Between 10698 and 10955 Fairfax Boulevard, a stretch of strip-center storefronts and one big Asian supermarket, Fairfax City picked up four new places to eat this year. One serves Pennsylvania-diner brunch inside a brewery. Two serve hand-pulled or hand-ripped noodles. The fourth, a Vietnamese pho-and-banh-mi shop, is building out in a former Tex-Mex space. In Old Town, the year's big restaurant news was a closing. An eight-year-old brewpub on University Drive shut in July, and its space has no named replacement.
From here to the end of the year, Old Town Square's busiest dates come from the City of Fairfax's own calendar: a holiday market over two weekends, a tree lighting, and Santa photos for pets.
Four Addresses, One Short Stretch of Fairfax Boulevard
The new places sit within about 260 street numbers of each other. Here's where each one stood heading into late October.
| Place | Address | What it serves | Status heading into November |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ji Bei Chuan Noodle House | 10698 Fairfax Blvd. | Hand-pulled noodles, Sichuan dishes | Listed among new Northern Virginia restaurants in August 2026 |
| Chin's Xi'An Style Restaurant | Inside 99 Ranch Market, 10780 Fairfax Blvd. | Xi'an-style hand-ripped noodles | The restaurant's own site lists a September 2026 opening and still marks Fairfax "coming soon" |
| Brian's Brunch-A-Torium | Audacious Aleworks, 10940 Fairfax Blvd., Suite E | Diner-style breakfast, waffles, coffee, lattes | Open weekends from 10 a.m. |
| Roll Play | Fairfax Pointe, 10955 Fairfax Blvd., Suite 100 | Pho, rice bowls, fresh rolls, vermicelli bowls, banh mi | Slated for November 2026 |
The noodle shops came first. In its August 5, 2026 roundup of new Northern Virginia restaurants, Northern Virginia Magazine listed two Fairfax entries, and both came from this strip. Ji Bei Chuan Noodle House, at 10698 Fairfax Blvd., builds its menu around hand-pulled noodles and Sichuan heat. That means beef noodle soup, dan dan noodles, braised beef noodles and spicy wontons, plus housemade dumplings and scallion pancakes.
Chin's Xi'An Style Restaurant takes its cue from Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province. Its signature dish is the Three-in-One Hand-Ripped Noodles, served three ways: hot-oil seared, with pork zhajiang bean sauce, and with tomato and egg. FFXnow reported in July that it would open inside 99 Ranch Market in August. Its date has moved. The Chin's locations page now gives "Opening Sept 2026" for Fairfax, still marks the location "Coming soon," and is hiring kitchen and cashier staff. Check that page before you plan a 99 Ranch grocery run around lunch there.
Put the two together and there are now two separate takes on wheat-noodle cooking from western China, a few storefronts apart, with a Vietnamese pho counter about to join them. Until this year, nobody in Fairfax City was serving hand-ripped Xi'an noodles.
The Brunch Counter Inside a Brewery
Brian's Brunch-A-Torium is the corridor's weekend-morning spot. FFXnow covered its debut in January. The Pennsylvania-style diner concept opened with events on January 24 and 25 inside Audacious Aleworks, serving breakfast plates, waffles, coffee and lattes. Its own website says it's open at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The site doesn't give a brunch closing time, so get there earlier rather than later.
A brewery taproom usually fills in the late afternoon and evening, and a brunch counter puts the same room to work on weekend mornings. In a part of the city made up mostly of parking lots and shopping-center frontage, that adds a weekend-morning reason to stop on the Boulevard.
Roll Play Arrives in a Familiar Storefront
The last Boulevard opening of the year goes into a space plenty of locals already know. Moe's Southwest Grill closed its Fairfax Pointe location at 10955 Fairfax Blvd. on July 31, after five years. According to FFXnow's September report, Roll Play is now building out that Suite 100 space and expects to open in November. As of early October, the Roll Play website still listed Fairfax as coming in November 2026, with no specific day.
This will be Roll Play's first Fairfax City location. The fast-casual Vietnamese concept started on Leesburg Pike in Tysons in late 2015. It serves pho, rice bowls, fresh rolls, vermicelli salad bowls and banh mi, and you can order each with set ingredients or build your own. Its owner, Happy Endings Hospitality, also runs Chasin' Tails and Nue. The restaurant's Instagram called Fairfax "our most exciting location yet" and said it has "a whole new vision for what Roll Play can be, and Fairfax is where it comes to life," as FFXnow reported in the same story. The company told FFXnow more details would come "in the coming weeks."
