Posts Tagged ‘Wegman’s’
Posted by Lynn Norusis / Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Culpeper deputies fired for slapping restrained inmate
Wegmans can move forward on Alexandria site
Sterling solider dies in Afghanistan
Rabies cases are up in Fairfax County
Living Large in LoCo: The New Cobb Cinemas Offers a Full Menu
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, July 26th, 2011
With the opening of Leesburg’s Cobb Village 12 Cinemas last Friday, Loudoun now has a movie theater worthy of its status as the nation’s richest county.
As the Post reports, Loudoun County was previously “underserved” when it came to movie theaters, possessing only the Tally-Ho, an 81-year-old two-screen theater whose fate is uncertain (it has been up for sale for a year), and one multiplex each in Ashburn and Sterling.
You hear that? It is the world’s smallest violin playing for the LC. Or is it LoCo?
Well, that has changed. Cobb is located off of Route 7 just behind Wegmans. So now you can check out a flick AND shop at the world’s best grocery store.
And as if Wegies wasn’t enough of a food option, Cobb Cinemas is pulling out all the stops. The 68,000-square-foot, 12-screen theater boasts:
-a bar that you can sit around if you don’t want to take your drink back to your seat. Order wine, beer (e.g., Stella Artois, Blue Moon) and liquor.
-a “chef-inspired” (when have you ever heard those words at a movie theater?) menu, with a full seating area to the side of said bar. Some of the options? Italian sausage ravioli, handmade pizza, and coconut shrimp.
-a cafeteria-style or pass-through snack bar. Instead of waiting in line for your Junior Mints and popcorn, you can just skip ahead to what you want, pay, and be about your business.
-a cafe with self-serve fro yo, pita, salad, croissants, and Pellegrino for healthier options.
In addition to all these selling points, did I mention this theater is the first in the area to have D-Box technology? For those of you who don’t know (and I admit, I didn’t seeing as I live in the dark ages of the Fairfax Cinema Arts Theatre and AMC Courthouse), D-Box technology produces movement concurrent with the action you see on the screen.
Cobb Cinemas currently has 36 seats available with this technology for Harry Potter fans, but you have to pay to play. For an adult, a D-Box ticket for an evening show is $18.50; for a child it costs $15.50. 3-D is an additional $3.50. So much for a movie being a cheap date!
To get a look inside the theater, and for more on D-Box, check out this Loudoun Times video:
Cobb Village 12 Cinemas
1600 Village Market Boulevard
Leesburg, VA 20176
(571) 291-9462
-Johnisha M. Levi
Posted by Lynn Norusis / Friday, February 25th, 2011
Shanahan delves into McNabb’s future with the ‘Skins
Oakton HS grad sentenced to 25 years for terrorist involvement
Metro plays around with issuing ID cards for students
Wegmans holds prices on many products
Arlingtonians rank high for being healthy
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, February 9th, 2011
Every region of the country seems to have its own grocery stores that dominate the food-related market. While some have expanded from sea to shining sea, there are some you just don’t see when you’re out of town. It’s hard to tell the difference between most of them, but some people have sworn loyalty to one specific store for no particular reason. Could it be close proximity, good deals, or friendly service? What, if anything separates them from one another?
1. Giant has always been the one I frequent the most, but I have tried to mix it up recently. All 202 locations are centered around three states, four if you count the District of Columbia. Delaware is home to at least six, but the bulk of them are in Maryland and Northern Virginia. Impressive renovation efforts are an ongoing process in order to keep up with the competition. I’ve never been to one that disappointed me, but prices may vary. The Giant Rewards card has become more of a valuable commodity since they teamed up with Shell gas stations. The more food you buy, the more you can save on gas. I’ve saved up to $1 per gallon, but points don’t carry over from month to month.
2. Harris Teeter is a relative newcomer around these parts, but they certainly have made a name for themselves. The official grocery store of the Washington Redskins serves nine states, including the District. The majority of the 201 locations are in the Southeast, but they stretch as far north as Delaware. The quality of their food and service has forced other chains to improve upon their own. I get the feeling that they genuinely aim to please, which is refreshing to see at a super market. The weekly specials and sheer variety of beer and wine keeps me coming back for more. The VIC card also offers special savings for loyal customers.
