LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
FAVORITES
ve voted udoun Now ha Readers of Lo results are in ... and the
m loudounnow.co
A special supple
ment to...
LoudounNow
We've got you
. Online always the mail weekly covered. In
Loudoun’s Favorites inside
TES
[ July 27– Aug. 2, 2017 ]
2 0 1 7
LO UD OU N’S
VORI 017 FA UN’S 2
[ loudounnow.com ]
Our readers have voted!
LoudounNow LOUDO
[ Vol. 2, No. 37 ]
2016 July 14 – 20, July 27, 2017
LoudounNow
1
om at loudounnow.c
Short-Staffed Douglas Graham/Loudoun Now
Ford’s Fish Shack chef and owner Tony Stafford recently opened a restaurant in Lansdowne, his third. He can’t hire enough staff, costing him $3,000 to $5,000 a week in sales.
Growing Pains for Loudoun’s Restaurants
M
BY KARA C. RODRIGUEZ elia Wilder begins her drive from her Fairfax County home to her restaurant at the Village at Leesburg every day wondering if the locks will be changed when she gets there. She slips the key into the door. Click. The Ten Spot Kitchen & Tap lives to see another day. The Ten Spot quietly opened at the end of May 2016. It was a quieter opening than Wilder may have wanted because she had only three kitchen employees. “We literally couldn’t open to the full operating hours we had negotiated in the lease until July 11 [2016] because I had to be able to give the three employees days
off,” she said. A year later, the staffing situation has not changed much for the better. She has to pay her kitchen employees more than the average hourly wage to keep them from leaving for a higher paying job. Her restaurant’s reviews are very good, yet weekdays are slow and the busy weekend nights may not be enough to sustain the restaurant much longer. Wilder has been paying all her bills, including the payroll, but is not able to afford a portion of the Ten Spot’s rent. She fears any day that she may be asked to leave. Wilder is not one to shy away from competition from other restaurants, but said she believes the reason for her and others’ struggles in the restaurant industry is a case of too much too soon. “We’ve got a real epidemic occurring
! LE W A O S N N O
here. We’ve crossed the line of competition into market saturation,” she said. The growth of the tourism and hospitality sector, of which the county’s restaurants, wineries and breweries play a big part, has established itself as one of Loudoun’s success stories. Visit Loudoun CEO Beth Erickson notes there are 16,840 hospitality and tourism-related jobs in the county, more than those employed by Loudoun County Public Schools and the Loudoun County government combined. The sector is expected to grow an additional 86 percent in the next few years. But with growth comes growing pains, and the owners and managers behind Loudoun’s restaurant scene have report-
Fired Detective Sues for Wrongful Termination BY RENSS GREENE A $6.35 million lawsuit filed in Loudoun Circuit Court Tuesday by former Loudoun detective Mark McCaffrey accuses Sheriff Michael Chapman of “malicious and callous abuse of his status and authority.” The lawsuit names Chapman both as sheriff and in his personal capacity, as well as the Loudoun
GROWING PAINS >> 34
FIRED >> 18
Where will you purchase your next mattress?
BAER’S Before you head to a large chain, MATTRESS DEN can we suggest another destination? www.baersmattressden.com
There’s a reason we’ve been family owned for over 30 years. Ask your neighbors or visit us and find out why?
Leesburg, VA
next to Ledo Pizza across from Target & Costco
703-777-1600
ECRWSS Postal Customer
Permit #131 Leesburg, VA
PAID
U.S. Postage PRESRT STD