Updates
Crystal City Restaurant Owners Still Waiting for — and Excited About — HQ2 Bump
Owners of restaurants on Crystal City’s restaurant row were over the moon about the Amazon.com Inc.’s HQ2 announcement when it came down, saying they hoped it would help fill gaps in their business that festered for years since the Department of Defense’s base realignment and closure process emptied out several offices in the neighborhood.
A year later, some of them are seeing reasons to keep hoping, but not necessarily huge impacts yet. We checked in with three restaurants on 23rd Street South, which is home to a handful of independently owned restaurants, to see how Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has affected their businesses.
When Art Dougherty, owner of Crystal City Sports Pub, heard the news Amazon would be moving into the neighborhood, he couldn’t have been more excited. A year later, he’s still just as gung-ho. Though his business hasn’t seen a huge uptick in sales, he says he has reason to be optimistic.
The longtime Arlington sports bar — which has been deemed one of the best in the country by Sports Illustrated and other outlets — teamed up with Amazon when it wanted to host a meet-and-greet with its new neighbors in October.