Mussel Bar & Grille to Open Thursday in Ballston

Chef Robert Wiedmaier will open his third Mussel Bar & Grille on Thursday at 800 N. Glebe Road in Ballston — the one-time home of the Bob Peck Chevrolet Dealership. The first launched in Bethesda, Md., in 2010, and a second subsequently opened in Atlantic City, N.J.

Construction crews and staff started putting the final touches on the establishment last week.

The news release announcing the restaurant notes its "retro-modern anachronistic charm."

"Wiedmaier’s offbeat Brussels dive-bar-meets-raw-American industrial look represents a close collaboration with Hapstak Demetriou (the design team behind the other two Mussel Bars, Brasserie Beck and Wildwood Kitchen). Raw and unprocessed materials give the space an edge – showing up in unexpected places from the construction crane purse hooks at the bar, to the clean, linear stretch of the stainless steel counters along the open kitchen," it states.

The bar and grill will offer more than 100 Belgian and craft beers. Cocktails include the “NoVa” (with Titos Vodka, hand-squeezed grapefruit, house-made ginger syrup and cinnamon) and the “Greenbrier” (with Smooth Ambler Whitewater Vodka, strawberry purée, basil syrup, and house-made lime rhubarb bitters).

The menu features domestic mussels brick oven-fired pizzas, soups, salads and sandwiches, plus premium beef cuts, short smoked Atlantic salmon, grilled swordfish and spiced and grilled rare Ahi tuna.

Beginning the week of Labor Day, Mussel Bar and Grill will be open Tuesday through Sunday. It seats 244 people inside, 54 outside.