Hen Penny Brings Quick-Service Chicken to Reston Town Center

A new restaurant that opened Monday at Reston Town Center is offering fast meals in a familiar space.

Hen Penny is now open at 1820 Discovery St., offering chicken sandwiches, salads and more to its customers. Wesley Albright, the restaurant’s assistant manager, said the Southern country-fried chicken restaurant uses a special recipe to give its meat a unique taste.

“It’s a special flour that we use, and we put all our chicken in a pressure cooker so it keeps it really nice and juicy and moist,” he said. “Our menu is pretty small, but we have excellent food here.”

Hen Penny is a spinoff of Pheast Food Group’s Hen Quarter restaurants in Alexandria and Silver Spring. Ashraf Mokhtar, the restaurant’s general manager, said the company hopes to open 20 to 25 more locations of Hen Penny in the future.

The location is the former home of burger restaurant BRB, which Pheast Food Group closed in January with a plan to bring a “new concept” to the space. That new concept is the only place like it in the Town Center, Albright said.

“When it was BRB, there’s tons of places you can go and get burgers,” said Albright, who served in the same position at that restaurant. “But around here, this is the only place that has this type of chicken.”

The restaurant is not validating parking, Albright said, but he encouraged use of online and pickup orders for people who want to get in and out quickly. Albright said regular customers had been asking for updates about the location since BRB closed and there was already a healthy crowd in the eatery during the early lunch hour Monday.

“We have a lot of regular guests here — a lot of people who work in the Town Center, live in the Town Center, people who come across the street from the offices,” he said.

The restaurant is providing free samples at its front door as it celebrates its opening. In addition, Mokhtar said special discounts can be provided for catering orders.