Eataly comes to Tysons in 2027. It will hire like several restaurants at once, because it is several restaurants.
Eataly and Macerich confirmed the deal on July 22. Two levels, an exterior entrance, restaurants plus a market. For Northern Virginia operators the story is the hiring, not the pasta.
Eataly and the mall’s owner Macerich confirmed on July 22 that Eataly will open at Tysons Corner Center in 2027. It is the company’s first location in Virginia and its first in the Washington region.
It takes the former American Girl store, which closed in January, a two-level space with interior mall access and its own exterior entrance. Virginia Business has reported that space as 23,000 square feet, though Eataly has not said how much of it it will occupy.
Eataly runs 69 locations in 16 countries, 20 of them in the United States and Canada. The format is seated restaurants, quick-service counters and a market of Italian products under one roof. How many restaurant concepts go into Tysons has not been announced, and neither has a jobs number or an opening month.
What it means for nearby operators
A single Eataly is not a threat to an independent restaurant in Vienna or Falls Church. What arrives with it is.
It hires like several restaurants at once, because it is several restaurants at once, plus a retail operation and usually a bakery and a counter program. That is line cooks, bakers, servers, counter staff, cheesemongers and stock, recruited into a Northern Virginia market where the wage floor steps to $13.75 in January and $15.00 the year after.
It is one piece of a larger repositioning. Macerich has announced roughly $100 million of work at Tysons Corner Center, described as $66 million of retailer investment and $45 million of mall improvements, figures that do not add to $100 million as published. The aim is to turn the west end into a walkable dining and entertainment district. Haidilao, the Chinese hot pot chain, has filed building plans for the food hall space.
The larger change is that a regional mall is converting a department-store footprint into a dining district, and the anchors of that district are an Italian marketplace and a hot pot chain rather than a retailer.
And it will need alcohol licenses, plural, for a multi-restaurant format. No ABC filing has appeared yet, and a business entity registration is not a license.
The undisclosed numbers
Eataly has not disclosed its square footage, its concept count, its investment or its headcount. Any published figures are inferred. The licensing and permit record is where the shape of the operation shows up first.
