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Michel, in the Tysons Corner Ritz-Carlton - Chef Jon Mathieson takes over for Levi Mezick - Closed


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So the question is then: How's the Chef Geoff's Tyson doing in the old Colvin Run Tavern space?

I've only been there twice (which is certainly no indicator), but it seems like it has a pretty rollicking bar crowd. Boy oh boy does the cuisine seem out of place across from Tiffany's.

breakfast-tiffanys-audrey_l.jpg

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Am I the only one who thinks that some of the blame falls on the restaurants themselves? I have been to all the aforementioned failed high-end restaurants, and they have one common trait -- inconsistent service. Not always terrible, but never as good as the average spots in DC. Some cases in point:

  • Twice -- not once -- but twice I had to walk out of Inox after simply not being served anything at all for extended periods of time after sitting down. If I sit for 20 minutes and no one stops at my table and I can't get any staff attention, I leave.
  • Monterey Bay had all the charm and authenticity of a cafeteria at a third-rate theme park. And most of the waitstaff seemed as though they had never been in a fine restaurant before, let alone worked in one.
  • Colvin Run had so much potential, but the service was just so spotty. Never had the same experience there twice, and I'm not talking about the food.
  • And in the three times I visited Michel, it never got more consistent than my first visit.

I have read perspectives talking about the difficulty in getting decent staff outside the beltway, given the limited public transportation options, relative to DC proper. But presumably a proper General Manager can train and retain good staff. That's why Cap Grille and Morton's have survived so long - they nail the service, with a deep bench of management. Same for Clyde's. I consider Passionfish fine dining, and they are crushing it b/c customers (myself included) come back again and again based on consistently good service. Stand up a fine dining spot in Tyson's or Reston or Vienna, and if you get the service right, it will work, I would bet money on it.

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Clyde's, Daily Grill, Gordon Biersch, Cafe Deluxe, McCormick & Schmick, etc. etc. pack them in downtown, too, along with Fuddrucker's, California Pizza Kitchen, Bucca di Beppo, Cosi, Potbelly...bad taste is not confined to outside the Beltway.

OK, fair enough, but my point is that Inox, Maestro, Michel, Monterey Bay and Colvin Run are not closing down in the downtown area like they are in the NoVa suburbs. The choices are being made in the suburbs, and the votes are all falling in the mediocrity column.

Cafe Deluxe, Clyde's, Maggiano's, M&S Grill and Gordon Biersch all have lower price points, and are in more accessible locations within Tysons, than Colvin Run Tavern, Inox, Monterey Bay, Michel and Maestro.

Not necessarily. Maestro, Michel, Inox, Monterey Bay and Colvin Run all had valet parking. Pull up to the front door and hand your key to the valet. Can't get any easier than that. As for price per cover, I've eaten at all of them many times over, and for appetizer + entree + dessert + drinks + tax + tip ... there is single-digit percentage points difference. And I've run up a larger tab at Maggiano's than Colvin Run, and I've run up a larger tab at M&S Grill than at Monterey Bay.

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Not necessarily. Maestro, Michel, Inox, Monterey Bay and Colvin Run all had valet parking. Pull up to the front door and hand your key to the valet. Can't get any easier than that. As for price per cover, I've eaten at all of them many times over, and for appetizer + entree + dessert + drinks + tax + tip ... there is single-digit percentage points difference. And I've run up a larger tab at Maggiano's than Colvin Run, and I've run up a larger tab at M&S Grill than at Monterey Bay.

I don't doubt that you have run up a larger tab at M&S than at Monterey Bay. The rest of your claim needs to be substantiated, n my mind, because it does not appear to match up to the reality that I have encountered.

Regardless, if the service at these non-national chains is less than perfect (which, by several accounts, it was not), you cannot afford (even on expense account) to take your valued clients to these relatively unknown restaurants. Aside from service, Maestro, Inox, etc., were food destinations, not business dinner destinations. If the investors in those ventures believed that business dinners would be their mainstay, l seriously have to question their business plans, at least before their restaurants had gained a widespread reputation. I would not risk taking that valued client to a new, but possibly "all the rage", restaurant unless I knew that the entire evening would be flawless. That is possibly why the Morton's of the world survive and thrive, they are the "safe bet"!

