It’s been a rollercoaster for recreational golf in Alexandria, but the journey is likely over. We’ve been tracking the story of the 17-acre property since the closure of the original stateside Topgolf location in early 2020. The 2022 launch of Rudy’s, an entertainment golf center similar to Topgolf’s, had its share of challenges. In the first year, I often drove down Van Dorn Street and saw the lot nearly empty on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. It’s no easy task to attract business to a location that appeared neglected and abandoned for years. The empty and abandoned Ruby Tuesday restaurant on the property (still empty today) didn’t help the situation.
Over time, however, I noticed more cars in the lot. You could see several families playing mini-golf on the property, with the lot over half full with cars. Unfortunately, whatever momentum the owners gained over the last two years will likely be for nothing. Throughout the entire period dating back to 2015, developers and Fairfax County Supervisors have considered the acreage a prime location for residential and mix-use development: just what we need in Northern Virginia. Look anywhere in the area, especially on the Richmond Highway corridor nearby, and you’ll see the development of large, uncharacteristic residential/commercial combos with little regard for necessary infrastructure.
A shot of the redevelopment (Alexandria Living Magazine)
Alexandria Living published an article on January 25 of this year about the possibility of Rudy’s closure. The article noted the vote by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to allow a townhouse redevelopment to move forward. By March, the publication confirmed the suspicions, with the business set to close to make way for 174 new townhomes. The only positive? The Board of Supervisors amended the agreement to reduce the size of townhomes built from 275 to 174.
Via Fairfax County – Proposed Townhome Design (FFX Now)
The area around Kingstowne, where Rudy’s sits today, is already busy. I can imagine that residents’ protest and petitioning derives from the fact that the already choked area for traffic will be much worse. The opening of Chick-fil-A a few years ago in the shopping center across the street did nothing to alleviate the traffic tensions. Nearly 900 people have signed a petition to save the area “so that other kids have the same opportunity to have fun and learn how to play golf.” Unfortunately, the petition will likely unchange what is already in motion like all machinery. If you want the feeling of hitting a golf ball into a brightly colored hole for points this summer, you’ll need to travel up the road to the National Harbor location or points west in Northern Virginia.
Of course, if you would have no idea about the imminent closure if were a patron of Rudy’s, you would have no idea they were closing. There is no mention on their website or social media about the closure of their business, which I applaud. Damn the man: save the Empire.
They say when one door closes, another opens. In this case, the other door is open…for now. If you have followed the latest in the news, Red Lobster, the casual dining seafood restaurant and purveyor of cheddar bay biscuits, is considering filing for bankruptcy after the debacle of their $20 endless shrimp promotion. The offer that started last June lasted weeks before the company realized its mistake. Who knew a promotion for endless food would backfire in the United States? One individual managed to eat 108 shrimp in four hours. You can’t sit in a Golden Corral and transition from breakfast to lunch or dinner. Don’t test the intestinal fortitude of Americans. You will lose every time.
“I am become death, the destroyer of shrimp” – Oppenheimer would have loved Red Lobster
Locations around the country are closing and auctioning off items in the wake of this business blunder. Around 100 stores have closed recently, a large proportion of their 700 active locations. However, in the Northern Virginia area, the only locations closing are focused in Maryland: Gaithersburg, Columbia, Silver Spring, and Laurel. The only locations throughout Virginia currently closing (or “temporarily closing”) are further south towards Richmond, Williamsburg, and Hampton Roads. If you still want the hit of the Red Lobster, you can drive less than a mile down the roads from Rudy’s location on Van Dorn Street. Other area locations in Northern Virginia are Fredericksburg, Woodbridge, Manassas, Fairfax, and Sterling.
Insanely sexual Open Table for Red Lobster Alexandria (Open Table) – Step Red Lobster, What are you doing?
Northern Virginia remains a bastion for two things: the extremely high cost of living and Red freaking Lobster. If there is any plus side to living here, it is the notion that you can drown the sorrows of your rent check with a greasy cheddar biscuit or Sysco-delivered coconut shrimp.
If you want to follow the full saga of Topgolf saga, here are all of the articles in order of publication:
The Bunny Man may be the most well-known urban legend of Northern Virginia, but there is a lesser-known story about a creature that haunts a small patch of woods in the Fairfax County side of Alexandria: the Mount Vernon Monster.
The Mount Vernon Woods are in part of what was originally George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. A 1979 Washington Post article states the land was specifically within an “area where George Washington’s slaves once grew wheat and raised pigs.”1 Today, the woods sit right off Mount Vernon Highway, between two neighborhoods. Grist Mill Park sits on the southwest edge, and a golf course borders the northwest edge.
Approximate area of the Monster in Mount Vernon, Alexandria. (Google)
Unlike a lot of urban legends, there is no discernable origin story of the monster. It simply appears in the form of “nocturnal screaming” sometime in the fall of 1978.2 The screaming occurred only at night and was described in a variety of different ways from witnesses:3
They described the sound as something like a wild boar, really loud frogs, some guy blowing in a wine bottle, a barred (or hoot) owl, a broken microphone on a CB outfit, a parrot, a mouse with an amplifier, a strangled dog, the ghost of George Washington and the ghost of George Washington’s pigs.
Blaine Harden, “The Mount Vernon Monster,” Washington Post (May 12, 1979)
I don’t know about you, but I want to know more about ghost pigs.
