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Chao Ban, a new fast-casual restaurant blending Vietnamese cuisine with Louisiana influences, is scheduled to open March 10 at Tysons Galleria.
The 36-seat restaurant will occupy the third-floor food hall at 2001 International Drive. It comes from Kevin Tien, a 2024 James Beard Award finalist for Outstanding Chef who is best known for the Washington, D.C., restaurant Moon Rabbit.
Tien developed Chao Ban with longtime business partner Alan Vo. The concept draws on their shared experiences as first-generation Vietnamese Americans raised in Louisiana.
Its name translates to “Hello, friend.” The menu will include pho, banh mi sandwiches, chicken and pork belly rice platters, fried spring rolls, chicken wings, shrimp chips and cabbage salad.
Several sandwiches combine Vietnamese ingredients with flavors associated with the American South. The “Catfished” banh mi features buttermilk-fried catfish, curry spices and hot-honey cucumber. The “Hot in Herre” pairs Nashville-style hot chicken with Sichuan spices, cilantro, jalapeño, cucumber, chili oil, pickled carrots and daikon.
Vietnamese coffee and tea, sesame rice milk and seasonal limeade will join the menu after the restaurant’s initial opening.
Vo will serve as managing partner, overseeing daily operations while helping shape the menu and customer experience. His hospitality career began in Morgan City, Louisiana, where he learned to cook alongside his mother before Tien invited him to Washington.
The partners previously opened Hot Lola’s, a hot chicken sandwich restaurant that remains in Ballston after its Rosslyn location closed in December. Chao Ban is their second venture together.
Tien’s Moon Rabbit reopened in Penn Quarter in January 2024. Its original location at the InterContinental hotel had abruptly closed a year earlier amid a unionization campaign by the hotel’s food-service employees.
Chao Ban is taking over the former Sen Khao space, which has largely remained vacant since Tysons Galleria relaunched its food hall in 2022. Sen Khao, a Laotian restaurant, debuted there in December 2018 as part of the former Taste of Urbanspace food hall. The space later briefly hosted a pop-up from Ghanaian farmers market vendor Hedzole.
Urbanspace left as operator in summer 2023 after the food hall struggled to build momentum following the pandemic. Mall owner GGP, formerly known as Brookfield Properties, has since pursued what it describes as a more curated but approachable mix of tenants.
The third floor now includes Andy’s Pizza, Shotted, Bird’s Eye Thai, Scolapasta, Rabbit Taco and Char’d. GGP said Chao Ban completes its vision for the Level 3 food hall after a period of stronger performance and improved tenant alignment.
Tysons Galleria General Manager Rich Dinning said Tien’s culinary vision and national reputation would bring additional energy and depth to the dining area.
GGP initiated the Chao Ban partnership after previously providing the Ballston Quarter space for Hot Lola’s. Elsewhere in the mall, recent arrivals include home-linens retailer Emissary, located on the third floor near Neiman Marcus.