Beacon Hill Honey
Beacon Hill Honey is the remarkable multi-use bee operation of Army veteran Vanessa Escobar. A young mother with 15 years of military service who is married to a US Marine, Escobar installed hives at her Loudoun home after learning that the frequency at which bees flap their wings makes a sound that calms the mind. Today, Escobar installs apiaries at Boulder Crest, a post traumatic growth retreat, advises veterans on the benefits of “bee therapy” and sells a range of products from fresh honey to creams, balms, serums and beeswax wraps online. She also guides immersive “Bee Tours” and teaches the art of beekeeping at Northern Virginia Wholesale Growers Nursery in Paeonian Springs where she keeps several hives. Visit Beacon Hill Honey Services to book a tour.
Casa de Avila Tacos
Loudoun resident Abraham de Avila spent five years in the Army before opening Casa de Avila: a taqueria in a Loudoun incubator space making traditional Guadalajara-style street tacos from the recipes of his mother and grandmother. Casa de Avila won a Flavors of the DMV cooking contest to sell its food at Commanders games. The tacos were such a hit that in 2025 Abraham opened Casa de Avila Tacos, his first brick-and-mortar location in trendy downtown Leesburg. What to try? The melted cheese birria and the pork and pineapple al pastor. It’s still a family affair: his mother helms the kitchen while he and his sister run the front-of-house.
Honor Brewing
The Loudoun iteration of Honor Brewing, which has locations in Chantilly and Fairfax, features 16 beers on tap, a full restaurant and a contract brewing facility for smaller brewers. Founded in 2014 by Allen Cage, a 24-year military veteran who spent 12 years as a Cobra pilot, the brewery was built around a mission to “honor” men and women who have served in uniform. The Sterling location spans a vast 45,000-square-foot facility and includes a Wall of Honor, display patches and wall taps designed to look like dog tags in remembrance of those who have given their lives in service.
Most movingly, the first beer poured each day is an Honor Pour, dedicated to a veteran who gets a saved seat whether he is present or not. You can order an Honor Pour in person or online in memory of a loved one. The brewery will then share a photo of the Honor Pour to the social media account or the email address you provide. We salute you.
Anchor Bar Leesburg
Buffalo’s iconic Anchor Bar – quite literally the restaurant that gave us the Buffalo Wing – has several franchises across the US, but the 2023 opening of its Leesburg location is cause for celebration among more than just wing lovers and Bills fans.
Located at the Village at Leesburg, the team behind it are four friends, three of whom are military veterans from the Air Force, Marines and Army with almost 40 years of service among them. The Leesburg operation features several local beers on tap from favorites like Lost Rhino Brewing Company, Solace Brewing Company and Crooked Run Fermentation. Veterans receive a discount on all drinks and, this Veterans Day, they pay half-price for a special breakfast.
“Most Anchor Bar franchises are run by veterans,” said Lee Shabe, one of the Leesburg partners. “This is our way of giving back.”
As for the space itself, there is a long bar, dozens of beers on tap, an extensive food and cocktail menu and banks of TVs in a back room to watch live sports. The highlight, however, is those wings. Created in the original Anchor Bar in Buffalo one night in 1964 by owner Teressa Bellissimo, they are crisp and spicy on the outside, hot and juicy inside and go down perfectly with Loudoun beer. Cheers.
Cannabreeze CBD Hemp Farm & Co
“There’s a direct line between me growing up on a farm in Oregon to working in a Navy research lab in Maryland to this,” said Jeff Boogaard, founder-owner of Cannabreeze CBD Hemp Farm & Co in Lovettsville. At Cannabreeze, Boogaard and his team grow, produce and sell a wide range of premium CBD and CBG hemp products, from oils, soaps and balms to edibles and gels. “Farming is chemistry and the combination came together in the fields here and in the lab on site.” Boogaard spent eight years in the Navy including two as a chemist in the hyperbaric medicine department of the Navy Medical Research Institute in Bethesda. While Cannabreeze is open to all, with a stylish tasting room on site where visitors can sample and purchase products, Boogaard says any veteran can get a free 600mg bottle of CBD Oil to try.
Harvest Gap Brewery
The Virts family has farmed in western Loudoun since the 1700s. In 2020, US Marine veteran Mike Virts, who grew up in the county and did two tours in Iraq between 2006 and 2010, turned a section of the family’s farm in Hillsboro into Harvest Gap Brewery. It’s been an instant success. A Navy veteran helped build the rustic timber barn-style tasting room, several veterans work as farm hands on the land and there’s reserved parking for veterans in the lot. Aside from the beer, the highlight is the enormous corn maze on the land which, this year, is carved into the shape of the combine harvester they use for harvesting their barley, corn and soybeans. Which beer to drink? “Try the Devil Dog, a German style Helles lager,” said Virts. “Devil Dog has been a nickname for the Marines since World War One.”
Bleu Frog Vineyards
In a short span of time Bleu Frog Vineyards, winery of Jan and Joe Kernan on Route 15 north of Leesburg, has gained a stellar reputation for its bold red blends, delicate rosés, superb food and gorgeous hillside setting – popular with wedding parties for ceremonies in the vines. What is less well known is that before he turned his interests to growing grapes and making wine, Joe Kernan served as Navy Seal “frogman.” In fact, the winery name combines that popular nickname for the Seals with Jan’s career as a cordon bleu chef. Toast the Seals and their armed forces brothers with a bottle of the 2020 Bullfrog Meritage – a bold fruit-forward blend that’s the perfect winter warmer.