A blog article from Sam Hartz also describes the sounds as “something like: “ooahkra-ah,” or “eeveakgoo-ah” or even “aaaoohauoa-ah-oo.”4 A short video about the Mount Vernon Monster recalls the testimony of an 11 year-old witness, claiming it seemed most active between midnight and 5am and the sound was so loud it would cause the windows to rattle.5 A post on Fairfax Underground forum posted, “[The sound] rattled windows. It was very deep and not like any animal I have heard and I had spent time in the outdoors. The sound moved quickly from one end of the street to the other . . . There were large woods with marshy land behind our home. It sounded like it came from that area most of the time.”6 Though the descriptions of the sounds vary, all of the witnesses agree that it was an out-of-the ordinary sound, and it was loud.
Spottings in the past occurred at the end of Union Farm Road and Southwood Dr. directly in the back of the Mount Vernon Woods. (Matthew T. Eng/Offbeat NOVA)
There are far less acknowledgements of sightings, however. The Washington Post mentions that Thelma Crisp, who lived nearby, reported “a creature in her backyard that stands 6 feet tall and walks upright.”7 Perhaps her account is why the creature seems to be closely associated with Sasquatch or Bigfoot. I was able to track down another sighting online, though it is not within the correct timeframe or area. Others within the correct timeframe and area mentioned strange occurrences, like rabbit hutches ripped apart, trees breaking, and even, in one instance, an impaled deer.8 One person even produced a recording of the sound his father made. Listen to it here.
Depiction of the Mount Vernon Monster. Most other versions closely resemble a classic “Bigfoot” character.
The brouhaha was so large by spring of 1979 that the Fairfax County Police got involved. They combed the woods, complete with searchlights and a helicopter, but found nothing. After the police search, the monster seems to have disappeared. There are no other records of the monster or any weird sounds in any official news sources, and there’s only a smattering of comments about it in forums and sites dedicated to Bigfoot research. As quickly as it appeared, the monster faded into obscurity.
There are posts on the Fairfax Underground that claim the monster was a hoax—that kids put speakers in the open windows of a house or in the woods. However, some posters insist that the monster was real, and that there was no way those sounds could be faked. Real or not, the monster holds a place in Northern Virginia lore—and reminds us of our fraught relationship with nature and the fear of the unknown.
Footnotes:
Harden, Blaine. “The Mount Vernon Monster.” The Washington Post, May 12, 1979. LINK.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Hartz, Sam. “Mount Vernon Monster Haunts Woods, Wrecks Peace.” Kentucky Daily Independent Newspaper, May 20, 1979. LINK.
Author Denver Michaels. “The Mount Vernon Monster.” YouTube, December 16, 2022. LINK.
D.N. “Re: Mount Vernon Monster.” Fairfax Underground, December 25, 2013. LINK.
Everybody has a specific type of parking lot they stop at on a regular basis. This is no normal slab of concrete and parallel white lines. You do not park your car there to shop. You are not there to pick up food. You are there to simply be there and think. Your car is on or off, depending on the weather. The car is idle, but your mind is moving. I call these locations “Thinking Lots.”
My little slice of heaven (Google Maps)
I have a thinking lot. It’s on the corner of Hayfield and Telegraph Rd. in Alexandria. It’s the perfect distance between my home and my job. Some mornings, if I have extra time before I need to be in, I will stop my car at this lot, roll the windows down, and drink coffee for a few minutes as I watch the cars go by. I often look around and find that I am not the only one that does this at the lot on the corner of Hayfield and Telegraph. Several cars, scattered about and equidistant to each other, have the same idea in those early morning hours. I have companions who also regularly frequent my own thinking lot. I must assume they would think the same of me. On some mornings, I will find a gentleman in a green truck taking phone calls and a man in a blue sedan leafing through what looks like paperwork. Mr. blue sedan will often pop out for a cigarette before hitting the road, likely to Interstate 95 or the Richmond Highway corridor.
I truly cannot overstate how amazing it is to have a place to collect your thoughts. To be outside, but inside. To have a shared experience of quiet contemplation or work catch-up is truly a blessing. If you don’t have a thinking lot, I strongly urge that you find one. I’ve always been interested in the utility of parking lots and their actual use vs. the intended use. For this particular lot, the major businesses in the small shopping area take up a relatively small footprint to the number of spaces provided. It’s perfect.
So you may ask yourself: What makes a good thinking lot?
Primarily off a major road or access point. Nobody needs to go out of their way, right?
A large enough lot that you can have at least 6-8 spaces all around you free from another car. Granted, this will likely only happen early in the morning or late at night.
Is there something to look at while you are thinking? For me, the road in front of me provides endless entertainment.
It is best to find a lot big enough to park in with as little traffic as possible from other cars. I have gotten a few stares from people in my time using the lot, but nothing to dissuade me from continuing to use it.
So find your lot. Park your car. Sip your coffee. Eat your lunch. Scream into your steering wheel. Take a power nap.
Do you have one already? I’d love to know where it is in Northern Virginia. I’m always down to find an auxiliary lot. You know, just in case.
