Ethnic grocer Lotte Plaza Market officially opened last Friday (Dec. 7) in Herndon Centre.

Located at 490 Elden Street, Lotte Plaza Market joins a growing number of grocery options in Herndon Centre.

The shopping plaza is also home to MOM’s Organic Market. Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store is expected to take over part of the former Kmart space.

Lotte Plaza Market describes itself as “the premier source for Asian groceries in Maryland and Virginia.” It has seven locations in Maryland, five in Virginia and one “coming soon” to Orlando, Fla. — with plans to open 50 locations by 2020, according to its site.

Reston Now previously reported that Lotte Plaza Market was set to open earlier this year.

Photo via Lotte Plaza Market/Facebook

Giant Food is opening a new location in Herndon, according to an announcement by the company today.

The new grocery store is located at 2425 Centreville Road and will open on Nov. 9. It takes up space formerly occupied by Shoppers.

The company issued the following statement announcing the opening:

“Our team is very happy to have the opportunity to invest in two new stores in Virginia, a market Giant has had a presence in for 77 years,” said Gordon Reid, president of Giant Food. “Both stores in Herndon and Alexandria will feature excellent selections and offerings for shoppers, such as a delicious hot food bar, larger produce department, expanded ethnic and international food selections and full-service deli, seafood, meat and floral departments. These stores are an exciting piece of our ongoing expansion and improvement initiatives.”

Customers who shop at 1228 Elden Street will not experience any interruption in service due to the opening, according to company officials.

However, the company does plan to shutter the Elden Street location at Elden Street Marketplace soon.

Photo by Garlon Cheng

Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store is expected to take over part of the former Kmart footprint in Herndon, adding a second organic grocer to the Herndon Centre. The natural and organic grocer would join a shopping plaza that is also home to MOM’s Organic Market.

Demolition of the facade of the 84,000-square-foot store (494 Elden Street) is underway as Florida-based real estate investment firm Sterling Organization divides the former big box store into several businesses. The company purchased the location for $7 million in August last year. The rest of the shopping plaza is owned by A.J. Dwoskin & Associates Inc.

Renderings of the project submitted to the Town of Herndon show the site will be the future home of LA Fitness, MOD Pizza, and IHOP. No overnight commuter parking will be allowed in the shopping plaza.

Town officials said they’re working with the developer of the property to add signalize the intersection near the shopping plaza, as new businesses are expected to generate additional traffic. The company has committed $165,000 in proffer funds to help install a future signal. The town expects to fund the remainder of the project through existing funds from its capital improvements program and future grant funding.

A representative for the project declined to comment on the development, including details about the project timeline.

Photos via Sterling Organization and Fatimah Waseem

What began as a small fruit stand in New York City just over a century ago, Balducci’s gourmet market has grown to be one of the leading stores of its kind, with locations spanning from Connecticut to Virginia.

And just a few short weeks after the opening of its newest location in Reston Town Center, locals have been eagerly exploring its aisles. Customers can engage in a host of culinary activities — from grabbing a quick takeaway dinner of fresh Aurora salmon and delicious grilled Mexican corn to experimenting at the build-your-own poke bowl bar or sampling local micro-brews at the beer crowler bar. And if they’re not shopping they might be taking a moment to meet friends at the café for a fresh, seasonal salad al fresco.

“What we’ve created here is a totally unique shopping experience — the ability to be immersed in a sensory way and to more fully engage with the people who live and breathe food — the chefs, the master butchers, the fish mongers. Online shopping is fantastic for the idea of convenience and time-saving, but something it can’t replace is the experience of a lively, interactive cooking demo or taking in the scent of your fresh-baked pizza pulled straight from the oven. Or how about sipping a glass of wine as you stock up on local produce for the week? Maybe sampling that new local cheese you’ve been wanting to try? We encourage everyone to come in and experience it all and we welcome you as our guests,” says Leonard Knight, General Store Manager at Balducci’s.

In September, customers can get a sneak peak of the eagerly-awaited Chef’s Table during the soft launch from September 4 through September 24, when it will then offer a daily rotating menu, with meal options ranging from dry-aged beef sliders to customizable mac and cheese.

Balducci’s is open seven days a week from 7 a.m.-10 p.m. and is located at 1871 Fountain Drive in Reston Town Center, in Reston, Virginia. For more information, visit balduccis.com/reston.

(This article was edited at 4:30 p.m. to clarify information about the size of the potential store.)

Citing a pair of unnamed sources, the Washington Business Journal reports that grocery chain Wegmans has signed a letter of intent to put an urban-format store near the future Reston Town Center Metro station.

According to WBJ, the store would be built in the future Reston Crescent development, a 36-acre plot of land in the northwest corner of the intersection of Reston Parkway and Sunrise Valley Drive. That’s across from Reston Association headquarters.

In May, the WBJ reported the Western New York-based chain was looking at a 23-acre property assemblage on Association Drive, near the intersection of Sunrise Valley Drive and Soapstone Drive. Among factors that may have burdened a deal for that site is the proposed Soapstone Connector, which would cut through the property.