Old Town's Year Ran the Other Direction
On the downtown blocks, the biggest restaurant story of 2026 was a goodbye. Ornery Beer Company's brewpub at 3950 University Drive, Suite 106, closed on Sunday, July 26, after nearly eight years in Old Town Fairfax. In FFXnow's coverage of the closing, founder Randy Barnette explained why the Fairfax City pub had a harder time than the company's newer Herndon restaurant. He said it was competing with other businesses for a smaller residential population in the immediate area around Old Town Fairfax. He also called Fairfax City a "second home," a connection that goes back to his time at George Mason University in the late 1980s. The three-barrel brewing system from the Fairfax pub is moving to Ornery's Bristow taproom, and the Herndon location stays open.
His point about the residential base helps explain this year's map. Every new place on the Boulevard opened in a shopping center or inside a regional grocery anchor, 99 Ranch, where traffic doesn't depend on the people living within walking distance. The former Ornery space had no publicly named replacement as of this writing.
The city's other long-running closing this year happened outside Old Town. Mamma Lucia, at 9650 Main St., Suite 40, in Fair City Mall, served its last pizza on Sunday, May 3, after cooking for shoppers and Cinema Arts Theatres moviegoers since August 1987. FFXnow noted that the space had been listed as available since at least mid-April.
Old Town Square Fills Up on the City's Schedule
Through December, Old Town's busiest days are the ones the City of Fairfax schedules for it. The Parks and Recreation calendar from now through mid-December runs in this order:
- Holiday Craft Show, November 21 and 22. The 40th annual show runs Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It isn't downtown. It takes place at Fairfax High School, 3501 Lion Run.
- Holiday Market, first weekend, December 4 through 6. The 10th annual market sets up at Old Town Square, 10415 North St. Hours are Friday 5 to 8 p.m., Saturday noon to 6 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. More than 30 local artisans and vendors rotate in each weekend, so the booths change from the first weekend to the second.
- Festival of Lights and Carols, Saturday, December 5. It runs from noon to 6 p.m. on Old Town Square, overlapping the market. The plan includes live holiday music, free s'mores, warm cider and children's crafts. Photos with Santa run from 3 to 5 p.m., and the tree lighting ceremony starts at 5:30 p.m. The city says the performance schedule will be posted in November.
- Holiday Market, second weekend, December 11 through 13. The hours are the same as the first weekend, with a new set of vendors.
- Paws and Claus, Sunday, December 13, 1 to 4 p.m. The market page lists free Santa photos for dogs and other pets on Old Town Square. Bring your own camera.
Saturday, December 5, is the busiest single day, with the market, Santa, s'mores and the tree lighting all in one afternoon on the same square. Some day labels at the top of the city's market page don't match the 2026 calendar. Use the dated schedule listed under "When" on that page, which is what the dates above follow.
Putting Both Ends of the City on One Calendar
Your next two months can draw on both parts of the city. Here's one way to fit them together:
- A November Saturday morning: brunch at Brian's Brunch-A-Torium inside Audacious Aleworks, which opens at 10 a.m.
- A weeknight noodle comparison: Ji Bei Chuan's dan dan noodles at 10698 Fairfax Blvd., then, once Chin's opens, its Three-in-One Hand-Ripped Noodles inside 99 Ranch at 10780.
- Whenever Roll Play announces its date: pho or a build-your-own banh mi at Fairfax Pointe, in the old Moe's space at 10955 Fairfax Blvd.
- The weekend before Thanksgiving: gift shopping at the Holiday Craft Show at Fairfax High School.
- December 5: the Holiday Market on Old Town Square in the afternoon, and the tree lighting at 5:30 p.m.
- December 13: Paws and Claus from 1 to 4 p.m., the last afternoon of the market.
At Wasinger & Co, we keep track of what opens, what closes and what moves into empty storefronts across Fairfax City, because it changes how a block lives day to day. If you're wondering how the new Boulevard openings or the empty brewpub space downtown might affect your street, ask us. Get Your Free Home Valuation, and we'll tie the numbers to the neighborhood around you.