If you follow local news, you’ll notice the staggering amount of shop and restaurant closures around Northern Virginia. Business owners, saddled with difficulties stemming from the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic, often decide to close up shop. We recently posted about the closure of the iconic L.L. Bean store location in Tyson’s Corner Mall. By far our most popular post on the subject matter has been the closure of America’s first Top Golf location in Alexandria, VA. After opening in 2005, the multi-use venue and adjacent Ruby Tuesday’s closed their doors in 2021. Well, it seems that the landowner has done the unthinkable during these tough economic times: rebranded the former facility and opened a new establishment.
Yes, that’s right. The former Top Golf location will be another Top Golf…sorta. Rudy’s
The owner of the land clearly looked for new options after several hearings and votes were stalled on what to do with the land for rezoning. After filing plans with the Fairfax County Government for several years to repurpose the space for townhomes and commercial space, it seems they got fed up and decided to shift focus. Given the timeline between previous filings and community hearings, these details happened rather quickly (and all during these COVID years). Speculation as far back as November 2021 had the former sight turning away from the long-term development plans in favor of a corporate “up-cycling” of the golf experience. According to Alexandria Living Magazine, the plans are “on hold, but they aren’t totally off the table.” For now, there is Rudy’s.
Beginning in January, the Leesburg-based Rudy & Roy LLC began hiring for servers, managers, event coordinators, and porters for the venue. Much like Top Golf, the experience is billed as “part driving range, part restaurant and sports bar.”
At some point between the beginning of January and early March, Rudy’s officially opened. Reviews so far are good. There are five reviews on Google for the new establishment. It boasts a perfect 5-star rating. One local, “William B,” had a glowing review for the fun and food:
“Visited Rudy’s Golf today and it was a great experience! Thrilled that this local business has finally opened. The driving range has mostly been fully restored since TopGolf closed and the food/drinks were great. Highly recommend the burger w/ fries! Prices were reasonable and the service was friendly and attentive. We will definitely be back!”
Google Review of Rudy’s (Google)
Other individuals had very good things to say about the restaurant and its burger and fries. Their website is sparse, but officially up. There is no word what will happen to the adjacent restaurant, formerly a Ruby Tuesday, and the mini-golf course.
Rudy’s is open on Monday-Thursday from 11am to 8pm, Friday-Saturday from 11am to 10pm, and Sunday from 10am to 8pm.
On January 2, 2022, a day before it snowed nearly a foot in the DC Metro area, the family decided to stretch our legs a bit and get some exercise. On the coldest days and months of the year, the best place to get exercise is the mall. Although Springfield Town Center is the closest to us, Tyson’s Corner has always been our go-to location. We go to the mall for exercise, diversion, and a little (light) shopping since my daughter was an infant. It’s warm in the winter and frosty cool in the summertime. It’s a great place to get some exercise and window shop. It’s also fun to feel nostalgic for the old days of the early to mid-1990s when going to the mall was a social event you waited all week for.
More on that later.
We parked in our usual spot across from the Macy’s and headed in for a lap on the two floors of the mall. As we rounded the corner of the American Girl store, I noticed that the L.L. Bean store was surprisingly sparse. Upon further inspection, my suspicion was true: the store was closing. A sign out front of the store read that the store would permanently close after the 17th of January.
Sign in front of the store (Matthew Eng/Offbeat NOVA)
“We’ll miss seeing you here, but we hope to see you outside.”
It was an odd feeling. Going to L.L. Bean was always a part of our mall experience. Our daughter especially loved playing with the toys on the lower level.
There’s a whole lot of speculation from L.L. Bean fans, local residents, and Tyson’s Corner Mall regulars. The most prevailing rumor was that either the rent was too high, or the mall rejected L.L. Bean’s plan to keep the store at just one level. Either way, it is gone.
In an official statement, L.L. Bean said “the decision was not an easy one:”
“Though we worked with the landlord to explore many options, we were unable to reach favorable terms in a way that would allow us to best serve our customers moving forward.”
Quote from L.L. Bean
They looked into everything from finding an alternative location to supposedly moving all of the merchandise to one floor, which would validate the idea that the rent was too high. One can imagine the staggering amount of monthly dues to a 76,000-square-foot store.
It is rather big news, either way. Many would consider L.L. Bean an anchor store next to two other large storefronts, Macy’s and American Girl (both still open– for now).
L.L. Bean in 2000 (Richmond.com)
L.L. Bean opened the store in Tyson’s in 2000. It was the first of the retail chain’s stores outside of its home state of Maine. Part of what spurred the move was the high proportion of catalog orders. As of 2000, L.L. Bean reported that 85% of their sales were from catalogs. The store had an indoor trout pond and waterfall, evoking an early 2000s mall experience akin to waiting for your “portabella mushroom” group at your local mega-mall Rainforest Cafe. At the time, it was the sixth anchor of the burgeoning mall. In a grand twist of ironic fate, it seems most of the orders for L.L. Bean clothing and merchandise are back into the catalog sphere (at least in the sense of ordering online).
The only other location in the area is the 22,000-square-foot store in Bethesda, Maryland, despite the retailer actively looking for a new location in the DMV area. This news comes just before it was announced that the Bed Bath & Beyond just down the street from the mall is set to close at the end of February 2022. And of course, we can’t forget that the Disney Store inside the mall, by far our main reason for going to Tyson’s, shuttered in September. At this point, you have to ask yourself: What will be next?
In the same vein as seeing your childhood Pizza Hut turn into a 2-star Mexican Restaurant, there are already plans from the developer to change the space.