The new report states the upscale grocer has committed to Reston Crescent developer Brookfield Properties. The store would be small for a Wegmans, similar in size to the store approved for Tysons at 80,000 square feet. (On its website, Wegmans says its stores range in size from “75,000 to 140,000 square feet.”)

Currently going through the County approval process, the 36-acre property is scheduled to be redeveloped to add up to 2,260 dwelling units, 1.18 million square feet of office space, up to 125,000 square feet of retail, and potentially a 160-room hotel. Six parks are also included in Brookfield’s plan. The WBJ report indicates a deal with Wegmans may mean the site plan will require a redesign to accommodate the grocery store.

There are more than 90 Wegmans stores in six states, ranging from Massachusetts to Virginia. The company has plans to open a store in DC soon, as well as for expansion into North Carolina.

Wegmans’ website shows two confirmed future locations in Fairfax County:

• A Chantilly location, at Route 28 and Westfields Boulevard, is scheduled for a 2018 opening
• The Tysons location, at the future Capital One Center near I-495 at Route 123, is listed as a “future site”

The nearest current locations are in Sterling (Dulles 28 Center) and Fairfax.

Local Big Lots fans will soon have farther to travel to get to their favorite discount store.

The location at 490 Elden St. in the Herndon Centre plaza will close Oct. 15, a Big Lots media representative confirmed to Reston Now. Signage now in place outside the store informs customers that after that date, they can visit locations in Sterling (300 Enterprise St.) and Fairfax (11181 Lee Highway).

Lotte Plaza Market will be taking over the 26,000-square-foot Big Lots space in the spring, Herndon spokesperson Anne Papa Curtis confirmed to Reston Now. We first reported in July that the market, described on its website as “the premier source for Asian groceries in Maryland and Virginia,” would be opening in the plaza in early 2018.

In the interim, a large percentage of the west side of the plaza will be vacant, following the closing of Kmart earlier this year. The 84,000-square-foot former department store space is expected to be broken up among several new businesses, Herndon Mayor Lisa Merkel said at the time of its closing.

Herndon Centre is owned by A.J. Dwoskin & Associates Inc.

The Herndon Centre retail space (330-460 Elden St.) will soon become home to another shopping market.

Ethnic grocer Lotte Plaza Market will open in the spring. The news was confirmed to Reston Now by Dennis Holste, the Town of Herndon’s economic development manager.

[Lotte Plaza Market] will be opening a new store in the Herndon Centre in spring, 2018. The store will not be opening in the K-Mart space. The new tenants for the K-Mart space have not been announced.

(The Kmart store in that plaza will close in the coming weeks. That space is owned by Florida-based real estate-investment firm Sterling Organization, while the rest of the plaza is owned by A.J. Dwoskin & Associates Inc.)

Lotte Plaza Market is described on its website as “the premier source for Asian groceries in Maryland and Virginia.” It currently has six locations in Maryland and four in Virginia — Annandale, Ashburn, Centreville and Chantilly — but plans to expand to a total of 50 in the next three years, according to its site.

(This article was edited at 4:45 p.m. with comment from Wegmans.)

Upscale grocery store Wegmans is looking to expand into Reston, the Washington Business Journal reports.

According to the report, sources tell the WBJ that the Western New York-based chain is looking at a 23-acre property on Association Drive, near the intersection of Sunrise Valley Drive and Soapstone Drive. The several owners who own pieces of the property have banded together to offer the assemblage for sale, the WBJ previously reported.

That location is only about a half-mile west of the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station, in an area that is seeing a huge amount of residential and retail development.

There are more than 90 Wegmans stores in six states, ranging from Massachusetts to Virginia. The nearest current locations are in Sterling (Dulles 28 Center) and Fairfax.

Among factors that may burden any deal for the property is the planned Soapstone Connector, which would cut through the property. The grocery chain is also considering property close to the future Herndon Metro station at Fairfax County Parkway, according to the report.

Wegmans requires a large footprint — approximately 15 acres — for one of its stores.

In response to an inquiry from Reston Now regarding the report, Wegmans media relations coordinator Valerie Fox said the following:

“On our website is a list of sites where we have announced plans to build a store. There are always many rumors about other new sites, but we don’t comment on rumors or speculation. We open just three or four stores each year and our new store growth is concentrated in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.”

The site shows two future locations in Fairfax County:

• A Chantilly location, at Route 28 and Westfields Boulevard, is scheduled for a 2018 opening
• A Tysons location, near I-495 at Route 123, is listed as a “future site”

Muslim friend of mine got harassed at a Trader Joe's in Reston, VA. pic.twitter.com/Ki8gc1RZio

— Jeremy McLellan (@JeremyMcLellan) May 7, 2017

A video purporting to show a woman making anti-Muslim comments while in line at the Reston Trader Joe’s store has received local, national and global attention since it was first posted early Sunday.

Comedian Jeremy McLellan posted the clip on social media after, he says, a friend of his — a Muslim woman who took the video and bore the brunt of the woman’s rant — sent it to him.

“I wish they didn’t let you in the country,” the woman said to the video-taker, who replies that she was born in the U.S.

Here’s how it started, according to McLellan: Read More