Malones Restaurant Flourishes Because of Personal Connection to Patrons

Kevin Malone says every time he steps into his new Old Town Manassas restaurant and sees his patrons, it’s like a high school class reunion.

 Let’s just hope he wasn’t teased mercilessly in school.

 It’s been eight weeks since Malones of Manassas opened in the heart of Old Town, nestled unexpectedly in a refurbish old Presbyterian church that was built just after the Civil War.

 On Thursday afternoon, Malone sat around his restaurant’s new, gleaming granite-topped bar with his marketing team—two people he knows well and has personal ties to. 

Upstairs, in the former church sanctuary, his chef and the restaurant’s team work quietly at a group of tables clustered near the old church's windows that overlook old town.

Everyone who works at the restaurant are people he knows personally, Malone said.

 Malone moved to Manassas when he was about 6 years old and graduated from Osbourn High School where he was the senior class president.

 “Ninety-five percent of the people that come in here I know from high school ... every single night there’s people in here I grew up with. Every night is like a 30-year high school reunion, ” Malone said.

He went to middle school with many his contemporaries who attended Stonewall Jackson High School and played sports against the folks from Brentsville, Osbourn Park and Manassas Park High Schools, he said.

 The personal connections seem to be working quite well for the business; Malone said the restaurant's Wednesday sales increased 300 percent over sales from the previous Wednesday.

 Trip Advisor ranks Malones number two in customer satisfaction out of  the 120 resturants in the Prince William County area while Northern Virginia Magazine has deemed it a “Hot Spot.”

 The restaurant is on the brink of being even more appealing to its customers; Malone is in the middle of renovating the upstairs into a 40-seat sports bar—the inverse of the set up of the tapas resturant that occupied the building before.

The Malone's bar will be upscale, but more casual than the restaurant below.

When asked about noise from the bar above filtering down to the white linen, contempory American dining area below, Malone said he has consulted an engineer who will put a buffer in the flooring to prevent the sound from traveling.

 The goal is to have the renovations done as soon as possible, but since the building, which was constructed in 1872,  is a historical site, things can’t be done quickly, said Lynn Winston, a member of the Malone’s marketing team.

 “There are certain elements that have to be approved by the National Trust for Historic Preservation,” Winston said.

 They have just secured a contractor for the renovation and there are still permits that have to be approved, Malone said.

 He is hoping to have it complete by year's end.

 Malone said he was talked into leasing the building by a friend. 

“I remember being young and scared of the building because it was so Gothic, but then I started to like it,” he said.

Still he was hesitate about renting the place; he wanted to rent a space in the building at the corner of Church Street and Grant Avenue, but one of the owners of the building didn't want a restaurant inside because he thought it would be too, "smelly," Malone said.

“I said, ‘no, there’s been 10 to 12 places to come through there,’ he worked on me for a few more months and then I said, ‘sure,’” Malone said.

Most recently, the building was home to a tapas restaurant which shuttered one year before Malone’s Feb. 1 opening.