It’s been real, Bean (Matthew Eng/Offbeat NOVA)
Retailer Macerich, the owner of Tyson’s Corner Center, plans to break the space into smaller pieces of the two-level shop. According to a report from the Washington Business Journal, at least three tenants have been identified to fill in the space for now, one of which will be Ireland-based retailer Primark (looks like a business model similar to the Japanese retailer Uniqlo).
Whatever the space will be, I will keep the memories of walking around the store in the early years of my daughter’s life. My local mall near where I lived growing up (Pembroke Mall in Virginia Beach Virginia) also announced that it was closing. Not a store — the entire mall. Of course, there are plans to turn it into something else. Progress is progress, and you see plenty of that in Northern Virginia. Without sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, I am glad to walk in there one last time and take a few pictures. I only wonder what store (or stores) will go next at the mall. With the announcement of the opening of a LEGO Discovery Center at Springfield Town Center, my money is on the relatively small footprint of the LEGO store on the lower level of Tyson’s.
Malls, retailers, restaurants…they all have memories tied to them. Those from childhood are always the strongest, which is why seeing shops in malls, whether they be from your childhood or adulthood (Like the L.L. Bean) are tough. What else do we talk about with our friends or coworkers? The past. The future is always exciting to think about, but the past holds our collective subliminal feelings. You can call it nostalgia if you want, but it’s always there.
I’ll close with the final paragraph from Stephen King’s IT, which takes place in the fiction town of Derry in L.L. Bean’s home state of Maine. For a book that is an endorphin shock of childhood nostalgia and the fears of growing up, I think it is perfectly apt to end this article.
“But it’s nice to think so for awhile in the morning’s clean silence, to think that childhood has its own sweet secrets and confirms mortality, and that mortality defines all courage and love [. . .] Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it.”
When Offbeat NOVA first began in the quarantine summer of 2020 (remember those days?), I came up with a list of almost one hundred individual items, events, and places in Northern Virginia to write about. Many of those items off that initial list have made it to the blog and on our YouTube page. Still, the majority of them are unfinished and waiting in the hopper to become a reality.
To be honest, I have legitimately slid in writing about these topics. It’s not because I don’t want to, I assure you. Work has been very busy, and what little time is left is carved out for some family time, especially with our daughter. Alongside other side jobs, I have to make a little extra money (a necessity as a millennial living in Northern Virginia), I have neglected writing about these topics I enjoy researching and learning about.
For that, I am sorry. But it will get better.
Diving back into that initial list of nearly one hundred items to write about, one stuck out — a small note about something called a “Shoney’s Inn.” I remember writing it down after researching something that came up on the Fairfax Underground message board (there is a specific thread called “Old pictures of Fairfax county, love em!” That is a treasure trove of offbeat info on the Northern Virginia area). In that November 2019 post, a poster bystander by the name of “Andy Ratlips” posted an image of a Shoney’s Inn from the Fairfax County Public Library. The library was looking for help figuring out where the hotel existed. On the back of the picture, there was a notation for “Route 1.” The poster, Mr. Ratlips, posited that it could be from the Tysons area. A few posts down from the message board post, somebody quickly solved the mystery.
A user named “Blanch” posted that the hotel looked like a Comfort Inn off Spring Hill Road near Tyson’s Corner Mall.
(Fairfax Underground)
Before I found out about the retail and commercial history of this specific location in Vienna, I had to figure out what the hell a “Shoney’s Inn” was. I remember spending many weekends eating Sysco-brand chicken fingers or watery eggs and soggy hash browns from the Shoney’s buffet. I can only imagine staying at a Shoney’s Inn to be akin to sleeping in the hotel at South of the Border in South Carolina.
Shoney’s began as an offshoot of Big Boy franchisee Alex Schoenbaum. He renamed his Charleston, West Virginia, restaurants the Parkette Drive-In to resemble his name, Shoney’s, in June 1954. Over time, the family casual restaurant grew in popularity, particularly in the southern United States.
In 1975, drawing off the success of the restaurant, Shoney’s began a chan of motels called “Shoney’s Inn.” They were all sold off in 1991, but continued to collect off the royalties of the name – they were rebranded between 2002 and 2006, or those that remained as GustHouse, headquartered in Hendersonville, Tennessee. At the time of the purchase and remand in 2002, there were seventy-three properties of GuestHouse International Franchise Systems in operation, with twelve currently under development as of 2006. The location in Vienna near Tyson’s Corner was not one of them at the time.
So, what about this specific location? How did it become a Shoney’s Inn and how did it become the hotel it is today?
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information about the Shoney’s Inn in Vienna, located at 1587 Spring Hill Road. The internet mocks me with their scant details. One tour book from 1987 lists the Shoney’s Inn address with brief details on location and pricing. At the time, you could get a single bed (one person) for $52. A two-person/two-bedroom option would cost you five bucks more. The original property boasted 251 units, complete with cable television, phone, and a nearby pool sandwiched in between the adjacent Shoney’s restaurant and the rooms.
