Paula C. Squires// May 31, 2018//
Wegmans will open a new 120,000-square-foot store in Chantilly at 7 a.m. on Sunday, June 3. The store is the New York-based regional supermarket’s 11th in Virginia and 97th store overall.
Located at The Field at Commonwealth near the intersection of Route 28 and Westfields Boulevard in Chantilly, the store will offer more than 60,000 products and 4,000 organic items.
Online grocery shopping is available with deliveries by Instacart to customers' doors.
Among the new store's highlights, and a first in Virginia, will be a Burger Bar, a casual restaurant with a menu of burgers, fresh salads, soup, and margaritas. In preparation for The Burger Bar's debut in Virginia, the store’s executive chef, Halit Ozdemir, trained at Wegmans' original location near its headquarters in Rochester, N.Y.
In Chantilly, Ozdemir will oversee a staff of 130 as employees prepare restaurant food ranging from barbecue to made-to-order salads and Italian pizza baked in a brick-hearth oven. Customers can choose to take out or dine in, with indoor and outdoor seating for nearly 300 people.
Wegmans said in a press release that Ozdemir and Wegmans Store Manager Brien MacKendrick spent months screening and interviewing to hire 500 employees, the majority of whom are new to the company and were hired locally. More than 5,000 people are part of Wegmans' workforce in Virginia, and that number will grow with future store locations slated for Virginia Beach, Tysons Corner, Alexandria (Carlyle), and Arcola.
Companywide, Wegman Food Markets Inc. employs about 48,000 people in six states, with stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts. According to its website, the private family-owned company had $8.7 billion in annual sales in 2017.
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