When one food hall closes, another one opens.
OK, maybe that isn’t quite the saying, but that’s what’s happening in Rosslyn. Upside on Moore, a new food hall by Arlington native and restaurateur Nick Freshman, will soon take over the former Assembly food hall space at Rosslyn City Center.
“There are a lot of reasons why food halls make sense,” says Freshman, whose hospitality consultancy, Mothersauce Partners, also helped develop the concepts for Thompson Italian in Falls Church and a number of other restaurants and bars in the greater DMV. “They’re exceptionally good at placemaking. A food hall is like a smaller version of a stadium or museum in that it can really anchor a neighborhood and allow growth to radiate from it.”
Rosslyn, with its dense concentration of residential high-rises and office buildings, is an ideal spot for a food hall, he says, particularly one that’s adjacent to a metro station. Workers are slowly returning to the office, and the neighborhood is home to major businesses such as Nestle USA, Raytheon, Accenture and Deloitte. Soon it will welcome the global real estate giant CoStar Group.
“We’re just as focused on the residential, on the recreational as we are on the commercial,” Freshman adds. “Twelve thousand people live within a six-minute walk from Rosslyn. That’s extraordinary urban density.… They need something to do, they need somewhere fun to go, they need a cool place to hang out.… I think food halls are uniquely positioned to do that.”
He’s definitely riding a trend. There are about 340 food halls nationwide, up from 220 in 2019, and another 127 are under development, according to a recent report from real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield. Some of the restaurant concepts coming to Upside on Moore already have counters at D.C.’s popular Union Market.
But strategically, Upside on Moore will take a different tack from its predecessor. In addition to housing local chef-driven concepts like POTUS-approved Ghostburger, Upside will include some temporary food stalls—what Freshman calls “residencies”—with an ever-changing mix of international food vendors that rotate out every six months.
“Washington is a really global city, and we want to lean on that in our own small way,” he says. “We’ll be able to provide our customers with some variety. As much as people love food halls, they don’t want to see the same thing over and over again.” The first residencies will likely be filled this fall.
In the near term, Upside is aiming to open later this month with six homegrown anchor eateries, a bar and a coffee shop. A new outpost of D.C.-based Ghostburger will be slinging handhelds like the Barbie Girl, a burger topped with provolone cheese, pickled jalapeño, red onion, cabbage, chipotle mayo and arugula.
Also in the mix: a second Arlington location of Stellina Pizzeria, co-owned by pizzaiolos Antonio Matarazzo (an Arlington resident) and Matteo Venini, whose “neo-Neapolitan” pies include options such as the Piccante with house-made spicy sausage, and Cacio & Pepe with three cheeses and toasted black pepper.
Award-winning chef Tim Ma brings two concepts: A spin-off of Union Market’s Laoban Dumplings and a second Arlington location of Lucky Danger, the Chinese-American takeout he owns with fellow chef Andrew Chiou, serving fan favorites like duck fried rice and lo mein.
Rounding out the opening set are La Michoacana, a taqueria, and Kam and 46, a food truck-turned-stall-operator dishing out Hawaiian and Filipino fare.
For a caffeine fix, make a pitstop at Lightning Coffee, named after the Lightning Motor Oil Co. that used to sit in Rosslyn and fueled the neighborhood. Created by Mothersauce, the concept will serve brews from Central American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
The Bar at Upside on Moore will offer wine, beer and specialty cocktails curated and created by Elli Benchimol, owner of Apéro, a French restaurant in Georgetown.
“This collection of vendors are people I am close to professionally and personally, which [gives me] confidence that they’re going to be successful operators,” Freshman says. “I think we landed on a mix that offers really compelling variety—really craveable cuisine and craveable brands.”
He believes the combination of small, local concepts and rotating international brands will be the “secret sauce” that makes Upside a winner.
“In building a food hall, you want to find vendors that play well with others,” Freshman says. “We’re sharing our space where we’re sort of competing but not competing. We have to work together.”
The décor of the revamped dining destination also reflects the local community. Mothersauce commissioned DMV artists Marc Pekala and Cory Bernat to design two large-scale murals depicting uniquely Arlington scenes. Fantastical Landscape of Rosslyn and D.C., a sweeping and stylized depiction of the landscape outside the food hall’s doors, is being painted by Andrea Limauro, whose work has appeared in D.C.’s Art Museum of the Americas and the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Vienna, Austria.
Artist Ashley Jaye Williams, who has created art for Google and the Willard InterContinental Hotel, is painting Three Sisters of the Potomac, a depiction of Three Sisters Islands—rocky land masses in the Potomac just west of the Key Bridge.
Each piece will have an accompanying QR code that brings you to a website where you can learn more about the art and artists.
The food hall space will seat about 300 diners indoors, plus another 200 outdoors. Event space on other floors of the 22-story building will allow for catering opportunities for up to 500 people.
Assembly closed its doors March 1, giving Mothersauce Partners just a few weeks to revamp the 30,000-square-foot interior and get an all-new lineup of food stalls up and running.
“Our first plan is limited sleep, extraordinary amounts of caffeine and hope that it all works out,” jokes Freshman. It will be a quick flip, “but the run-up has been months. We’ve actually been in here operating since November.”
Upside on Moore is located at 1700 N. Moore St., Arlington. Food vendors will be open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. The website (www.upsideonmoore.com) and Instagram (@upsideonmoore) will launch soon.