3. Safeway and Shoppers have kind of struggled to stay comparatively relevant as of late, but they boast over one hundred locations combined in and around the region. It wasn’t that long ago that they were competing with the best of them, but they both continue to do relatively good business. Customers are sure to find surprising deals and quality products, but the decor and design seem to be lacking a bit. That takes nothing away from what they have to offer though. Reward programs and community outreach have prolonged their life expectancy. They will not meet the same fate of Food Lion, who has been relegated to only a few locations in southern Virginia.
4. Wegmans has built somewhat of a cult following since it first expanded to NoVA in 2004. Now there are six locations, and over 75 along the mid-Atlantic seaboard. They pride themselves on the gourmet food they sell for a reasonable price. You will find plenty of deals and specials. It doubles as a great cafe for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I even saw a wedding rehearsal lunch take place at the one in Sterling. The meticulous design of the store itself is worth the trip. There’s something special about it, but it’s hard to put your finger on what exactly makes it so. Visit one for yourself when you get a chance.
While there may be several national chains to choose from, only a few are deserving of mention.
Costco is a members-only club that sells everything in bulk. There are over 560 locations around the world, and four in this area alone. It has a little bit of everything inside one gigantic construct. Just $50 a year gains you entry to one of the best and biggest stores known to man. I may just be saying that because I thoroughly enjoy the samples, but it’s definitely something to behold. Costco can be a little intimidating at first, but that feeling subsides as soon as you find one of their many great deals. Be sure to try their food up front, the pizza is delicious!
Whole Foods and Trader Joes shouldn’t be overlooked either. They may cater to more of a niche market of individuals, but there’s actually something for everyone. Both specialize in organic food that is not only beneficial to your health, but also quite tasty. Samples are not uncommon at the locations I’ve visited. These include, but are not limited to hot food and wine tastings on certain days. Other stores can offer you more specials, but the gourmet factor can be a powerful draw for some people. With multiple locations around the region, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to visit one or the other if you happen to come across it.
Suffice it to say, there really isn’t a grocery store that is better than the rest. While it may waste gas, visiting several different stores is actually the best way to save money on food. Even the gourmet stores are prone to having great deals from time to time. Don’t forget about your local farmer’s markets for the freshest produce, but these have a tendency to be seasonal.
I’ll leave you with one important rule of thumb. Try not to grocery shop when you’re hungry. I’ve learned that the hard way.
-Ryan Robertson
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, January 6th, 2011
There must be a reason why January is National Soup Month- because it is so cold (although there have been days in NoVA where it has been unusually warm for winter)! Celebrate National Soup Month and warm up by trying different variations of soup from all over Northern Virginia.
Try Ozzie’s fire roasted tomato and basil zuppa , rustic cream of mushroom zuppa or their rich lobster bisque. Potbellys’ soups (creamy tomato soup is my personal favorite) and their chili are always good and homey. Get Soup-to-Go at Wegmans as they have a wide selection- I love New England clam chowder along with their fresh store-baked bread. Venture out to Yechon (even in the wee hours of the morning as they are open 24 hours) and order spicy seafood soups from their eclectic assortment of authentic Korean soups and stews.
Get into the spirit of National Soup Month by making your own soup- click to see the recipe for Maryland She-Crab Soup. Visit farmer’s markets for fresh vegetables for a nutritious, healthy soup or get distracted and buy a cup of local soup as many vendors will sell their own homemade soup and goodies like Smith Meadow’s Grille.
Slurp Away!
(image: CookingLight)
-Rebecca Kim
Earth Day Edibles and Reusables
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Image: Treehugger
A few weeks ago I wrote about restaurants holding Earth Day events around Northern Virginia. For some Earth Day is a marketing tool, for others it’s a good way to spark conversation and encourage involvement. Well, there are a few more events worth checking out to spark that conversation.
The Butcher’s Block in Alexandria will host a complimentary wine tasting from a certified biodynamic and organic winery, Quivira Vineyards and Winery. Jenalyn Johnson of The Country Vintner will lead the tasting of four Quivira wines. In addition, Anne Amie Winery wines, a certified LIVE winery, will be available. The tasting will occur between 6-8pm.
