Casual chains make camp in DC suburb

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 16, 1996 by Suzanne Kapner

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va.-- With demographics like a Volvo affluent yet stable -- combined with pockets of retail, residential and office space, this Washington suburb is flashing its headlights at casual dining chains, which are pulling off the beltway and parking in Reston and Tysons Corner

Joining Clyde's, Morton's of Chicago, the Silver Diner and Ruby Tuesday in Tysons are Maggiano's Little Italy, which opened in August, and Legal Sea Foods, which debuted in December. The Rainforest Cafe will open this month in Tysons Corner Center. one of the more profitable shopping malls in the country. In addition, an 85,000-squarefoot retail-and-restaurant complex is scheduled for a late 1997 appearance.

Not to be outdone, Reston has attracted Champps Americana and Romano's Macaroni Grill, both of which opened this summer, to its restaurant roster, which includes Starbucks, Einstein Bagels, Clyde's, Rio Grand and Pizzeria Uno.

Despite that roundup operators and real-estate experts said the area is far from saturated.

"Tysons Corner has been underrestauranted for a while," said Ken Blue, general manager of Tysons Corner Center, which houses a mix of tenants from Nordstrom to FW Woolworth and services 16 million people a year. Blue also is developing the retail-andrestaurant park, which probably will have one restaurant as an anchor and five retailers.

"There's still plenty of room," said Christopher Gainey, general manger of 300seat Romano's Macaroni Grill, which has been serving a minimum of 1,100 people a day since it opened in June. "For a long time there wasn't much [in Reston]." The demand shows in the unit's sales figures, which place the new restaurant fifth in the chain, he added.

Reston is a 25-year-old planned community encompassing 7,400 acres with a population of 54,000, according to the 1991 census, the last year for which figures are available. "The residences boomed, but the office space lagged," explained William Lecos, executive director of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.

Tysons Corner, on the other hand, became the downtown of Fairfax, with more than 20.4 million square feet of office space as of 1995-almost double that of Reston. A quick 15-minute trip from the Pentagon and downtown D.C., Tysons was the natural home of defense contractors. In fact, more than 650 defense firms in Fairfax County received almost $3.5 billion in contracts during 1994, according to the Economic Development Authority.

Business development in the area slowed during the early 1990s, when retail space that was leasing for $25 to $30 a square foot fell nearly 25 percent, said Steven Graul, a real-estate expert with the firm Carey Winston/Barrueta. Today he said, rents are inching their way back to the 1980s high, and vacancy is dropping.

There is a growing synergy between Reston and Tysons, with many people living in the former and working in the latter, explained Robert Lakeman, director of marketing and business development for Lord & Waters a construction firm that built Champps and Macaroni Grill. Restaurant operators are drawn to the combination of daytime office traffic coupled with evening-and-weekend residential and retail business. They also are drawn to the demographics, which are some of the more attractive in the country.

Per-capita income for Fairfax is $32,422, more than $10,000 higher than that for the state of Virginia, according to 1993 figures from the U.S. Commerce Department. Fairfax's median household income is $68,000. There are on average four people to a household, and the median age is 33 according to the county s Chamber of Commerce.

That makes for young families with money to spend. And they are increasingly spending it in the suburbs rather than in downtown D.C., Graul said.

"When people were in their 20s, they'd go out downtown. Now that they're in their 30s and raising families in the suburbs, they are staying in the suburbs during the evening," he continued, adding that this migration is true of many cities.

He said pockets of fringe cities surrounding D.C., like Reston and Tysons, have matured enough in the past 10 years to keep people from making the trek downtown. Furthermore, he said, responsible alcohol consumption is preventing people from drinking in the city all evening and then driving 30 miles home.

The proclivity for staying close to home is evident at any Friday happy hour, where there is standing room only at Champps, reported general manager Dan Fields. He said the restaurant sells 220 cigars and up to 100 martinis during a typical happy hour, where you literally can't see the tiles on the floor."

In keeping with Reston's heavy residential makeup, dinner is the busiest daypart added Champps restaurant manager Richard Prisco. While he admitted lunch was lagging, he said the restaurant, which cost $2.7 million to build, is doing $110,000 in weekly sales, which he characterized as above track.

Another factor is pulling restaurants into the area and the lure is as powerful as a half-off sale at Nordstrom. Increasingly, mall developers are courting high-profile chain restaurants to replace more typical department store or grocery anchors.