New Downtown Venue Has Deep Historic District Roots

BY NORMAN K. STYER

Industry statistics put the median life of a restaurant at under three years; less than half will still be in business a decade after opening their doors. Leesburg restauranter Fabian Saeidi certainly has beaten those odds, celebrating 50 years of serving diners on King Street.

And he’s marking the anniversary with a bold refresh of the restaurant he opened in 1973. The Green Tree Tavern at that time was a rare fine-dining option in a still-rural county. It became a destination for diners from DC who enjoyed the 30-minute drive to the country. Leesburg was on the cusp of its first growth spurt and Saeidi recalls strong support he received from then-mayor Kenny Rollins and the town staff to bring that dining to the downtown area. In ensuing years, he opened additional restaurants downtown and continues to operate the Colonial Inn and King’s Tavern and Wine Bar.

The original Green Tree restaurant was built on Leesburg’s reputation as a colonial town, with a themed menu featuring 18th century fare. In 2010, the restaurant was rebranded as the Old Town Grill, focused on steaks and seafood. The restaurant closed at the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

During the ensuing two years, the space underwent its most significant renovation and reopened late last summer as the Green Tree Tavern Sports Bar and Grill. The restaurant features a large wraparound bar as its centerpiece, surrounded by 16 beer taps and 11 televisions screening sporting events from football to horse racing. There’s also on TASTE CONTINUED ON 11

TASTE FROM PAGE 10 emphasis on serving high-quality food, with Chef Rick Renzi creating sports bar favorites with the elevated flavors of a gastropub. For Renzi the venture is a return home after following his passion for cooking to The Culinary Institute of America and restaurants in New York City and Philadelphia. His influences include the diverse cultures of his Flushing Meadows neighborhood in New York City as a youth, the favors of his Italian family and Asian fusions learned from working with Chef Patrick Dihn at Tuscarora Mill. Time spent working at the CoOp Restaurant in Philadelphia’s University City resulted in the creation of what now is one of the new Green Tree’s signature treats—a steak and cheese eggroll.

Renzi recalls entering the culinary institute with a class of 180 students. That roster quickly was whittled down to about 40 survivors.

“It’s a hard industry. We don’t get a lot of fame. We don’t get a lot of accolades. But if you love what you’re doing and have a passion for it, you’ll succeed in it. I always knew that was my outlet,” Renzi said. “It just escalated for me and I really do love this stuff of creating food.”

Renzi’s return to Loudoun came with through a personal connection to the Saeidi family. At Loudoun County High School, he played on the football team with Cyrus Saeidi, one of Fabian’s sons, who after a stint in software sales returned to help with the family businesses and manage the new Green Tree.

The former teammates hadn’t seen each other for more than five years when Cyrus called Renzi to see if he would be interested in the new project.

“We were looking for a chef and I knew he had a great background as a chef. He went to Culinary Institute of America, worked in some great kitchens and things like that,” Cyrus said. “My dad was really impressed by him. We brought him on board pretty quickly. That was in June, and then from there it took us another about three months to get the restaurant open. Aug. 11 was our first day that we reopened to the public.”

“He’s worked in some really impressive kitchens. When we originally drew up our menu, we had a lot of great upscale options on there. We rolled those out to the public a little bit, but we just noticed more people were kind of going for a few cold drinks and the fried foods like the chicken tenders, the pretzel bites, things like that,” he added.

They backed off the fancier stuff for a bit, but are planning to roll out an expanded menu in the weeks ahead.

“We’ve been experimenting with our specials and things like that to see what people are enjoying, or what has been selling well, and different things like that. And that’s kind of given us some information to see, hey, maybe we can put this on our big menu,” Cyrus said.

While the sports bar vision is to fill the place with cheering fans on game day, the staff is seeing strong patronage from young families looking for an affordable food and drink experience outside the brewery scene. And, late night, you’ll likely find a large gathering of servers, bartenders and staff from other Leesburg restaurants who have adopted the Green Tree for their coming-off-shift wind down.

“We’re in the people industry at the end of the day. I’ve realized this industry purely based around people,” Renzi said. “The better you can make somebody feel if they’re choosing to spend their hard-earned money on us and we better make it as good as we possibly can. Because you want to leave a place feeling good. You want to leave with a smile, and that’s our main goal, is to make sure people are happy leaving here. If they’re not happy coming in, we’re gonna make sure they leave happy. That’s for sure.”

HAPPENINGS FROM PAGE 6

ValenTUNES will take place from 5:30 to 10 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 14, at Ion Arena in Leesburg. Tickets are $200 per couple and include a gourmet buffet dinner, an assortment of desserts, wine or champagne, and ice skate rental. The event also will feature live music by Jumptown.

Proceeds from ValenTUNES will be combined with proceeds of BENEFIT’s 2022 Crossroads Music Festival, which was held in September, to fund grants awarded to nonprofit organizations in spring through an application process.

Established in 2017, BENEFIT is a coalition of musicians and community leaders with the mission of uniting people with music to raise funds and awareness for nonprofit organizations serving children in Loudoun County. Learn more at benefit.live.