Restaurants Proving Part of Waterfront 'Revolution'

When Alexandria City Council approved plans to transform the Torpedo Factory Food Pavilion into the 450-seat Blackwall Hitch restaurant last week, Mayor Bill Euille suggested it was part of an ongoing “revolution” near the riverside as the city starts to realize parts of its waterfront plan.

Availing citizens to more waterfront dining has always been an objective of the plan, and new ventures have the number of seats overlooking the water on the rise.

“With Jody Manor recently opening up his new business, the Waterfront Market and Café, which will be successful, certainly it is a catalyst for starting everything,” Euille said. “Now we have the Blackwall Hitch restaurant going in.”

Manor’s Waterfront Café will have 74 outdoor seats along the City Marina and King Street when the weather allows.

“The Hitch,” as land-use attorney Duncan Blair has dubbed it, could have as many as 195 outdoor seats depending on what ownership decides to do with the pavilion’s solarium during a multimillion dollar overhaul.

Lead partner Larry Ray, a veteran of restaurant and health club ventures in Annapolis, Md., plans to open the first Blackwall Hitch restaurant in Maryland’s capital city in January.

Ray has suggested the Alexandria restaurant could open in the summer or fall of 2014.

The Hitch will offer a variation of New American Cuisine with locally sourced ingredients. A wide selection of craft beers, international wines and specialty cocktails will also be offered.

And if waterfront dining isn’t enough, Euille said there’s at least one more new eatery on its way to the bottom of King Street.

“I cannot disclose the name, but finally there will be a restaurant moving into 100 King St. relatively soon,” Euille said. “It will be a very upscale restaurant. Those folks are coming over from the UK and they’re very excited about coming to Alexandria. This will be their first establishment anywhere in United States of America.”

Red Curry was the last restaurant to occupy 100 King St.