What happened to Clarendon?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parking was awful in Clarendon. I lived in the area 12 years ago and trying to park was expensive or challenging. The pizza place was the only good restaurant, the others were either big chain or mediocre.

Big chain restaurants? Which ones? You sound like you have anxiety about parking, perhaps.

Cheesecake factory was the restaurant that was busiest. And you had the Container Store and Pottery Barn and Ethan Allen and the like in the area. Not restaurants but popular places to find people. The smaller restaurants were not all that good and were rarely filled. There was the larger restaurants that seemed to change every other year. The hippest place I could think of was the hookah bar, but I can't remember its name. And walking two miles down Lee Highway was not of interest to me. Rays the Steak was in the area, great steaks but I get the feeling they didn't get enough business because they went out of business.

How did you get the idea that Cheesecake Factory was the busiest?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parking was awful in Clarendon. I lived in the area 12 years ago and trying to park was expensive or challenging. The pizza place was the only good restaurant, the others were either big chain or mediocre.

Big chain restaurants? Which ones? You sound like you have anxiety about parking, perhaps.

Cheesecake factory was the restaurant that was busiest. And you had the Container Store and Pottery Barn and Ethan Allen and the like in the area. Not restaurants but popular places to find people. The smaller restaurants were not all that good and were rarely filled. There was the larger restaurants that seemed to change every other year. The hippest place I could think of was the hookah bar, but I can't remember its name. And walking two miles down Lee Highway was not of interest to me. Rays the Steak was in the area, great steaks but I get the feeling they didn't get enough business because they went out of business.

How did you get the idea that Cheesecake Factory was the busiest?

It made the news https://www.arlnow.com/2018/12/05/developing-large-crowd-reported-at-clarendon-cheesecake-factory-amid-free-cheesecake-promotion/

[Anonymous]

Ballston is wayyyy better now, both for young people and for families. It's far more upscale than Clarendon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parking was awful in Clarendon. I lived in the area 12 years ago and trying to park was expensive or challenging. The pizza place was the only good restaurant, the others were either big chain or mediocre.

Big chain restaurants? Which ones? You sound like you have anxiety about parking, perhaps.

Cheesecake factory was the restaurant that was busiest. And you had the Container Store and Pottery Barn and Ethan Allen and the like in the area. Not restaurants but popular places to find people. The smaller restaurants were not all that good and were rarely filled. There was the larger restaurants that seemed to change every other year. The hippest place I could think of was the hookah bar, but I can't remember its name. And walking two miles down Lee Highway was not of interest to me. Rays the Steak was in the area, great steaks but I get the feeling they didn't get enough business because they went out of business.

How did you get the idea that Cheesecake Factory was the busiest?

It made the news https://www.arlnow.com/2018/12/05/developing-large-crowd-reported-at-clarendon-cheesecake-factory-amid-free-cheesecake-promotion/

That was a one-time promotional event last year.

You’re FOS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ballston is wayyyy better now, both for young people and for families. It's far more upscale than Clarendon.

Yeah, man. Enjoy the food court.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ballston is wayyyy better now, both for young people and for families. It's far more upscale than Clarendon.

Yes, but once the families move in it loses the cool. Because babies and toddlers have that effect on people drinking and flirting.

Family friendly is awesome (and I have young ones) but it ruins that cool factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait Clarendon was cool? I remember it as where the white kids who were scared to go out in the city combined with defense contractor happy hours where married 40 year olds tried to bang ugly GMU & JMU grads. While more was happing it wasn’t cool

+1. Definitely never cool

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ballston is wayyyy better now, both for young people and for families. It's far more upscale than Clarendon.

Yes, but once the families move in it loses the cool. Because babies and toddlers have that effect on people drinking and flirting.

Family friendly is awesome (and I have young ones) but it ruins that cool factor.

Breweries seem to be immune to this.

[Anonymous]

There are still plenty of single people in Clarendon, shopping for their one meal a day at one of the grocery stores or smoking cigarettes near bars. There just something that started to be off about the place. And the area by Courthouse Metro is gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ballston is wayyyy better now, both for young people and for families. It's far more upscale than Clarendon.

Yeah, man. Enjoy the food court.

Its the fancy new object, but yeah at some point people are going to wonder why they're hanging at a food court. Neither Ballston nor Clarendon is cool.

[Anonymous]

Lol at DCUM posters pretending they’re too cool for literally anything. Cottage cheese moms and dads whining how their wives don’t initiate.

Sure. You all party with the band.

Clarendon was good for a while. Still OK. Ballston is better. H street, sure. DC overall is never going to be a cool city in the way you mean. There are really cool people here but they are weirdos and drunks with good stories and they don’t show up in some specific neighborhood.

Just acknowledge you are not and never will be a model and your life will improve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ballston is wayyyy better now, both for young people and for families. It's far more upscale than Clarendon.

Yeah, man. Enjoy the food court.

Its the fancy new object, but yeah at some point people are going to wonder why they're hanging at a food court. Neither Ballston nor Clarendon is cool.

My friends who live nearby have tried to convince me that a food hall is a totally different and distinct thing from a food court. Why? Oh, it has cool independent places instead of chains. OK, but it's still in the basement of a mall.

[Anonymous]

Lots of Arlington haters who didn't buy when the market was low and are now bitter about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ballston is wayyyy better now, both for young people and for families. It's far more upscale than Clarendon.

Yeah, man. Enjoy the food court.

Its the fancy new object, but yeah at some point people are going to wonder why they're hanging at a food court. Neither Ballston nor Clarendon is cool.

My friends who live nearby have tried to convince me that a food hall is a totally different and distinct thing from a food court. Why? Oh, it has cool independent places instead of chains. OK, but it's still in the basement of a mall.

The Palace in NY has been doing the same thing for like 10+ years.

[Anonymous]

As a DC resident, I cannot distinguish between Clarendon and Ballston. They both seem like ugly stretches of heavy traffic with giant ugly buildings. The only thing I noticed when I had to travel to Ballston over the summer several times for business there is how WHITE it is compared to the Orange/Silver line in the other direction that I usually take.