In National Landing, the announced opening date tells you less than the condition of the space behind the sign. Over the past two years, restaurants moving into finished, ready-to-use spaces in Crystal City and Pentagon City mostly opened when they said they would. Restaurants waiting on a building renovation, a permit resubmission, or a buildout in new construction opened months late, pushed their dates into next year, or have gone quiet.
The clearest example sits on 23rd Street S. Dolan Uyghur told ARLnow in the summer of 2024 that it planned to open in Crystal City late that year. It soft-opened at 320 23rd Street S. about two weeks before ARLnow's Aug. 3, 2026 story, which puts the opening in late July 2026. It is the chain's fifth location, and the menu is 100% halal: hand-pulled noodles, kebabs, big plate chicken. If you walked past that storefront for a year and a half wondering when it would open, the rest of this post shows that the wait was typical for that kind of project.
The Openings That Kept Their Word
Start with the places that kept to their schedules, because they show what a reliable announcement looks like.
At the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, Amorino Gelato was announced in February 2025 for late February and opened on April 1. Panera Bread at 2450 Crystal Drive gave a mid-November target in August 2025 and opened on Thursday, Nov. 13. Bar Chinois, at 244 19th Court S., set a May opening in March 2025 and held its grand opening on May 15. Pizzeria Paradiso Pronto said in March 2026 that it would open at Water Park, 1611 Crystal Drive, in the spring. By June 1 it was soft-opening, with the official opening set for that Friday.
Replacements in spaces that had recently held restaurants also arrived close to schedule. Pink Saffron took over the former Bund Up space at 1201 S. Joyce Street. It aimed for Diwali, Oct. 20, 2025, and held its grand opening in early November. Daydrift, the cafe and bookstore at 1550 Crystal Drive, gave only a few days' notice before it started service on Oct. 27, 2025.
The Openings That Ran Late
The other group took longer. The table compares the first public target with what local reporting later confirmed.
| Place | Address | First announced target | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Posada | 320 23rd Street S. | Early spring 2025 | Planned soft opening the week of June 9, 2025 |
| 1983 Chinese Cuisine | 1101 S. Joyce Street, Westpost | Early May 2025 | Soft opening set for late June 2025 |
| Pi BBQ and Bar | 420 23rd Street S. | Early March 2025 | Confirmed open by late October 2025 |
| Constellation | 2011 Crystal Drive | January 2026 | Opened the week of May 20, 2026 |
| Altitude Wine Bar | 2011 Crystal Drive | January 2026 | Opened by June 18, 2026 |
| Dolan Uyghur | 320 23rd Street S. | Late 2024 | Soft-opened about late July 2026 |
| Tiki Thai | 244 19th Court S., Reva | Summer or fall 2026 | Target moved to summer 2027 |
Where the reporting gives a cause, it is the building. Altitude and Constellation were waiting on a $40 million renovation of 2011 Crystal Drive, an older office building being upgraded ahead of the planned pedestrian bridge to Reagan National Airport. A spokesperson for developer Episcope Hospitality told ARLnow in February that both had moved to early spring. Tiki Thai's space on the ground floor of Reva was still unopened in July because permitting was ongoing. Bar Chinois opened on time at the same 244 19th Court S. address, so the building itself isn't the deciding factor. What matters is where each particular space stands in permitting and construction.
The 320 23rd Street S. address appears twice in the table because it holds two separate storefronts. La Posada's own site lists it at #250, and Dolan Uyghur's reservation page lists Unit 50.
What a Long Runway Costs
The clearest account of what a long runway costs came from a restaurant that closed. El Mercat Bar de Tapas opened at 1301 S. Joyce Street in Westpost in September 2025, about a month after its mid-August target. It closed permanently on the night of Sept. 23, 2026. In its farewell post, the owners wrote that "economic challenges, unexpected construction costs, delays in opening, and slower-than-anticipated sales ultimately forced us to close our doors." They thanked their manager, Nolberto, and invited diners to the original El Mercat in Rockville, which is still open. Two of the four reasons in that statement are about getting the space open.
