Vacant Motel To Restaurant: Development Team Shares Plans In Falls Church

FALLS CHURCH, VA — The team planning to redevelop a vacant former motel site in downtown Falls Church shared with Patch their vision for a new restaurant concept.

A new plan to revitalize the former Stratford Motor Lodge site was announced to the Falls Church Planning Commission in late September. The Stratford Motor Lodge at 300 W. Broad St. has been closed since 2021 and the site is fenced off to discourage trespassing. La Caraqueña, a popular Venezuelan restaurant in the Stratford Motor Lodge, closed in 2017.

"It's an eyesore, but we're going to take the eyesore and turn it around and make it really nice and really good for the community and keep the charm of this Broad Street and Little Falls [Street]," said Arash Tafakor, part of the team planning to revitalize the old motel site.

The indoor-outdoor restaurant concept will come from the team behind Dominion Wine and Beer in Falls Church, Downtown Crown in Gaithersburg and Georgetown Square Wine and Beer in Bethesda, with plans to introduce an indoor-outdoor restaurant concept. The idea emerged when the business owners met the motel property owner to discuss their vision.

"This property was supposed to be developed a couple of times, and those developments fell through, so they were trying to find a use for it, because they're paying a mortgage on this," said Tafakor. "We came in and we looked at the property, and we're just like, kind of, like, wow, there's so much space here. It's a really good location. We wanted to possibly do some sort of restaurant beer garden type."

According to Tafakor, the smaller motel building facing that hosted La Caraqueña would be kept and repurposed for a kitchen and grab-and-go food. The larger building with the motel rooms would be demolished and replaced with the restaurant space. Additional land would be set aside for outdoor dining space.

"People that live in Falls Church will really like the outdoor area, because it's a great location, beautiful spot, beautiful trees, it's very walkable," said Tafakor.

In the back parking lot of the former motel, more parking spaces will be added. The other parking lot between the two motel buildings will become the restaurant's outdoor space. The design is being done by Francois Frossard Design of Miami, and the architect is Matt Lee of Lee Design Studio.

A chef will be brought on to oversee the restaurant's culinary offerings. While the team is not yet announcing the chef, Tafakor said the chef will offer modern American cuisine with "great quality ingredients."

"We really want to make sure our kitchen is up to task and is providing good food, because the thing about this project is, yes, the location is great," said Tafakor. "Yes, it's going to look good, but we have to make sure the food is really good. And that's one of our main priorities is to make sure that the food is always gonna be good quality, good service."

One other restaurant project that has thrived since opening is Northside Social. Tafakor hopes the motel revitalization project can become as successful as Northside Social, although it will be more of a sit-down restaurant for groups than a casual, cafe-type hangout.

The location near the Saturday Falls Church Farmers Market also offers opportunity for the project.

"If you do come in on this block on any day or any given time like this, this area is usually pretty busy, and I think especially with the farmers market, right down there, we'd love to partner up with some of those vendors for events or whatever it may be or just buy products from them," said Tafakor. "What's good for us will be good for them and what's good for them is going to be good for us."

While plans are not finalized as the proposal goes to the city for site plan review, Tafakor envisions the outdoor space as a gathering spot for families. More ambitious ideas for the outdoor space could be an ice skating rink in the winter and games in the summer.

"The possibilities are really endless, what we can do with the space," said Tafakor. "But at the end of the day, we want this space to be a community space, we want to build it for the community. We want people to gather there. It's going to be some open, green, nice space."

A timeline is not yet available, as it will be dependent on the city site plan review process. Tafakor hopes the city review will happen smoothly, as construction costs are high and would be worsened by a lengthy process.

Site plan review will begin with a Planning Commission hearing to be announced.

"It's a pretty complicated project, it's not something that we could just put a box in and open a restaurant," said Tafakor. "There's a lot of demolition involved, there's a lot of site planning involved. And [city officials] really do care about this location since it's so prominent, so they've been great in assisting us get to this point. But we look forward to keep working with them to get to the finish line."