(Fairfax Underground)
At some point in the early 1990s, the Shoney’s and its hotel closed and became the Comfort Inn. The 1991 Shoney’s Inn location does not include the one in Vienna (there was five total, with the nearest in Manassas off Phoenix Drive — now a Super 8). The building where the Shoney’s was located (in front of the pool and hotel) became several different things in its lifetime. Business records indicate it was a toy and manufacturing business called “Thumbelina’s” in 2000, run by an individual named Richard Kibbey. After that, it was a sub-par Fuddruckers for several years before closing in 2010. My favorite Yelp review comes from “Judith L.” Back in 2009 a year before it closed:
“Now that I think about it… I think the last visit was the only one where I wasn’t disappointed by something. WHY THE HECK DO I KEEP COMING HERE?”
Yelp for Fuddruckers in Vienna (YELP)
The hotel itself was a Comfort Inn from the early 1990s until 2007, if the Internet Archive’s record of the hotel’s website is any indication. The Unofficial Guide to Washington, D.C. gave the hotel a rating of 65 out of 100.
Shoney’s Inn as a Quality Inn Today (Offbeat NOVA)
Today, the entire complex houses the Quality Inn. The reviews are modest, oscillating between 3 and 3.5 stars on various hotel rating sites and Facebook. Looking at it today, you can still see some architectural evidence of the original Shoney’s Inn establishment. You can still see that the staircase from the original photo lines up perfectly just underneath where the “Shoney’s Inn” used to be. A blue awning now takes its place above the staircase to keep guests dry as they walk up to their rooms. The roof and brick structure are also similar, and the parking lot remains unchanged over the years. The original Shoney’s restaurant location has seen the most considerable change over the years, with the paint scheme now yellow and red instead of white. A lawn care crew looked quizzically at me from a short distance as I got out to take pictures of what looked like a mundane two-star hotel in proximity to Tyson’s Corner.
Comparison from 1980s Shoney’s Inn and Today (Fairfax Underground/Offbeat NOVA)
Shoney’s is still around today, albeit in small numbers in the South despite filing for Chapter 11 in 2000. Shoney’s wasn’t the first business to incorporate lodging with a well-known brand of the restaurant. Howard Johnson built the model previously and made it a marketable business model. Although Shoney’s never had the success that Howard Johnson did, there are still more Shoney’s than Howard Johnson eateries around today (only one Howard Johnson remains in New York State).
Although I couldn’t gather much information on this particular establishment, I wanted to document it for posterity. I find repurposed buildings from the commercial and hospitality industry fascinating. The fact that this one location has been three hotels and at least two separate restaurants stands as a testament to the staying power of the area.
I’ve never been a big fan of golf. I think it’s honestly how I feel about most sports. I understand the appeal, and I can certainly appreciate it at times. But that does not make exactly like them. That goes double for golf.
I’ve tried. I’ve honestly made several attempts to like golf, either to make conversation with people at work or to impress my father in law. But I can’t. The closest I ever got to appreciating “the gentlemen’s game” is Tiger Woods Golf on the Nintendo Wii or Happy Gilmore.
Mostly Happy Gilmore.
When I first heard about the Topgolf brand of hybrid driving range and entertainment complex, I gave it little attention. I couldn’t get into what amounts to a modern day batting cages for upper middle class suburban whites. One recently closed right down the street from where I live across the street from the busy Kingstowne shopping center. I chalked it up to the economy at first. As it turns out, that specific Topgolf has an interesting history to the company itself, and the reason behind its closing highlights a much deeper symptomatic problem of northern Virginia businesses.
Brothers Steve and Dave Joliffe began the Topgolf enterprise in 2000 after opening its first location in Watford, United Kingdom. The brothers were fed up with the inefficiencies of traditional driving range and felt that a new, larger design would attract large groups of people would be better. They installed microchips into the golf balls and guests would hit them into large targets on the driving range field. The idea was simple: build a large driving range and turn it into a video game. While you’re at it, have a giant entertainment complex complete with televisions, food, and booze. Bingo. It’s a similar concept to the Lucky Strike bowling alley franchise.
(Alexandria Living Magazine)
They would quickly go on to develop two other locations in the UK. As excited as the golf community was for the redesigned driving ranges, the PGA was not. Eventually, an American investor was brought in, the WestRiver Group, to create Topgolf locations overseas in the United States. In 2005, they selected the first location stateside in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Alexandria, Virginia.
The WestRiver Group chose Alexandria as its location due to its close proximity to Washington, D.C. and the myriad government officials who frequented golf courses.1 They were right. There is no shortage of golf courses in the D.C. metro region, especially in northern Virginia. They built out a a facility in an already established driving range in the Kingstowne neighborhood of Alexandria in Fairfax County. The facility featured 70 hitting bays an two adjacent 18-hole mini golf courses. The total cost of the build was reportedly $4.5 million. The official opening date was Friday, August 5, 2005. An article on the opening of Topgolf Alexandria in the Washington Post pontificated on the joys of competing with your friends in a golf game while gorging yourself on “chicken fingers and glasses of wine.”2 God bless America.
It quickly grew to become a popular weekend destination for amateur golfers looking to improve their game and friends and family members looking to have a little fun. The modest 17.4 acre location was the perfect place for a date night or casual outing. The location prospered through the early 2000s. Unlike newer locations, this specific location ran on how the UK locations were run, which charges individuals per game rather than per hour.
By 2015, there were 28 locations located around the United States. Only one had the title for the first, and that was in Alexandria. It was the only location in the area. That is, until it wasn’t.
