Mosaic District draws crowds despite pandemic
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| A closed section of Strawberry Lane serves as a gathering space. |
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a heat wave, the Mosaic District in Merrifield was fairly crowded on Sunday evening.
While several places have closed in recent weeks, new ones have opened or are coming soon.
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| Leon offers chicken, burgers, pitas, and slushies, among other things. |
Leon, a fast-food eatery focusing on natural ingredients, opened Aug. 6 on Strawberry Lane.
Our Mom Eugenia, a Greek restaurant in Great Falls, opened a second restaurant Aug. 3 on District Avenue, in the spot formerly occupied by Little Dipper Hot Pot.
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| Our Mom Eugenia features the flavors of Greece. |
There are also signs announcing new restaurants Pupatella (Neapolitan pizza) and Urban Hot Pot (Cajun Seafood).
Related story: Autonomous shuttle in Mosaic to start testing
A Madison Reed salon opened in July, and Sephora is set to open Oct. 11.
Dining spots that have closed include BGR Burgers, Cheestique, Le Pain Quotidien, and Poke Bar. Shuttered stores include Alex and Ani, Artisan Confections, Erin Condren, Great Gatherings, and Kaleidos. The Nook child-minding space is gone, too.
The Mosaic District is hosting drive-in movies in a parking deck on Friday and Saturday nights, but the shows are either sold out or tickets are unavailable.
There’s a farmers market every Sunday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Wish West Falls Church and Annandale will get their sxxt together and develop such projects too.
Mosaic is nice but there is room for more places like this in our area.
Let's make our community great again
Let's bring stong, wealthy, low abiding, educated people to the area
Wealthy, law abiding, educated people? A great community is diverse and welcoming to all. That's what I want.
Well said, Unknown. Cookie cutter – boring to me. I will say though that Annandale does need a good public gathering place. Hopefully, the redevelopment at the kmart can become something like that. The Block has already started to become something of that, but it's too small and gathering in the parking lot is not a good idea.
Mosaic is like heaven and Mason is hell. No other way to say it! Thank you Penny Gross.
I think you need to get out more.
Heaven and hell are little extreme. But, yes, Mason needs help. It used to be a very lovely area but has seen a decline in the past twenty years. Mostly, by not being forward thinking in its land development, code enforcement, and even its school redistricting that took the few higher end middle class developments out to Woodson – lowering Greatschool ratings and further lowering real estate value. A mix of middle class homes, townhomes, condos, etc gives a strong and diverse community. Unfortunately when most of the neighborhoods no longer have families in them because they are choosing better school systems and more and more developments are catering to singles or couples that do not plan to have children (why they moved to cheaper close in neighborhoods) you have a systemic problem.
ANON @8/12 10:54 hit the nail on the head here. Its a perpetual cycle that wont be broken until there is new political leadership and new ideas