Photos: Mezeh Mediterranean Grill Now Open in RTC West

JBG Smith’s mixed-use development, RTC West, welcomed a new restaurant this week. Mezeh Mediterranean Grill is now open at 12130 Sunset Hills Road. 

The 44-seat restaurant offers a mix of build-it-yourself bowls, pita pockets and wraps. Other establishments are also on the way in the development, including Punjabi by Nature, The Black Squirrel, and The Burger Joint. In recent months, Honeygrow, Starbucks and Nando’s were added to the mix of retail on the largely office-dominated site.

Although a soft launch was held on Tuesday, the restaurant’s grand opening day has not yet been finalized, according to Patrick Mika, Mezeh’s director of marketing and catering. On Wednesday (July 25), Mezeh will offer free chicken shawarma bowls – it’s inaugural opening promotion.

Beginning next week, Mezeh will also free promotions for different client bases in order to reduce overcrowding in the area, especially since immediate surface lot parking is limited.

The Reston location includes traditional elements of Mezeh’s nine other locations like a community bar and wrap-around seating. No paint is used anywhere on its mixed-media walls — except on the restaurant’s bathroom doors.

“More and more fast-casual restaurants I see are becoming more like a box,” Mika said. “Ours is more like a home.”

The restaurant will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Its first fundraiser for a local charity will be on August 7. Forty percent of proceeds from purchases made between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. that day will go toward the fundraiser if customers mention “Solutions Street.”

Photos by Fatimah Waseem