In August of that year, Topgolf opened its second location in Virginia, and the 21st overall, in Ashburn. The new 65,000-square-foot facility in Loudon County had 102 climate-controlled hitting bays, a full-service restaurant, three bars, and 250 flat-screen TVs. The rooftop terrace even had a fire pit.3 In essence, Topgolf Alexandria was stylistically obsolete. The Washington Business Journal reported to no surprise in October of 2015 that the landowner of the establishment had decided to end their lease with Topgolf, leaving the future of the establishment in flux. Then-Fairfax County Supervisor Jeff McKay noted how many complaints he received about the location’s noise and parking issues. He noted how “Topgolf needs a bigger facility but cannot expand on the heavily constrained current site,” As the report noted in the end of its litany of issues, Topgolf “had simply outgrown its property.”4
Things slowly deteriorated from there. There were complaints.
You can track the slow decline of Topgolf Alexandria by looking at its business page on Yelp. One person online commented that they “never felt more like my business wasn’t wanted.” Most people online were perplexed at the old system compared to newer ones they had already visited around the country. Some apparently just felt they were straight up confused with what to do once they walked in.
Top Golf Alexandria Complaint (Yelp)
The eventual nail in the coffin for the location came with the announcement of a brand new Topgolf facility in nearby National Harbor, Maryland. The location opened in the summer of 2019. A few months later, in November, the Washington Business Journal reported its closure of the Alexandria location, which included laying off nearly two hundred employees.
Apparently, the owner of the land on South Van Dorn Street filed plans a year before with Fairfax County to replace the site with townhomes, multifamily units, and commerce space.
In an official statement, Topgolf said the following about the future of their first location:
“In January, Topgolf Entertainment Group will be consolidating operations of Topgolf Alexandria with our nearby, modernized venues at National Harbor and Loudoun, as well as at our soon-to-be-opened, technology-equipped venue in Germantown — all serving the Greater Washington D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland-area communities.”5
Topgolf Corporate Announcement (2019)
If Topgolf ran a driving range like a video game, then Alexandria’s location had the two words nobody wants to hear flashing across its building: Game Over.
Land is a premium anywhere in northern Virginia, and the parcel on Van Dorn street next to a busy shopping center is prime real estate for another mixed use development. You can almost see real estate developers frothing at the mouth.
(Washington Business Journal)
The announcement came with the caveat of laying off 198 employees by January 2020 at the Alexandria location. Naturally, the work ethic at the location slackened. One Yelp commenter as late as December 28, 2019, left a long comment on her one-star rating of the location.
“our sever sniffed our pitchers– like she put her nose in our pitcher– to determine which was the miller lite and which was the cider. What a disaster. Go to Maryland.”6
The lot has sat abandoned since January of 2020. In the new era of COVID, driving by the location is especially ominous. The Ruby Tuesday, under separate ownership, closed its adjacent location. This was not due to Topgolf’s closing necessarily, as it was announced in July 2020 that the restaurant group that owns Ruby Tuesday had quietly closed 150 of its restaurants since the beginning of the year, including the Van Dorn Street location.7
I recently back to work for three days a week. On my way to my work destination, I happen to travel down Van Dorn Street to hook up with the 495/I-95 interchange to points south. Every time I drove past the empty lot, I noticed more and more of it going away. Signs disappeared. Grass grew in unwelcome places. I didn’t know how long I’d have before it was either gone to development or swallowed up by the poor decisions of reckless teenagers bored in quarantine.
Somebody in the NextDoor app posted images inside the abandoned TopGolf on the grounds and in the hitting bays. From the picture he posted, it looked like the wear and tear was beginning to manifest. Although I was not as adventurous as this individual, I decided to bite the bullet and drive into the abandoned establishment’s parking lot to see what I could find.
In the halcyon days of Topgolf Alexandria’s glory, the clubhouse proudly displayed a sign that said “America’s First Topgolf.” The sign no longer exists.
(Matthew Eng/Offbeat NOVA)
I noticed a lot of visible graffiti on the side walls of the establishment. Thankfully, most of the front looked relatively in tact, all save a few windows on the top floor of the driving range. The miniature golf course is completely overrun with weeds and debris. Some of the sculptures and course obstructions are beginning to rapidly decay from misuse.
The landscaping looked decent enough with the beginning signs of neglect. You could see the neglect more in the areas around the parking lots, which were completely derelict. Ironic, given the headache it was to park at this place on a Friday or Saturday night.
(Matthew Eng/Offbeat NOVA)
Even though the walkway leading up to the driving range level of Topgolf was completely open, I didn’t necessarily feel completely comfortable doing so. I knew I would be the one guy who would get caught, so I stayed within the confines of a casual visitor instead of somebody violating trespass.
The Ruby Tuesday nearby is also completely abandoned. Unlike Topgolf, the signs still exists. Looking into the building, you can still see the seats and a few menus scattered about. No word on what will happen to that building, as it is owned by a separate landowner than the former Topgolf.
(Matthew Eng/Offbeat NOVA)
There is a police cruiser or security vehicle holding court at the end of the parking lot nowadays. I’m glad I got some footage when I did. Honestly, I bet the only reason it hasn’t been completely demolished by now is the ongoing pandemic. For now, you can still drive by the first Topgolf in the United States and remember the good days when the chicken fingers were in abundance and servers didn’t smell your beer. Maybe she was right. Just go to Maryland.
