Metropolitan Washington Summer Restaurant Week runs Monday, August 24 through Sunday, August 30, and this year the Reston lineup is one of the strongest it has been. Ten Reston restaurants are serving special three-course menus, with two more in Herndon. If you have been circling a place for months without booking it, this is the week the math finally works in your favor.
The pricing is set by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, which runs the event across the region. Brunch and lunch land at $25 or $35 per person. Dinner comes in at $40, $55, or $65. Restaurants pick their tier and build a three-course menu around it, so a $65 dinner at a steakhouse and a $40 dinner at a pub are both part of the same week.
Reston Station
The Reston Station cluster gives you the most options within a short walk of the Wiehle-Reston East Metro.
Big Buns Reston Station is running a $25 lunch. Burgers, a full bar, and the easiest price of the week.
Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse at 1902 Reston Metro Plaza is participating. Check the RAMW listing for its tier before you book, since the published Reston roundup did not include a price.
Founding Farmers Reston is at $35 for lunch and $40 for dinner. The dinner tier here is the lowest of any full-service dinner menu on the Reston list.
The Simon at Reston Station is the splurge. Brunch and lunch run $35, dinner runs $65. The Mid-Atlantic menu is the reason a lot of people book this one months ahead.
Reston Town Center and nearby
Heirloom is dinner only, at $55 or $65 depending on the menu you choose.
Makers Union is running $25 lunch and $40 dinner, which makes it one of the better value plays in the Town Center.
Morton’s The Steakhouse goes $35 at lunch and $65 at dinner. A steakhouse three-course at $65 is the kind of thing Restaurant Week exists for.
North Italia is at $25 for brunch and lunch, $40 for dinner.
PassionFish runs $35 brunch and lunch, $55 dinner. Seafood and sushi, and the dining room fills fast on Friday and Saturday.
Pisco y Nazca Ceviche Gastrobar is $25 to $35 for brunch and lunch, $40 at dinner. Peruvian, and the ceviche flight is worth the trip on its own.
Herndon
Two Herndon spots are in as well, and neither one made the Reston roundups.
Big Buns Franklin Farm at 13300 Franklin Farm Road is participating alongside its Reston Station sibling. Same burgers, a shorter drive if you live on the west side of the parkway.
Wiseguy Pizza in Herndon at 1142 Elden Street is also on the RAMW roster. New York style, thin crust, and a Restaurant Week menu is a rare thing to see from a pizzeria.
Confirm the exact menus and price tiers for both Herndon locations directly with the restaurant, since the local coverage this year focused on the Reston list.
Reading the price tiers
The tiers matter more than they look. A $25 lunch and a $35 lunch are both three courses, so the gap usually reflects the regular menu behind it rather than the size of the meal. At dinner, the $40 tier tends to come from restaurants whose regular entrees already sit in the twenties, which makes the discount modest and the risk low. The $65 tier is where the arithmetic gets interesting, because a Morton’s or Simon three-course at full price runs well past that.
Two practical reads on the Reston list. If you want the biggest gap between Restaurant Week price and normal price, look at the steakhouse dinners. If you want the best absolute deal, look at the $25 lunches, where you can eat three courses at Big Buns, North Italia, or Makers Union for what a sandwich and a drink costs most places in the Town Center.
Parking and timing
Reston Town Center garage parking is free Monday through Friday after 5 p.m. and free all day Saturday and Sunday, which covers almost every Restaurant Week dinner reservation you might book. Street parking is the one to avoid: it runs $3 for the first hour Monday through Saturday and caps at two hours, which is tight for a three-course meal. At Reston Station, use the garage and walk. Wiehle-Reston East puts you at Founding Farmers or Davio’s in a couple of minutes. If you are coming from Herndon or Great Falls, give yourself an extra ten minutes on Reston Parkway between 6 and 7.
How to actually get a table
A few things save people trouble every August.
- Menus differ by meal. Some restaurants are running lunch only, some are dinner only, and a handful add brunch on the weekend. Read the specific menu before you assume your favorite time slot exists.
- Book early in the week if you can. Monday through Wednesday reservations open up far more easily than Friday and Saturday, and the kitchen is less slammed.
- Tax, tip, and drinks sit on top of the listed price. A $40 dinner for two with a bottle of wine lands closer to $140 all in.
- Some restaurants cap the number of Restaurant Week covers per night. If the online booking tool shows nothing, call. Phones still work.
- Menus keep getting added to the RAMW site through the week, so a restaurant missing today may appear tomorrow.
What a week like this says about Reston
Restaurant Week is a fun excuse to eat well, and it also puts something on display that shapes what people pay to live here. Ten participating restaurants inside one Fairfax County community is not a normal number. Vienna had one. That density comes from two walkable cores, Reston Town Center and Reston Station, sitting three Metro stops apart on the Silver Line.
Buyers notice it. When we show homes in South Lakes, Sunset Hills, or the condos above Reston Station, dining walkability comes up in the first ten minutes almost as often as schools do. It is one of the few amenities in Northern Virginia you can test on a Tuesday night before you write an offer. Herndon’s downtown has been building its own version of this over the past several years, and the two Restaurant Week entries there are a small marker of that.
If you are house hunting this fall, use the week for reconnaissance. Book a dinner in a neighborhood you are considering, park where you would actually park, and walk the block afterward. You will learn more about how a place feels at 8 p.m. than any listing photo will tell you.
The short version
August 24 through 30. Ten Reston restaurants, two in Herndon. Brunch and lunch at $25 or $35, dinner at $40, $55, or $65. Check each menu before booking, because the meal periods vary more than the prices do. Full participant list and menus live on the RAMW Restaurant Week page.
Then tell us which one you tried. We are always taking recommendations, and we keep a running list of the places we send buyers to on their first weekend in a new house.
Kathy and I sell homes across Reston, Herndon, and the rest of Northern Virginia, and the food scene is one of the parts of this job that never feels like work. If you are thinking about a move here, or out of here, we are happy to talk it through with no pressure attached.
