Big Bite provides free food to first responders

Big Bite Pizza on Columbia Pike in Annandale is struggling to survive, like so many small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, yet it’s delivering free food to the first responders who are risking their own health to serve the community.

Big Bite is delivering more than 350 pizzas and many boxes of wings this week to the Mason District Police Station, the Annandale Volunteer Fire Department, and Innova Fair Oaks Hospital.

From the left: Elias Bitar, John Philippe, and Paul Jamil.

“We plan to keep going,” says Elias Bitar of Big Bite’s plans to help those on the frontlines of the coronavirus crisis. “We want to feed the community.”

Bitar runs Big Bite with cousins Paul Jamil and John Philippe. “We’re the new generation,” Bitar says.

The family-operated restaurant has been at 7125 Columbia Pike for 30 years. It was founded by Bitar’s uncle, and Bitar, a 2010 graduate of Annandale of High School, has been working there since he was a kid. The family also owns Big Bite Pizza at 666 S. Pickett St., in Alexandria.

“Business has definitely slowed down,” he says. “Thankfully, we’re breaking even.” They applied for a loan to help get through the pandemic.

Big Bite closed for two weeks for a deep cleaning, then reopened for no-contact delivery and curbside pickup.

Beside pizza and wings, the Big Bite menu offers subs, burgers, wraps, salads, calzones, pasta, tacos, desserts, mozzarella sticks, cheese fries, meatball bites, garlic bread, and much more.

“We’ve been feeding the community for 30 years,” Bitar says. “We want life to go back to where it used it be.” Meanwhile, “we want to help the community any way we can.”