The new Wong’s Tacos will be behind the Hanover PBR location. (Courtesy S.L. Nusbaum)
One of the region’s biggest restaurant groups is going back for seconds in Hanover.
EAT Restaurant Partners is preparing to open a location of its Wong’s Tacos concept at 9206 Rutlandshire Drive.
The group will build the 4,000-square-foot restaurant in a stand-alone building on a plot it just bought for $525,000.
It will be adjacent to an existing location of EAT’s Pizza & Beer of Richmond, which it opened in 2021. EAT president Chris Tsui said the company had spent the last few years looking for more space in the Atlee area.
“We felt like we knew the area and that we wanted another concept in Hanover,” Tsui said.
Chris Tsui
The Hanover Wong’s Tacos will have the same menu and general layout as the other Wong’s locations, Tsui said. EAT debuted the concept in Short Pump in 2019 as a spinoff of its downtown Latin-Asian fusion restaurant Wong Gonzalez. It added a second in Midlothian last year amid a push to expand the brand outside the Richmond market. The first out-of-town Wong’s Tacos is set to open in Raleigh in early 2025.
Tsui said the company plans to break ground on the Hanover location before the end of the year with eyes on a spring 2025 opening.
Michael Pellis Architecture is designing the restaurant. Design Therapy is its interior designer and Tsui said he expects to select a general contractor in the next 60 days. S.L. Nusbaum’s Austin Newman and Nathan Shor represented EAT in the land deal, and Thalhimer’s David Smith represented the seller.
Outside of the Wong’s expansion, EAT is also working on bringing back one of its previous concepts, Foo Dog, in Scott’s Addition.
The ramen bar will open at 3017 W. Leigh St., an industrial building where EAT previously planned on opening a food hall. Foo Dog will take part of the 17,000-square-foot building and the remainder will be divided into retail or office space. Tsui said Foo Dog’s timeline hasn’t been decided.
EAT also recently sold off a property at 7 N. 17th St. in Shockoe Bottom, where it previously operated fried chicken spot Hot Chick. It had bought the building for $525,000 in 2017. It’s sat vacant since Hot Chick closed last year and in late August EAT sold it for $770,000 to an entity tied to the owner of Casa Herradura Family Mexican Restaurant in Ashland, who couldn’t be reached.