In the event you had been planning on stopping by The Apple Store, Pottery Barn or any other chain retailer in the same shopping center in Clarendon today, you will want to call first before heading over. The popular retail center, located at 2700 Clarendon Blvd. adjacent to the Market Common apartments, has been struggling with electricity issues for the past two days, and stores along one half of the mall have been closed since Monday due to the outage. Workers installed a large truck-based generator this afternoon to restore power temporarily, and an employee at Pottery Barn told DCist at 4:30 p.m. that they hope to open in the next hour, once the rest of the team reports to work. The Apple Store was closed when this editor went by around noon in the hopes of getting her laptop repaired. Employees at the Pentagon City Apple Store noted that they have been twice as busy as normal today due to overflow customers coming in from Clarendon. more ›

We start off this Monday morning with the very sad news that Star Foster, a co-editor of sister site Phillyist, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday morning. Phillyist will be going dark for a few days out of respect for Foster, who was with the site since its inception. Here at DCist, and across the -ist network, we offer our condolences and thoughts for her friends and family. more ›

Our city, splendid and powerful as it may be, is certainly not very sexy. While DC is infused with a vibrance and energy that other cities may lack, the sights, smells and sounds of a newly opened Pottery Barn, sprung forth from the rubble of a block of Southeast row houses do not provide quite the same sensory scintillation as, say, a South Beach mambo, or a West Village table for two. Capitol Hill sexploits, raving hordes of pre-teen lesbian antichrists, and Top 5 dating status notwithstanding, DC just isn't what pops into mind when we hear "sexy." While this DCist’s short life has hitherto limited his experience with Washingtonian women to middle school nights loitering outside the UA theater in Bethesda and bibulous high school soirees while the ‘rents are away, we recognize that there is an entire city out there just waiting to tear off that tie, kick off those heels, and make some love. more ›

(From DCist contributor Colleen Egan) For an engaged couple, their upcoming wedding brings thoughts of unity: a merging of lives, families, DVD collections. But for a frequent wedding guest, the pending nuptials can spark a bout of separation anxiety. Separating with your cash, that is. From plane fares to rental cars to hotel rooms, the wedding gift might be the only purchase of which you have control. DCist perused the area to find shops with... more ›

(From DCist contributor Amadie Hart) Clarendon, a historic shopping hub in Arlington County that was devastated by the construction associated with the construction of Metro's Orange Line in the 1970s, has undergone a wholesale transformation in the last decade. Small storefront retail and ethnic restaurants have been giving way to larger, chain developments. In recent years, stores such as Crate and Barrel, The Pottery Barn, the Container Store, and Williams Sonoma, and restaurants such as the Cheesecake Factory and Baja Fresh are attracting larger crowds of shoppers and diners. However, a couple of new openings in Clarendon are continuing the retail and restaurant explosion in Arlington's Orange Line corridor with a decidedly more "local" flavor. more ›