If you have a personal experience from Topgolf Alexandria, let us know in the comment section. We’d love to keep it as a document to an interesting piece of northern Virginia business history.
Footnotes:
Jason Notte, “The Topgolf Founders Fought Through Countless Rejections — and Built America’s Favorite New Game,” Entrepreneur, September 19, 2018. Accessed January 4, 2021, LINK.
Ellen McCarthy, “In Alexandria, TopGolf Livens Up the Driving Range,” The Washington Post, August 4, 2005. Accessed December 30, 2020, LINK.
Topgolf, “Topgolf Opens Thursday Thursday Morning in Loudon County,” Topgolf, August 31, 2015. Accessed December 28, 2020, LINK.
Michael Neibauer, “More information on the likely future of Topgolf Alexandria,” Washington Business Journal, October 20, 2015. Accessed December 27, 2020, LINK.
Michael Neibauer, “Topgolf Alexandria to close, lay off nearly 200,” Washington Business Journal, November 30, 2019. Accessed December 27, 2020, LINK.
Irene Jiang, “Ruby Tuesday has quietly closed over 150 restaurants since later January. Here’s a list of closures.,” Business Insider, July 8, 2020. Accessed December 30, 2020, LINK.
When I first moved to Northern Virginia six years ago, I didn’t know much about the area—aside from bad traffic and a breakneck pace of life. I first stumbled on the story of the Bunny Man in 2015 and remember posting about it on Facebook. One of my friends, who grew up in the area, commented “Bunny Man Bridge was the shit growing up!” Me, on the other hand? I was properly creeped out. I had visions of Robbie the Rabbit from the Silent Hill series dancing in my head. Yeesh.
Robby from Silent Hill 3 (Konami)
Fast forward to 2020, and I’m revisiting the legend again. Except this time we were actually going to visit the famed bridge. Getting there was interesting: it’s set back in a residential area and is at the end of a single-lane winding road. It was a particularly cold and dreary afternoon the day we went; the atmosphere radiated gloom. When we turned the final corner and saw the bridge for the first time, I uttered a long and drawn-out, but quiet, “Shiiiiiiit.”
The Bunny Man legend seems to be split into two parts: Legend seems split into two parts: the escaped lunatic story and the man in the suit story. The escaped lunatic portion of the story was purported to occur around 1904. Supposedly there was an asylum not far from the bridge in the town of Clifton. However, Clifton residents were wary of an asylum so close to their homes, so it was shut down and the patients were bussed to Lorton prison nearby. However, the bus crashed near the bridge, and the lone survivor, a man named Douglas Griffon (spelled Grifon in some sources), took refuge under the bridge and in the woods.1
This version is just one from many sources, and it contains details that are glossed over or altered slightly in others, such as a train crash, another survivor that Griffon murdered, and bunny carcasses in the woods. One particularly interesting account was posted on a personal website:
One of the most prominent urban legends in the Virginia area tells of the Bunny Man. The Bunny Man is a former patient of an insane asylum who was committed for killing either his parents or his wife and kids on Easter Sunday. After he escaped, he made himself a giant rabbit suit which he constantly wears. He lives in the woods around Colchester Overpass near Clifton, VA (known as “Bunnyman Bridge”) and is known to eat and dismember rabbits. He likes his privacy and will scare away or kill any trespassers with his ax (his weapon of choice). While some legends claim The Bunnyman is a living person, others claim he is the undead spirit that has haunted the bridge since 1904.2
Brandon Coon, “Legend Research. The Bunny Man”
Brian Conley, an archivist who attempted to pinpoint the origin of this tale, cites the “most widely circulated written version” as the “The Clifton Bunny Man,” written and posted to a website by Timothy C. Forbes, of Virginia, in 1999:
This version of the tale is actually quite notable because of the number of specific facts given. Forbes claims that in 1904 inmates from an insane asylum escaped while being transferred to Lorton Prison. One of these escapees, Douglas J. Grifon, murdered fellow escapee Marcus Wallster and eventually became the Bunny Man. Not only is the location identified, but also the names of several victims and the dates of their murders. The story ends with a challenge for the reader to check with the Clifton Town Library for verification of the facts.3
Brian Conley, “Local History: The Bunny Man Unmasked”
However, Conley is quick to debunk this story by pointing out the historical inaccuracies: Lorton Prison wasn’t open until 1916, there’s no Fairfax court record of Douglas Grifon and the “old Clifton Library” never even existed.4 Conley did meticulous research of this story and attempted to verify it through a database of historical Fairfax County Newspapers. He extracted every murder and killing reported by the local press from 1872 through 1973 and ended up with over 550 individual mentions of killings in the study period. Ultimately, he eliminated all of them.
Washington Post articles on October 22, 1970 (left) and October 31, 1970 (right)
Eventually Conley found two documented cases of a man in a bunny suit. The first was a Washington Post article from October 22, 1970 entitled “Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax.” The second was a Washington Post article from October 31, 1970 titled “The ‘Rabbit’ Reappears.” These two stories, both from the 1970s, are a far cry from the story of the escaped lunatic in 1904. Perhaps the “escaped lunatic” is the reasoning storytellers use for the odd and frightening second part of the story.
