disappeared–what do you guys think they should do with them next? Block off the 300 block of King Street to car traffic? Corral overexcited Commanders fans in a contained area so they don’t hurt themselves or others? Establish a border wall around Shirlington after we annex it? One thing is already for sure though, and it’s that the neighbors will be able to sleep peacefully now that there are no more motorca– [sound of typing is drowned out by the screaming engines of a low-flying 737 MAX diverted over Del Ray due to fog]
4. Town Gown It’s Going Down (Last week: NR). It’s been six years [Editor’s note: Jesus, really?] since the announcement of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus, part of the broader announcement of Amazon HQ2 coming to National Landing Crystal City. There was a fair argument to be made that Alexandria got the sweeter end of that deal–we still stood to benefit from much of the economic development halo effect from Amazon, and what actually landed within our borders was a storied state institution determined to partner with the city on mutually beneficial partnerships. This week the campus finally opened, and we can now actually test the extent of that theory. In truth though, the main point of comparison and competition with Arlington that we should be focused on is that they have not yet managed to build their fancy glass poop-emoji building, but we built our… enormous Ark of the Covenant building? Gilded sand crawler building? We honestly don’t know what it’s actually supposed to be but THAT’S OK BECAUSE WE HAVE ONE OF WHATEVER THAT IS AND ARLINGTON DOESN’T.

Alexandria’s Hottest Club Is… Not Being in Alexandria

This week, JD Vance wasn’t the only one leaving Alexandria: many of our friends and neighbors took advantage of the long weekend to get the hell out of Dodge for the duration of the presidential inauguration Second Octennial Neo-Nazipalooza. This may not have been our first Trump rodeo, but the vibes felt decidedly different from 2017–instead of inbound planes full of women wearing pink hats, our airspace was jammed with outbound aircraft carrying locals wearing Resting Depressed Face. Some of the people we know went to places like New Mexico, Montreal, Dublin, Charlottesville, Costa Rica, and Amsterdam, presumably to drown their sorrows in hatch chile stroopwafel poutine with a side of rice and beans on soda bread and a craft IPA. Even George Washington’s ghost was spotted yelling “you’re on your own this time, guys” while peacing out to go skiing at Whitetail, he didn’t want to watch this shit happen either.

The specific destinations people chose didn’t matter as long as they were devoid of red baseball caps. Other continents were generally considered to be safe zones. Interplanetary travel probably also would have been popular if that had been an option. There was no such thing as putting too much distance between oneself and all the people with “commemorative” inauguration tickets, no longer confined to the Mall, who were left to wander the streets of DC waving the “Daddy’s Home” merch they purchased from Satan’s Etsy shop. Locals who left town were quoted in the media as saying they wanted to avoid the “hostile negative energy,” which makes sense–we already get enough of that from the ALXnow comment section, why subject yourself to more? The consensus was less loud noise and Proud Boys, more escaping the crowd in Illinois [Editor’s note: how many times do I have to tell you that’s not how you pronounce “Illinois”].

Jokes aside, the mass exodus was tangible evidence of how shaken our community is by this moment. Thousands of Alexandrians would rather travel halfway around the world than watch our region fill with people whose values we emphatically do not share. The city was quiet this weekend both because so many people left and because we all needed to take a moment to process what comes next. Which again, because we’ve been through this before, we know is going to suck a prodigious amount of ass.

Of course, not everyone was able to leave. For those who stayed (including us), the city was so quiet we were wondering whether Martin Luther King Jr. Day had been declared the official federal holiday for introverts. We hunkered down, put on our stretchiest pants, and used our imaginations to pretend we were anywhere but here: Zillow-surfing this insane house in Boca, riding the TikTok ban rollercoaster, making a few unscheduled detours to Margaritaville (and we don’t mean the restaurant), and time-traveling to 1980s England via the Hulu/Disney+ show Ri– [sound of person being dragged by the ankles away from their computer]. Anyway, while our distractions mostly worked in the short term, we’re back to reality now–here’s hoping we can all hang onto that detached feeling for a little while longer.

