The Route 29 Interchange Left One Building Behind. A Gainesville Neighbor's Restaurant Is Replacing It.

"I'm overwhelmed and humbled to see Great American Restaurants opening in a place I've called home for over 20 years, let alone it being named after me."

That was Tom Rush, chief operating officer of Great American Restaurants. In January 2026 the company announced that its next restaurant, Tommy's American and Best Buns Bakery & Burgers, would go up at 14100 Whitney Road, as the Prince William Times reported. The site sits across from Virginia Gateway, where Linton Hall Road meets Gateway Center Drive. Rush and his wife, Abby, have lived in Gainesville and Haymarket for more than 20 years, according to Northern Virginia Magazine.

Most coverage stopped at the namesake. The address has a longer story. The building waiting to be torn down at 14100 Whitney Road was the headquarters for the interchange project that reshaped this intersection. After that, the land sat in state hands for years. The restaurant is the last step in turning a leftover piece of that road project back into something people can use.

A building that was put up for a different job

Potomac Local reported that the building started out as a bank. The Virginia Department of Transportation later used it as project headquarters while the single-point urban interchange at Route 29 and Linton Hall Road was built in the late 2000s. According to the same report, the site has stayed mostly unused since then.

Anyone who has sat at the Linton Hall light has driven past it. The building is right at one of the busiest corners in western Prince William County, but for most of the time Virginia Gateway was filling in around it, it had nothing to do with the shopping center. The Prince William Times describes it as vacant for years, and Great American Restaurants plans to raze it.

The paperwork started long before the announcement

The January 2026 announcement made it look like a new idea. The county and property records cited by the Prince William Times show the work had been underway for more than two years by then.

The two sale prices stand out. The state paid $8.7 million for the parcel in 2008 and sold it to Great American Restaurants in October 2023 for $4.5 million, a little over half the original price. The state bought the land to get a road project built. Once the road was done, the land only needed a buyer.

The timeline also shows that the restaurant group has owned the site for about three years and has had a site plan in front of the county for more than two. The public announcement came late in that process.

What the site plan actually describes

The county documents cited by the Prince William Times describe a 15,827-square-foot, two-story building. The second floor is for office space and storage only, so diners stay on the ground floor. The plans add a 1,444-square-foot outdoor patio, used seasonally depending on the weather, and a rebuilt surface parking lot.

That one building will hold two different restaurants:

• Tommy's American is a brand-new full-service concept, and Gainesville gets the first one. Northern Virginia Magazine reports it takes its cues from Patsy's American and Mike's American, with approachable American food and fresh ingredients.
• Best Buns Bakery & Burgers is the group's fast-casual bakery concept. It already has locations in Tysons, Shirlington and Springfield. The Gainesville menu is set to include breakfast sandwiches, pastries, build-your-own burgers and the honey fried chicken biscuit.

No Tommy's-specific dishes have been published. Potomac Local noted in January that details about the menu, design and opening date had not been released, and the Tommy's American website still offers only a general promise of familiar favorites.

Why the name fits this corner

Great American Restaurants was founded in Fairfax City in 1976 and runs 18 restaurants, 17 of them in Northern Virginia and one in Gaithersburg, Maryland. None of those 18 is in Prince William County. Northern Virginia Magazine calls Gainesville the group's first expansion into the county.

Naming the first one after a local resident fits Rush's history with the company. He joined Great American in 1995 as a kitchen manager at Artie's, after graduating from James Madison University and the Culinary Institute of America. He met Abby while the two were opening Sweetwater Tavern Centreville in 1996. He has since led openings for the first Coastal Flats at Fairfax Corner, Ozzie's Good Eats, Patsy's American, Randy's Prime Seafood & Steaks, the Tysons and Springfield Best Buns, and Stupid Good BBQ.

CEO Jon Norton said Rush trained him on his first day in 1997, because Norton's father wanted him "to learn from the best." So the person who has opened many of the group's restaurants across Northern Virginia lives a short drive from the one that carries his name.

Where the 2027 target stands this fall

The Prince William Times reported a planned 2027 opening. Northern Virginia Magazine wrote in the same week that Great American had not yet announced opening dates. As of early October 2026, the company's own locations page still says only "Coming Soon!" without a date, so 2027 remains the target from early coverage, not a published opening date.

Here is what can be confirmed as of early October 2026:

1. The Great American Restaurants locations page lists Tommy's American at 14100 Whitney Road, Gainesville, VA 20155, as "Coming Soon!"
2. The most recent news coverage of the project dates from late January 2026.
3. Demolition of the old VDOT building, a groundbreaking or the start of construction has not been publicly reported.
4. No Gainesville-specific hiring announcement has appeared on the company's careers page.

The project still has to get from a filed site plan to a building that's been torn down and a new one going up. A demolition crew at the former interchange headquarters would be the first visible sign that the 2027 target is in play.

The nearest Great American tables in the meantime

Until Whitney Road opens, the closest Great American restaurants to Gainesville are in Centreville and Fairfax, according to the company's directory:

• Sweetwater Tavern Centreville, 14250 Sweetwater Lane, Centreville, the restaurant where Tom and Abby Rush met while opening it in 1996
• Ozzie's Good Eats, 11880 Grand Commons Ave, Fairfax
• Coastal Flats Fairfax Corner, 11901 Grand Commons Ave, Fairfax, the first Coastal Flats, which Rush opened
• Artie's, 3260 Blenheim Blvd, Fairfax, where Rush started as a kitchen manager in 1995

Taken together, those four restaurants trace Rush's career with the company. The fifth stop, at Linton Hall and Gateway Center Drive, is the one that will put Great American in Prince William County for the first time.

If you live near Linton Hall Road and want to know how new restaurants and retail around Virginia Gateway affect the homes nearby, Krissy Cruse follows these projects as part of her local market work. Call or text anytime, or schedule a free consultation to talk through what's changing near your street.