Mango Mike's Building to Be Demolished for ALDI Grocery Store

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The restaurant building long known as Mango Mike’s on Duke Street will be demolished to make way for a new ALDI grocery store, according to planning documents filed with the City of Alexandria.

Mango Mike’s poured its last ”Mangorita” in December 2013, eventually making way for a Mexican restaurant that closed fairly quickly.

The new ALDI grocery store will be more than 17,000 square feet, incorporating a modern and sustainable design, according to the planning documents. ALDI stores are known for being no-frills, passing along savings to customers, with no music, no pharmacies or banks in its stores. They don’t take credit cards either (only cash, debit and EBT cards). But it all equates to lower overhead and lower prices. You also bring your own bags (or pay for bags at the store), bag your own groceries and pay for a grocery cart. Check these FAQs for more about ALDI, including their practice of charging 25 cents to use a grocery cart.

The discount grocery chain appears to have big plans for Alexandria, with one store going into a former Magruder’s spot off of Van Dorn Street and another planned in the space where there is currently a Giant store, in Del Ray.

The company opened a store in Chantilly in 2012 and recently saw one of its stores demolished by a fire on Richmond Highway.

ALDI is an international grocery store with 9,000 locations in 32 countries.

The planned store for Duke Street will be across the street from a Harris Teeter store located at Foxchase shopping center.

The grocery store shakeup in the area has also seen an older Giant store at Bradlee shopping center close, with The Fresh Market taking its place in January 2014, as well as a multi-million dollar renovation of Safeway at Quaker Lane and King Street.

Giant also recently closed one of its oldest stores, in Old Town, after 64 years.

The only two remaining Giant stores in Alexandria will be the store on Duke Street near Bishop Ireton High School and another at 5730 Edsall Road off of Van Dorn Street. A new Giant is expected to open later this year at Potomac Yard.