The first article mentions an event from October 18, 1970. The Washington Post reported that Air Force Academy cadet Robert Bennett and his fiancée were sitting in a car on the 5400 block of Guinea Road in Fairfax around midnight near Bennett’s uncle’s house when “a man dressed in a white suit with long bunny ears appeared.” He yelled at the couple that they were on private property and he had their tag number. Then, he threw a wood-handled hatchet through the front car window. Luckily, neither of them was hurt.5 This article takes an almost comical tone, starting “Fairfax County Police said yesterday they are looking for a man who likes to wear ‘a white bunny rabbit costume’ and throw hatchets through car windows. Honest.” After yelling at the couple in the car and throwing his hatchet through the right front car window, the “‘rabbit’ skipped off into the night.”6
Bunny Man Bridge, Clifton (Matthew Eng Photo)
Two weeks later, the Bunny Man showed up again about a block away from his original sighting, according to an October 31 Washington Post article. Private security guard Paul Phillips spotted him on the front porch of a new, but unoccupied house. He was holding an ax. In the piece, Phillips recounted what happened next: “I started talking to him and that’s when he started chopping.” Taking several swings at a pole on the porch, he threatened Phillips, “All you people trespass around here. If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to bust you on the head.”7 This article, though just as short, is a little less jovial, mentioning that he “was wielding an ax and chopping at the roof of a new house.” The article also described him as “about 5-feet-8, 160 pounds and appeared to be in his early 20s.”8
The Fairfax County Police Department has no official record of the October 18 assault on Robert Bennett and his fiancé, but they do have an Investigation Report relating to the vandalism incident. The case was turned over to Investigator W. L. Johnson of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. Johnson found no concrete leads, though he got a tip from a caller claiming to have been threatened by an “Axe Man”:
[The] caller claimed to have just received a telephone call from someone identifying himself as “the Axe Man.” The Axe Man allegedly said “Mr. _____, you have been messing up my property, by dumping tree stumps, limbs and brush, and other things on the property.” The Axe Man further stated that “you can make everything right, by meeting me tonight and talking about the situation.” The representative from Kings Park West stated that the caller sounded to be a white male in his late teens or early 20s. The police set up a stake out, but the “Axe Man” never materialized.9
Brian Conley, “Local History: The Bunny Man Unmasked”
Johnson did not find any information that would allow him to pursue the case further, so he marked the case inactive on March 14, 1971. Conley speculates that the stories’ references to trespassing match the rapid development of the area. However, he also points out that the urban legend-like details began to emerge less than two weeks after the events in these two articles were reported. And so the Bunny Man retreated into the mists of legend. To date, there are a number of Bunnyman horror films and published stories with variations of the tale. This variation seems to be those gruesome, and frightening—weaving both aspects of the tale into one:
A couple of teens were driving with their girlfriends, looking to scare them. They decided to go out to the old railroad bridge where the Bunny Man was killed. It was almost midnight. The boys stopped under the bridge and dragged the scared girls out of the car, teasing them that the ghost of the Bunny Man would get them. The teasing became too much for one of the girls, who pushed the boys away and ran out from under the bridge into the road. At that moment, at the exact stroke of midnight, she saw a bright flash of light under the bridge. When the light faded, she saw her friends’ bodies mutilated and hanging from the bridge, and their car had a bloody ax stuck into the windshield. Ever since that night, local kids gather every Halloween at Bunny Man Bridge–but they all scatter before midnight, as none want to be caught under the bridge when the Bunny Man comes.10
Brandon Coon, “Legend Research. The Bunny Man”
It’s never far from the minds of its residents, however. In 2018, a man’s body was found near the bridge:
He was found along the 6500 block of Colchester Road in Fairfax Station by a nearby resident just before 7 a.m. Cooker’s body was about 900 feet from what’s known as the Bunny Man Bridge. The railroad bridge is part of an urban legend, which draws hordes of teenagers to the rural area of Fairfax County every Halloween . . . ‘And certainly it’s ironic it popped up near the Bunny Man Bridge,’ said [a police officer].11
Peggy Fox, Man Found Dead in Fairfax Co. near Urban Legend Spot” (WUSA9)
The article is careful to point out there is no connection between the legend and the man’s death.
Listen to the Uncanny America Podcast featuring Offbeat NOVA HERE.
Footnotes:
Ally Schweitzer, “The True Story Of The Bunnyman, Northern Virginia’s Most Gruesome Urban Legend.” WAMU, WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio, October 31, 2017. Accessed October 30, 2020. LINK.
Brandon Coon, “Legend Research: The Bunny Man.” bulb, n.d. Accessed October 30, 2020, LINK.
Brian Conley, “Local History: The Bunny Man Unmasked,” Research Center Guides. Accessed October 30, 2020, LINK.
Matt Blitz, “The Scary, Weird, Somewhat True Story of the Fairfax ‘Bunny Man’: Washingtonian (DC).” Washingtonian, October 23, 2015. Accessed October 30, 2020, LINK.
Blitz, “Scary, Weird, Somewhat True.”
“Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax,” Washington Post, Oct 22, 1970.
Blitz, “Scary, Weird, Somewhat True.”
“The ‘Rabbit’ Reappears,” Washington Post, Oct. 31, 1970.
Conley, “Bunny Man Unmasked.”
Coon, “Legend Research.”
Peggy Fox, “Man Found Dead in Fairfax Co. near Urban Legend Spot,” wusa9.com, April 18, 2018. Accessed October 30, 2020, LINK.
Offbeat NOVA 