The Grille at Morrison House will offer a four course, 100-mile candlelight dinner with the majority of the ingredients being sourced from local farms within a 100 mile radius. The dinner is $55 per person. Call 703-838-8000 or visit the website to make a reservation.
Jackson 20 will unveil its “J20 Eco Hour” where a large selection of canned beers and boxed wines will be available. Cans are easier to recycle as it is more readily available than glass recycling. The new program will feature $2 “working man’s canned beer” and $5 “craft canned beer.” Eco Hour will start April 22nd and occur daily from 3-7p.m.
Jackson 20 will also unveil its new “late night blackout happy hour” on Earth Day. Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 11pm to close the restaurant will turn off the lights and instead use candlelight, turn up the music, and serve their Eco Hour beer and wine specials. Expect the event to last during the spring and summer.
Firefly will recycle wine corks from the 22nd until the end of April. For every cork you bring in, $1 will be taken off your bill (up to $22) in honor of the day Earth Day is celebrated. You could also use corks to make wreaths, bulletin boards, and business card holders.
Several companies will offer Earth Day freebies; however it seems you have to print off a coupon for some places, which seems to defeat the purpose of Earth Day. Hopefully these places are recycling the paper used for coupons.
On Saturday, April 24 from 11am-3pm all Wegmans stores will trade you a reusable bag for a bag of tightly packed Wegmans plastic bags, which they will then recycle.
DC also has a plethora of Earth Day activities this weekend.
Lastly, if you missed some films during the Environmental Film Festival, here is your chance to catch some free films on Sunday, April 25th at the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Other Earth Day notables:
SunChips will donate $1 for every Facebook fan it receives today (up to $100,000) to environmental education programs. SunChips is also debuting its new 100% compostable bag today. Visit the Biodegradable Products Institute to get your own compostable trash bags, food service items, and packaging materials.
Video: SunChips
- Chef Jaime Oliver and Edible Communities publishers and editors, Brian Halweil and Stephen Munshin, are two of The Daily Green’s 2010 Heart of Green Award recipients.
- Treehugger has a list of funny SomeeCard’s to send to your friends.
- Bon Appetit Magazine has lots of information about how to celebrate Earth Day. Anything from turning old t-shirts into grocery bags to eco-friendly gadgets and how to throw Earth-Friendly dinner parties.
The Daily Green also has some handy tips on how to reuse products you’re considering throwing away or don’t know what to do with. Highlights include egg shells, plastic bottles, and mason jars. You could even build your own house out of plastic bottles. The world’s first plastic bottle building was unveiled in Taiwan recently.
Happy Earth Day!
–Aisha Salazar
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, March 1st, 2010
Monday, March 1st, 2010
During my dating spree of 2008, I dated what you would call a big liar. The Liar was extremely friendly, communicative and easy to get along with. He was someone I liked hanging out with because he was a “do-er.” We went to the Shamrock Fest together in D.C., rocked out to a Dave Matthews Cover Band at Whitlow’s on Wilson, and even spent an afternoon hanging out at Wegman’s in Northern Virginia (I love to grocery shop). He was fun and quickly grew on me.
We hung out on his birthday, Valentine’s Day, and usually every weekend for a solid month. Early on, we established the fact that neither one of us was in a relationship. However, there was something sneaky about him, something that didn’t add up. I asked him repeatedly if he did indeed have a girlfriend; I gave him every opportunity to come clean. “No, no, no,” was always his answer. But there was the time he said he was sick and couldn’t hang out on a Saturday night. I drove by to drop off medicine, and his car was not in the parking lot, nor he answer the door. Liar!
I finally learned the truth at work in the middle of a deadline. I received a long email from his girlfriend. Earlier in the week, she had gone through her boyfriend’s phone and noticed my number as well as text messages between us. She also mentioned that she caught him in a lie the previous weekend when he was hanging out with me; he told her he was in Georgia visiting his parents.
His girlfriend and I didn’t know each other, but we both knew to get as far away from this guy as we could. In the end, he lost both of us. Oftentimes in a situation like this, the girls (or guys) involved become bitter toward each instead of the person who’s lying.