Restaurant Row lost a much older tenant a few weeks earlier. Los Tios Grill served its last Tex-Mex and Salvadoran plates at 515 23rd Street S. on Aug. 30, 2026, after opening there in early 2019. Its website gave no reason, and the restaurant pointed diners to its two Alexandria locations and its Leesburg location. The address has housed a Latin restaurant for more than four decades, going back to Cantina Mexicana, which opened under a different name in 1978. As of early October, no new tenant has been reported for 515 23rd Street S. or for El Mercat's former space.
The two closures also differ in their next step. A tenant moving into a fully built restaurant space usually needs far less permitting than a project starting from scratch, and the table above shows how much time that saves. How quickly either space fills will depend on what the next operator has to build.
Still Waiting, With Dates Already Passed
These are the projects whose public targets have come and gone without a confirmed opening in local reporting. Each entry includes the date of the last report so you can judge how stale it is.
- Ember Kitchen and Spirits, 1301 S. Joyce Street, Westpost. First targeted for winter 2025. On July 9, 2026, the owner reset that to a late-August soft opening and a September grand opening. No opening report has followed.
- Paris Baguette, 2000 S. Bell Street. ARLnow reported in March 2026 that it would debut in the third quarter of 2026. The National Landing BID's June 18 update said "later this year."
- Okinami, 244 19th Court S., suite 45. In March the owner estimated four to five months. ARLnow's April 7 restaurant tracker listed July or August.
- Takumi, Fashion Centre at Pentagon City. Announced in February 2025 for that summer. ARLnow saw "coming soon" signage on June 23, 2026. The restaurant's own website still lists the location as coming soon, while a separate Pentagon City page shows an order link and hours.
- Scapegoat Beer Garden, 556 22nd Street S. Targeted for summer 2025 in the Crystal Hill space, which has 3,500 square feet indoors and 6,500 square feet of patio. The County Board extended its use permit in January 2026. On May 27 the space was listed for lease again. A county planning spokesperson told ARLnow that the project had no building permit, inspections, or certificate of occupancy, and that the county had required it to resubmit building-permit materials in March.
Scapegoat's case lays out the full sequence a new restaurant has to get through. In the spokesperson's words, building permits, inspections, and certificates of occupancy "require separate applications and review processes," and no construction or use of the space is allowed until the building permit is issued. A project that has to go through all three steps is the kind that ends up in the late column of the table.
The Calendar You Can Plan Around This Month
The neighborhood's public programming runs on dates published weeks ahead. The BID's fall guide, published Aug. 27, lists the following for Metropolitan Park, 1330 S. Fair Street.
- NaLa Noches. Free Latin music on Thursdays, 5 to 7 p.m., through Oct. 15. Monte Cimarrón plays Oct. 8 and Son Cubano Subterráneo closes the series Oct. 15.
- Fit @ Met. Free classes on Wednesdays, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., through Oct. 21.
- Met Park Movie Nights. Every other Friday, 6 to 8 p.m., ending Oct. 16.
- MoCA on the Move. Family art activities on Sundays, Oct. 11, 18, and 25, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Daydrift Books and Coffee at 1550 Crystal Drive has a fall paint-and-sip on Oct. 18, a custom-scent workshop on Nov. 8, and a trinket-tray and coaster workshop on Nov. 22, each from noon to 2 p.m. A community cleanup starts at Water Park, 1601 Crystal Drive, on Thursday, Oct. 22, from 10 a.m. to noon. All of these are announced schedules, so check the organizer's page before heading out.
For more on how dining growth is clustering elsewhere in the county, see our piece on the old Barnes & Noble in Clarendon and our Arlington neighborhood guide.
If you own a condo or rental near Restaurant Row or Westpost and want to know how the closures, the delayed openings, and the next tenants at 515 23rd Street S. and 1301 S. Joyce Street could affect your building, Beltran & Associates Realty follows these National Landing addresses as part of our day-to-day leasing and property management work. Talk with a Local Broker Today. Hablamos español.
