Mpanadas, a family-owned empanada and coffee cafe on Columbia Pike in Arlington, is building out its second location at 11503 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 10, in Reston. Fairfax County has issued the permits for the work: a tenant build-out permit filed in July and a plumbing permit filed Oct. 7, both listed in the county’s PLUS system.
Co-owner Jesse Correa told What Now D.C. in September that the team hoped to finish construction in early November and open after that. The Burn first reported the expansion on Sept. 15. No opening date has been set.
The shop is in Sunrise Valley Center, just west of Wiehle Avenue
Sunrise Valley Center is a small cluster of shops and offices on Sunrise Valley Drive just west of Wiehle Avenue, near the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station. Its tenants include El Super Market, a Mexican grocery with a kitchen, a dental office and several service shops, and FFXnow reported last year that Simply Social Coffee planned a cafe in the same center. The Reston cafe will have about 16 seats, according to What Now, slightly more than the Arlington shop.
Every empanada costs $6.35, and breakfast runs all day
The Arlington menu lists every empanada at $6.35. The Beef Papa holds ground beef with potato, peas and carrots, and the lineup also includes a cheeseburger, a Philly, chicken pesto, tangy barbecue, the vegetarian Golden Melt and SpinArt, and the Bombay, a vegan lentil and curry filling. Breakfast empanadas, the Maple Bacon and Chorizo Ranchero, are served all day. Many of the fillings are halal, and the empanadas come stamped with the cafe’s llama.
Mpanadas runs a full espresso bar, with seasonal lattes such as pumpkin pie and apple butter and a horchata latte. Gelato flavors include guava, lucuma and chirimoya. Correa told What Now that the Reston menu will match Arlington’s.
A family started the cafe in 2022
Jesse Correa, Gabriela Rojas and Paola Herbas own Mpanadas, which the family describes as Marcelo Herbas’s idea. The Columbia Pike cafe opened in 2023. The Reston shop will be its second.
For residents of the apartments and condos around the Wiehle-Reston East station, Sunrise Valley Center is within walking distance, and an empanada and coffee counter adds a quick breakfast and lunch stop on that stretch of Sunrise Valley Drive. We will add Mpanadas to our guide to coffee shops in Reston and Herndon when it opens.
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