Overheard in ALX

From the city’s Bluesky account:

Not such a blue sky today: Alexandria is under a Winter Weather Advisory until 7pm!

Did they… is that… is that pun?? Did the city comms office do a social media pun?? STAY IN YOUR LANE, SERIOUS COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONAL PERSON.

We Get Letters

A couple letters in the ol’ inbox this week responding to our essay on civic associations, first from reader Phoebe:

Good afternoon Jesse and Becky, and thank you for the awesome newsletter as always! I think it's actually really important that LOTS of Alexandrians aren't represented by a civic association at all. The blank spots on the map include some very densely populated parts of our city, including Landmark, where I live. Giving all speakers an equal 3 minutes would not only be fairer representation for many of our apartment and condo dwellers, but it would also make city meetings a little easier for everyone. Our City Council meetings can be long, and having one or more 5-minute speakers just makes them longer. Limiting all speakers to 3 minutes would make it a little easier for everyone to sit through the meeting and have the opportunity to have their voice heard by the City Council. Thank you again for bringing awareness to this issue, because I think it's really important!

First of all, blush. You’re too kind! But false modesty aside, we absolutely agree with you that this issue of speaker parity matters and is worth having a substantive discussion about, especially in light of the inequity it creates for Alexandrians that lack civic association representation.

Next, Mary continues the conversation about public input opportunities:

There are two types of public input around public policy (and let’s face it, virtually nothing besides proposed changes in land use, traffic, or schools gets any attention at all from civic associations): conversations that are vertical and those that are horizontal. The vertical ones are face to face, and this includes mic speakers. They generally share long-held, vested interest opinions – no new info ever comes from them. Horizontal conversations incorporate a wider range of views and include new insights. Large scale public “town halls” designed and facilitated to achieve some form of collective public stance are one example. Digital methods exist that make horizontal conversations much more available than staff-intensive town halls. Elected officials too often listen solely to the mic, but horizontal conversations can be quite effective.

This is a really important point and one that’s worth remembering as the city solicits comments on upcoming initiatives, including the development of next year’s municipal budget. More representative feedback helps make better policy.

One Awesome Thing in ALX

Among all the hoopla around the inauguration, we want to shout out our local leaders for not forgetting that Martin Luther King Jr. Day is first and foremost a day of service. An all-star lineup of Alexandria officials–the city manager, city attorney, council clerk, sheriff, mayor, city council members, and others–took the time on Monday to help deliver Meals on Wheels to members of our community. Meals on Wheels is a program of Senior Services of Alexandria that delivers two meals a day, 365 days a year, to seniors who can’t leave their homes or have difficulty cooking. Now, a lot of people don’t know this, but the meals that are delivered don’t actually have wheels attached to them. The “wheels” are the tires of the vehicle the volunteers use to make the deliveries. If you didn’t realize this, don’t feel bad, it’s a common misconception. We only just learned it ourselves while we were doing research for this newsletter item!

The contrast between our new president’s hateful rhetoric and our local leaders’ work to help vulnerable people in our community could not be more stark. It’s yet another reminder of how lucky we are to call Alexandria our home at a time like this. It’s also an example of the kind of action we should all strive to take over the next four years instead of doomscrolling, sheetcaking, or whatever self-destructive “coping” mechanism everyone’s doing these days. You can sign up to volunteer with Meals on Wheels and learn more about the program here.

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.

ALXtra is a free-to-read newsletter about current events in Alexandria, Virginia. Subscribe to get it delivered directly to your inbox. Paid subscriptions give you access to the comments. Revenue from subscriptions gets used in the following ways: 1) a third goes into a charity fund, and every time that fund hits $500 we’ll make a donation to a local charity in the name of ALXtra’s readers and we’ll feature and write about that organization, like we did here, here, and here; 2) another third of the money will go toward investments in the newsletter; and 3) the final third of the money goes toward self-care for your two intrepid authors.