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Well, how's this for absurd? Cafe Deluxe, Clyde's (Tysons and Reston), Maggiano's, Jackson's, M&S Grill and Gordon Biersch are PACKED, day in and day out, by discerning suburban palates, while Colvin Run Tavern, Inox, Monterey Bay, Michel and Maestro are all closed. Same general locations, same general demographics, and not all that different price/cover. That's absurd to you?

Clyde's, Daily Grill, Gordon Biersch, Cafe Deluxe, McCormick & Schmick, etc. etc. pack them in downtown, too, along with Fuddrucker's, California Pizza Kitchen, Bucca di Beppo, Cosi, Potbelly...bad taste is not confined to outside the Beltway.

Cafe Deluxe, Clyde's, Maggiano's, M&S Grill and Gordon Biersch all have lower price points, and are in more accessible locations within Tysons, than Colvin Run Tavern, Inox, Monterey Bay, Michel and Maestro.

i don't get the debate. Isn't it pretty well established that chains have much better cash flow, profitability and unit-level margins than very high end, independent restaurants for a host of reasons? And that many, many Americans and visitors favor the more affordable, familiar and predictable restaurants for many reasons? I don't buy the idea that suburban dwellers are less discriminating or less sophisticated than city dwellers or vice versa. It's too broad a brush when people have cars, when income, educational and other demographic and population density data don't support the suggested difference.

I think an expensive, high-end restaurant is as likely to do well out in Fairfax County as it is in DC. We've seen some successes and lots of failures in both places. For every suburban Maestro, Michel and Colvin Run, we've had metro Gerard's Place, Butterfield9, Asia Nora, Olives and multiple Galileos downtown. If Tolstoy had been a restaurant guy, he might have said that all the great expensive places that survive tend to survive for similar reasons while the closures all fail for very unique reasons. And he'd have been right.

Individual restaurants succeed because they provide consistent-enough value in the eyes of enough customers over time to ensure long-term profit. Doing that, of course, depends on a host of factors like differentiation, marketing, smart sourcing, great food, cost control, rational pricing, nice silverware, the perfect 1000 songs, etc, etc. That's all very hard to get right whether in Tysons or on K St.

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I think an expensive, high-end restaurant is as likely to do well out in Fairfax County as it is in DC. We've seen some successes and lots of failures in both places. For every suburban Maestro, Michel and Colvin Run, we've had metro Gerard's Place, Butterfield9, Asia Nora, Olives and multiple Galileos downtown.

Individual restaurants succeed because they provide consistent-enough value in the eyes of enough customers over time to ensure long-term profit. That's all very hard to get right whether in Tysons or on K St.

No argument with the last sentence, but while you may think that an expensive, high end restaurant is as likely to do well in Fairfax County as DC, in practice this isn't the case. While the Galileos are a poor example for reasons that don't bear repeating, in DC for every Gerard's Place there is a Siroc to take it's place, for every Olives a PJ Clarke's, etc etc. Even looking across genre in DC - say high end Italian, Galileo's demise (since you mentioned it) is countered by Elisir's opening. For every Michel / Maestro / Monterrey Bay / Inox in Fairfax County, there are empty buildings.
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The Armstrongs seem to be doing quite well in Old Town. And L'Auberge Chez François, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere, has been going strong for 35 years. There are other examples, but I point out these two because they represent the diversity of what can survive in the suburbs. I have no idea why other concepts have failed, but I don't think one can categorically say that you can't do fine dining outside of the city. Personally, I never went to Michel because it didn't seem terribly exciting.

The Armstrong had to have two different restaruants in the same building and the fine dining is smaller than the casual ones.

L'auberge chez francois is less and less busy since ten years. Now it is a casual restaurant.

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No argument with the last sentence, but while you may think that an expensive, high end restaurant is as likely to do well in Fairfax County as DC, in practice this isn't the case. While the Galileos are a poor example for reasons that don't bear repeating, in DC for every Gerard's Place there is a Siroc to take it's place, for every Olives a PJ Clarke's, etc etc. Even looking across genre in DC - say high end Italian, Galileo's demise (since you mentioned it) is countered by Elisir's opening. For every Michel / Maestro / Monterrey Bay / Inox in Fairfax County, there are empty buildings.

