Chesterbrook Was McLean's Errand Stop. Now It's Staying Open for Dinner.

What time does Chesterbrook close? For most of its history the answer was whenever Safeway did. The rest of the strip worked on errand hours: coffee, dry cleaning, a haircut, a prescription. Since Thursday, October 22, the answer depends on the night. On Fridays and Saturdays, one storefront at 6218 Old Dominion Drive now stays open until 2 a.m.

That storefront is Surfside. Its arrival is the clearest sign of a change that has been under way since Federal Realty bought the center in 2021. The new food tenants keep moving Chesterbrook's busiest hours later in the day. The next one, a 170-seat restaurant with nightly live entertainment and valet parking, already has a signed lease.

Chesterbrook's opening hours, side by side

You can see the shift in the posted hours of three businesses that opened or reopened in this corner of McLean during the past year.

The shop that has been here since 1967 now operates just outside the shopping center and keeps daytime hours, while the newest arrival stays open well past midnight on weekends.

Surfside brought the late weekend hours

Surfside started in D.C. in 2008. The McLean outpost, about 1,700 square feet and next to Sweetgreen, is the brand's first in Virginia, FFXnow reported. It is a taco stand, a lighter format than the full-service flagship in Tenleytown, but the menu runs wider than the word "stand" suggests.

What to know before the first visit:

• The core menu: tacos, enchiladas, fajitas, quesadillas, plus rice and salad bowls.
• For groups: nacho and fajita boxes built to feed up to 10 people, plus kids' meals.
• At the bar: beer, cocktails, and both regular and spicy margaritas. Mexican sodas and a Montego Bay punch made with coconut milk, pineapple and orange juice cover the non-alcoholic side.
• Dessert: soft-serve ice cream, flan or tres leches cake.

Patch reported that the full menu would be available starting on opening day, and that catering and delivery through Uber Eats and DoorDash would also be offered. The McLean menu is posted on Surfside's website.

The 2 a.m. close on Fridays and Saturdays matters most. Until now, Chesterbrook had nothing open that late. The fajita boxes also suggest the place is built for groups, including teams after a game and neighbors hosting on short notice. Bo Blair, founder and CEO of Georgetown Events Hospitality Group, which owns Surfside, told FFXnow that McLean and Arlington diners had been regulars at the group's D.C. restaurants for years. Those restaurants include Millie's Spring Valley and Jetties.

Sweetgreen's drive-up lane serves the errand crowd

Sweetgreen opened at 6220 Old Dominion Drive in December 2025. In August, it added the piece that fits Chesterbrook's older habits. The company's August 18 announcement describes "sweetlane," an order-ahead drive-up window. Customers order in the app or on the website, choose sweetlane, and pull through to collect from staff. Dine-in seating and regular in-store pickup are still available. The release called McLean the format's first East Coast location.

The drive-up lane serves people who come to Chesterbrook for groceries at Safeway and don't plan to linger. The 10 p.m. closing time serves people who come later in the evening.

Glenwood's is planned as Chesterbrook's dinner restaurant

Surfside covers the casual late night. The center's sit-down dinner is still a year out. Federal Realty announced on October 14 that Glenwood's, a Maryland restaurant known for sushi as well as steak, burgers and other American dishes, signed a lease for a restaurant of about 7,000 square feet at Chesterbrook. It will be the first Northern Virginia location for the restaurant group, FFXnow reported.

The concept started in Columbia, Maryland, in 2010 as Stanford Grill. It later expanded to Rockville and Owings Mills, and all three locations were renamed Glenwood's in a 2024 rebrand. According to the press release, the planned McLean restaurant will include:

1. Seating for about 170 diners and about 90 full- and part-time jobs
2. Nightly live entertainment
3. An outdoor patio
4. Valet parking
5. A private dining room with a temperature-controlled, floor-to-ceiling wine display

It will sit at the southern end of the center near Small Door Veterinary. Construction is expected to start in early 2027, with a target opening in fall 2027. That date is a target, and restaurant build-outs often slip.

Nightly live entertainment and valet parking are evening features. None of the current tenants offers either, and both mean people will be on the property after dark. Mike Ennes, Federal Realty's senior vice president of asset management, told FFXnow that Surfside "complements the center's established restaurants and recent additions like Sweetgreen and Sorn Thai, as well as the highly anticipated Glenwood's."

The renovation set up these evenings

The late hours follow work that took three years. Federal Realty's $8.5 million renovation began in fall 2022 and was finished in time for a Friendsgiving open house on November 14, 2025. It overhauled the facades, added lighting and outdoor spaces, repaved the parking lot and planted pollinator gardens and landscaping beds, according to FFXnow.

The lighting and outdoor spaces are what make a dinner patio and a 2 a.m. taco counter workable, so the renovation came first and the late tenants followed. The tenant mix has moved the same way. Before Surfside, the restaurant additions were Sorn Thai, a southern Thai restaurant at 6224E Old Dominion Drive, which opened in March 2025, and Sweetgreen. Retail additions like Sassanova, which opened its first Virginia store here in July 2025, and service tenants like Small Door Veterinary filled the daytime side.

Federal Realty's current tenant roster still shows the center's errand base:

• Groceries and banking: Safeway, Bank of America
• Mornings: Starbucks, Call Your Mother
• Fitness: CorePower Yoga, Potomac Pilates
• Longtime tenants: Mylo's Grill and Chesterbrook Cleaners, which FFXnow calls the center's longstanding stalwarts, alongside Safeway as anchor

The 1967 barber shop moved next door

Not every longtime tenant stayed. Chesterbrook Barber Shop was one of the center's original tenants and had served it since 1967. After the center changed hands, the shop needed a new home, FFXnow reported in June. More than 200 people signed a letter about what the shop meant locally. Customers with backgrounds in commercial law, real estate and construction helped with the search for a new space.

The shop reopened on Sunday, June 14, 2026, at 6262-F Old Dominion Drive. That is in the strip next to Chesterbrook, where Tennis Topia and Fonts Books & Gifts are also located. It also has a new website. It keeps daytime hours, and it is still a short walk from the center, so a regular can get a haircut and then walk over to dinner.

Surfside's grand opening is November 7

Surfside's official grand opening is Saturday, November 7, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with face painting, live music, free samples and giveaways, according to Patch. The celebration runs during the day, but the same counter stays open until 2 a.m. that night.

Restaurant openings like Surfside's and Glenwood's can affect how a nearby street feels day to day, and following them closely is part of Jennifer Jo's work. If you'd like to talk about what the changes near Chesterbrook could mean for your part of McLean, Jo & Co would be glad to hear from you. Let's Connect.