New Falls Church Restaurant Offers American Cuisine, Extensive Wine List

FALLS CHURCH, VA — Harvey’s, a new restaurant in Falls Church serving American cuisine using locally sourced ingredients, opened for business on Monday, giving area residents a new option for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The restaurant comes with 48 seats in the main dining room and a 12-seat beer and wine bar. Harvey's also features a patio that can seat 60 people in all seasons, and lots of free parking behind the restaurant at 513 W. Broad Street.

The counter-service restaurant offers a wide selection of dishes, from sandwiches to house-made pasta dishes and roasted chicken in the fire oven, to various types of Harvey's burgers. Pricing for breakfast ranges from $7 to $12, sandwiches from $8 to $15, entrées from $14 to $28 and desserts from $4 to $12.

"We're putting our own little twist on things. Everybody's got cheesesteaks. We're just making ours a beer cheesesteak," Harvey's chef and owner Thomas Harvey told Patch.

Harvey, who most recently served as the executive chef of Tuskie’s Restaurant Group before opening Harvey's, also pointed to some fun family recipes on the menu like Toad In the Hole ... On a Stick, a bratwurst fried in Yorkshire pudding.

"We're not reinventing the wheel," Harvey said. "We're just doing fun foods that I've grown up with."

One of the desserts on the menu is a Honey Cake, a recipe from his wife that was passed down from her mother. It's about 10 layers, with graham crackers and butter cream that soaks in.

Local artists created murals and chalkboard art that, combined with the furniture and decor, make it a comfortable place to enjoy a meal at a table or the bar.

Harvey's also features a retail market area where customers can grab prepared foods and a beverage and take them back to the office or home. The market also has specialty meats from regional farmers, including Seven Hills Foods in Lynchburg, Epic Curing in D.C and Sylvanaqua Farms in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

Harvey’s has an extensive wine list, along with beer for in-house consumption and for take-away purchase. The restaurant eventually will have a monthly wine club with subscriptions featuring special in-house discounts. Wines from both old and new world vintners will be featured, as well as local offerings.

The beer menu will be predominately from local breweries, with a few select craft breweries highlighted from other regions.

Harvey graduated from L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Maryland in 2012 and went to work for James Beard award-winning chef and owner Frank Ruta at his restaurant, Palena. He served as Ruta’s butcher and sous chef.

A year later, Harvey joined the opening team at Casa Luca Restaurant, as a chef de cuisine, where he learned cooking and management skills under Italian chef and owner Fabio Trabbochi.

From there, he joined Tuskie’s Restaurant Group as executive chef, where he oversaw the operations of Tuscarora Mill, South Street Under Deli-Bakery and Fire Works Pizza in Leesburg, Fire Works in Sterling, Magnolias at the Mill in Purcellville, and Fireworks American Pizzeria and Bar in Arlington.

Opening a new restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic was not easy, Harvey said. After leasing the location on W. Broad Street, the pandemic caused delays in construction and equipment orders.

"We struggled through the build-out. We were hoping it would be done faster," Harvey said. "But when we stand in here and see what it is, it's been worth the wait."

Harvey's is located at 513 W. Broad St., Falls Church. Parking is available behind the restaurant in both a parking lot and garage.