I did not close my restaurant, it was doing fine till I left; I chose to have a life and to leave the restaurant business. My ex wife was running it the last two years.

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I did not close my restaurant, it was doing fine till I left; I chose to have a life and to leave the restaurant business. My ex wife was running it the last two years.

Chef, I did not mean to imply otherwise - just that after Gerard's Place closed, another restaurant took over the same space. That's all.
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I really don't get your insistence that folks that live outside of DC have no clue about fine dining. It's just absurd. I guess all those folks in the great places in DC are district residents.

People outside of DC knows as much about food as in DC; the difference most of them do not go out during the week and there is no "visitors" to fill the restaurants.

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No argument with the last sentence, but while you may think that an expensive, high end restaurant is as likely to do well in Fairfax County as DC, in practice this isn't the case. While the Galileos are a poor example for reasons that don't bear repeating, in DC for every Gerard's Place there is a Siroc to take it's place, for every Olives a PJ Clarke's, etc etc. Even looking across genre in DC - say high end Italian, Galileo's demise (since you mentioned it) is countered by Elisir's opening. For every Michel / Maestro / Monterrey Bay / Inox in Fairfax County, there are empty buildings.

I think yours is a tough argument to make for two reasons.

First, your anecdotes don't support it so well. Michel replaced Maestro and you can bet another will come in simply because the property owners must have a restaurant in that space and will subsidize it as needed. Remember also that Chef Trabocchi had a very short run in NYC with Fiamma. One might speculate all kinds of things about the Maestro/Fiamma/Fiola progression but it'd just be speculation and we have every reason to expect a long run for Fiola--it's fantastic after all. Similarly Colvin Run was replaced so no "empty building" there. eyedubya upthread thinks it failed due to bad service. Maybe. Maybe it was something else altogether.

And, on the DC end of the equation, we've had empty spaces sit for periods of time also--B9/G3 being just one example. While not fine dining, the big McDonalds space right in the middle of Cleveland Park sat vacant for nearly 10 years before Tackle Box came in. And Cleveland Park is one of the healthier restaurant 'hoods in the city though I know that can be debated also.

Second, the Galileo stories and even Chef Panguad's post evidence that you can't conclude anything based on anecdotes anyway other than the obvious reality that restaurants have closed and succeeded in both locales. Each restaurant closure is its own story. Some may be for financial distress reasons while others aren't. Often we don't know though of course there's always speculation about how busy a place seemed, how good the service or prices were or whatever. A serious study of the histories and examples would be better evidence and may even exist. Certainly such a study would be a great marketing tool for commercial developers, builders and property owners; may already exist but, even if it does, it'd just shed more light on the issue without being determinate as with any study about anything.

To me, it's a reasonable hypothesis to simply assert that the right formulas can work almost wherever they're located. And, that most restaurants fail or close after relatively short runs, for a wide range of reasons. Sometimes those reasons are good learning for others. Sometimes they're not and mistakes are repeated. But I don't think the traffic, distance from city, etc, etc of VA make it impossible for a high-end restaurant to succeed. Not when we have evidence to the contrary and absent a serious analysis.

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Rather than labor over a paragraphs long re-hash I'll simply say this, again: I agree that the correct formula can work in spite of (or because of) location.Upthread, as now, I was not ascribing specific reasons to any restaurant's closure. As you note, and as is obvious, restaurants can and do close for numerous reasons. However, openings and closings on the high-end evidence that (a) DC is a more attractive location than Fairfax County for high-end dining investment, and (b ) when high end restaurants close in DC, they are replaced by similar establishments far more frequently than Fairfax County. Yes, Colvin Run is an exception, but is Chef Geoff's cuisine similar? Nope. Will the old Michel space be filled? Likely, for reasons that you note. With something similar? Maybe.

In hindsight, I should have been clearer in my initial post, but it was 6am...

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I also believe part of the 'shock' is how quickly these places shut. INOX and Michel's I believe did not exist to the magical 3 year stage. i could be dead wrong, but places like Olives, Asia Nora and B9 were open for an extended period of time, longer than 5 years.

I think you're right re INOX and Michel. And for that reason, I don't think it's fair to group Maestro in with them. Maestro, if I recall correctly, was open for 7 years. There's no shame in that.

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