D.C.’s Astro Doughnuts & Fried Chicken will open its second Astro Beer Hall on Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia’s Shirlington neighborhood.
The new location, at 4001 Campbell Avenue, was previously occupied by Capital City Brewing Company, which closed in 2018. The new Astro Beer Hall is a follow-up to the original Astro Beer Hall that opened by Metro Center at 1306 G Street NW in 2019.
Like the original, the Shirlington location is a collaboration between Astro Doughnuts owners Elliott Spaisman and Jeff Halpern, and Tin Shop, a bar and restaurant development group founded by Geoff Dawson and Peter Bayne. Their businesses include the Franklin Hall beer hall in D.C.’s Manhattan Laundry Building at 1348 Florida Avenue and restaurant and bar Tall Boy in D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood.
The 14,000-square-foot, two-story Astro Beer Hall in Shirlington includes a 140-seat patio, the largest in the neighborhood, and vintage video games, like Pacman, Asteroids, Pop-A-Shot basketball and ski ball. Many of Astro Doughnut & Fried Chicken’s menu items, including fried chicken sandwiches and yeasted doughnuts, are fried to order by a “doughnut robot.”
The location will add a basement pool hall later this year.
There’s a coffee shop next door with Compass Coffee beverages and a mashup of its doughnuts and coffee, the Astro Shot, which is a Nutella-coated doughnut filled with a shot of Compass espresso and steamed milk.
The bar has 24 tap lines of local beers and other independently owned brews.
In keeping with the “astro” theme, the decor is galactic with murals and other space-themed art. It’s a sports bar, so there are also 20 large-screen displays.
The beer hall is open all day, for breakfast, lunch, happy hour, dinner and weekend brunch.
Astro Doughnuts & Fried Chicken has three locations. In addition to the Metro Center spot, next to the first Astro Beer Hall, it has a pop-up in Shaw and a location in Falls Church.