–Katie
Have you ever dated a liar? If so, what kind of lie did you catch the person in? And did you have a chance to communicate with the significant other or “other woman”? Post a comment below, or email your questions and stories to littleredbook@northernvirginiamag.com.
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, December 28th, 2009
(Does GPS work indoors?)
Lord knows the Wegmans folks have done their part to foster a fiercely loyal constituency here in the Commonwealth, launching six titanic stores in almost as many years–with another monolithic shopping depot planned for Fort Belvoir.
But when I saw Chowhounder Joe Heflin’s rant about Leesburg’s dizzying new addition, I decided to do some digging.
Sorry, Joe, but Leesburg ain’t the biggest lot in Wegmans’ 75-store (and counting) empire.
Fairfax continues to wear that crown.
A Wegmans spokesperson confirmed that the Fairfax location currently boasts the most square footage (143, 957) in the grocery chain, with Fredericksburg (139, 398) and Leesburg (138, 655) rounding out the top five biggest stores.
The Wegmans aide declined to provide any sales figures for our local stores (against company policy), noting only that “our stores in Northern Virginia are among our busiest.”
–Warren
Lucinda Scala Quinn: Taming Appetites, Feeding the Soul
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Image: Indiebound.com
After seeing Lucinda Scala Quinn on the Today show I have the impression that she gets some anti-feminist flack for the title of her new book Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys. Mostly because Ann Curry feels the need to chime in something about “feeding the gals too” at the point of the segment when the rest of the crew joins in to nosh on vittles from the day’s celebrity chef demo.
Gender stereotypes aside, Mad Hungry is loaded with recipes for any size appetite, and you don’t have to have males in the family to make good use of this cooking tome.
“This book is for anybody who wants to eat well,” says Scala Quinn.
And if you happen to have a gaggle of men and boys to feed, so much the better.
Scala Quinn is herself well versed in taming voracious, man-beast appetites. Growing up with brothers, and feeding a perpetually hungry husband and three sons, she has had her share of experiences feeding males of all ages. So when she says things like, “Guys are not pretense. What they need is what they ask for,” she is speaking less through a pop culture filter of gender stereotypes, and more from her own objective experiences raising a family.
From where she sits, the title Mad Hungry is an apt description of the male quest to satiate hunger pangs . “It’s almost like when you have more than one male whose hungry, it becomes an urgent situation,” she explains. And this is the perspective from which she wrote Mad Hungry.
The book itself goes far beyond mere recipe recitation (although if you’re a recipe hound no doubt you’ll find some instant classics here) and lays out some very basic menu planning methodology for readers before they even attempt to turn on the gas stove. For example, feeding a ravenous family requires shopping ahead, and in some cases prepping ahead, she cautions. If you put off thinking about the dinner hour until the 5:30 p.m. meltdown, you’re already behind the eight ball. For some that may be elementary and obvious, but for those who find the dinner hour daunting, this is an example of how her book delivers the handholding when necessary.
Though chefs of all skill levels will find something to pique their interest, the recipes in Mad Hungry lead even the most novice of cooks by the hand at times. The simplest thing like frying an egg properly is not above description. “I decided it was better not to alienate anyone for lack of knowledge,” she says. Case in point: Scala Quinn remembers once after an art director watched her filet a snapper in a studio kitchen, she incredulously commented, “Oh, that’s where those come from,” in refrence to the bodiless filets.
You may also find Mad Hungry helpful in conquering age old culinary battles such as the Kids vs. Vegetables. Scala Quinn decries the impossibility of getting a kid to eat vegetables. Around her own family table she always included veggies in some form by throwing them down without a fuss next to all of the other meat and starch dishes. For Scala Quinn the proof is in the proverbial pudding : ”Now I have vegetable eaters who ask for vegetables when they come home,” she says of her older sons who are away at college or busy with high school.
Lastly this culinary tome is really a celebration of creating a space where families are nourished body and soul. Says Scala Quinn,”The riches from eating well extend beyond the physical, they are spiritual and emotional as well.”
–Amy Loeffler
