A dry cleaner on the edge of Groveton is no more, leaving an empty shell for Kung Fu Tea to take over.

The bubble tea and drinks store plans to open soon at 6328 Richmond Highway, according to signage posted at the front of the door. It replaces Clean Smart, a dry cleaner.

The company did not return multiple requests for comment from FFXnow about an opening date over the last few weeks. The website simply states that it’s coming soon.

It will be located next to Wingstop, a chicken wings restaurant. 

Kung Fu Tea has more than 350 locations throughout the country, including several in Northern Virginia.  The company started in New York in 2010.

Tysons has a new hangout option for those looking to spend a summer day chatting over a cup of coffee.

Last week, East West Restaurant opened its second cafe at 1992 Chain Bridge Road, the former home of the Italian Da Domenico, which closed in November 2020 after 39 years of business.

Despite its easily missed location on a service road next to the westbound Route 123 ramp onto Route 7, the Turkish cafe had a good first week in Tysons, manager Osman Agba told FFXnow. Many patrons were Muslims celebrating Eid al-Adha, the annual festival that fell between July 9 and 13 this year.

“This weekend is very busy,” Agba said on Saturday (July 15). “It’s the first time coming for some, and it’s very busy now. I like it.”

Agba is working on East West with his brother, owner Mehmet Coskun, who opened the other existing location in Clarendon in December 2019. The business originally launched as Central Coffee Bar in Rosslyn in 2017, though that location has closed.

Plans for a Tysons venue have been in the works since 2019, but no specific location had been identified at that time.

Agba says East West was drawn to Tysons for the area’s sizable Arabic community.

In addition to serving coffee and tea, the cafe specializes in Turkish breakfast, including an omelette with soujuk — a type of spicy, fermented sausage — and kavurmali yumurta, a dish of braised beef and eggs. It also offers sandwiches and burgers, wraps, pastries, salads, and dinner entrees like lamb chops and köfte, or Turkish meatballs.

On top of that, East West will venture into new territory this fall with the addition of a hookah bar in the building’s basement. That is expected to open in September or October, Agba says.

The business hopes to expand to more sites in the future, but the search for new locations won’t start immediately.

“Maybe next year, we’re going to look somewhere, Alexandria, Georgetown,” Agba said. “We will see.”

Tysons’ newest eatery won’t be found in the usual malls and mixed-use developments. Instead, it has set up base in a cluster of corporate office buildings where Jones Branch Drive curves parallel to the Dulles Toll Road.

Welcomed with a ribbon cutting and prayer, the latter courtesy of Fort Foote Baptist Church Pastor Rev. Joseph Lyles, Mrs. Jo’s Petite Eats celebrated its grand opening Tuesday (June 7) on the ground floor of PenFed Credit Union’s headquarters at 7940 Jones Branch Drive.

Owned and run by U.S. Army veteran Erinn Roth, the roughly 2,800-square-foot cafe will serve as a cafeteria for the building, which also houses the consulting firm LMI, but it’s open to the general public, including other workers and residents in Tysons.

While the cafe is tucked away, integrating retail, restaurants, and other amenities with offices will help turn Tysons into a place where people can “live, work, play, and now, eat,” says David Kelley, director of national business investment for the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.

“Tysons is becoming a place where people are actually living,” Kelley said. “So, if they can go some place and get something really good that’s walkable or close by, that helps the county out. That helps with the infrastructure of the county and for people wanting to be here.”

A native of Enterprise, Mississippi, Roth served in the Army for 24 years, including stints in Korea, Germany, and Afghanistan. She has been an avid baker for much of her life, but it wasn’t until after her mother died in 2015 that she committed to baking professionally.

Roth says she had been contemplating retiring from the military — which she eventually did in 2017 — and floated the idea of baking desserts as a way to stay busy.

“My mother was like, ‘Well, sweetie, whatever you decide to do, you’d be successful,’ and then, she passed, and…it just turned my world,” Roth told FFXnow.

Naming the business after her mother, Jo Bradford Hardaway, Roth launched Ms. Jo’s Petite Sweets out of Lorton’s Frontier Kitchen in 2016, offering cakes, cookies, and other desserts with Southern and French influences. Read More

A new smoothie shop is slated to arrive at Herndon’s Franklin Farm Village Center.

According to storefront signage, the national chain Tropical Smoothie Cafe will take up space at 13344 Franklin Farm Road in Herndon.

The location will be right next to Baskin Robbins in a plaza that is anchored by Giant.

In addition to smoothies, the cafe sells sandwiches, wraps, bowls and salads.

The company did not return FFXnow’s requests for comment, including on a possible opening date, but storage signage says a location is coming soon.

Tropical Smoothie has several local locations, including a cafe in Sterling and Plaza America in Reston.

A fruit tea spot named after a family matriarch is coming this month to Fairfax.

Yifang Fruit Tea, a family-owned business, plans to open a nearly 2,000-square-foot location at Fairfax Court (11282 James Swart Circle) within the next two weeks, business representative Dave Chen tells FFXnow.

The business prides itself on serving teas made from natural ingredients and inspired by three generations of “family farming,” lead to a unique understanding of how to “get the best floors out of the fruit they harvest,” according to the shop’s website.

Its recipes were crafted by the owner’s grandmother, Yi Fang, who married a young farmer and relied on planting pineapples for a living.

Fang happened to braise golden pineapples into a homemade jam, resulting in what soon become popular drink: Yi Fang fruit tea.

The current owners have put the “early-Taiwan epitome, historic memories and warm hospitality” into its drinks, according to a company statement.

“We are not your typical bubble tea shop,” the owners write.

Options on the menu include a brown sugar pearl black tea latte, grass jelly tea, roselle lemonade, and jelly lemon green tea. The company has one other location in Georgia.

“We picked this location because of the sound demographics and the George Mason University,” Chen said.

The location will also have a Kenta Ramen machine, which automatically cooks ramen.

Photo via Yi Fang Fruit Tea/Facebook