Loudoun County’s first Wonder restaurant officially opens this week. The Burn got a sneak preview today and we’re here to walk you though the experience.
We’re talking about the new Wonder at the Fort Evans Plaza II center in Leesburg, which formally opens this Thursday, April 30.
As we’ve been reporting, Wonder is what we are calling a multi-restaurant. It features a single kitchen where meals from 20 or more different restaurants are prepared.
Customers can place an order online via the Wonder website or the Wonder app – or they can walk into the restaurant and order at a digital kiosk.
When their food is ready, it is brought out and placed on a shelf where the customers pick it up.
Like many of the locations, the Wonder in Leesburg has a small dining room with a handful of chairs and tables. Nevertheless, the focus is on carry out and delivery orders.
Today, we went to the Wonder website and chose the Leesburg store. From there, we were presented with a long list of restaurants to choose from.
The list includes Detroit Brick Pizza Co., Royal Greens, Bobby Flay Steak, Burger Baby, El Diez Mexican Bowls, Hanu Poke, Streetbird, Tejas Barbecue, Wing Trip, and many others.
We chose to get a Philly cheesesteak and fries from a brand called Fred’s Meat & Bread. We placed the order and got a notice about 15 minutes later that it was ready.
We also ordered a can of cold soda that was placed inside a separate plastic bag so the condensation wouldn’t soak our food or the larger paper sack our food was in. We thought this was a nice touch.
The Wonder in Leesburg is only the first of at least three Wonder locations headed to Loudoun County.
Additional stores are in the works for the Cascades Marketplace shopping center in Sterling and the Broadlands Village Center in Ashburn.
There are at least five other Wonder locations open in Northern Virginia, including one The Burn told readers about previously in Reston.