PENELOPE: Annandale really was a way stop on Little River Turnpike which was the way you would come from the agricultural areas to Alexandria, which was a port.

And so, markets developed around the agricultural areas.

In 1963, Fairfax County was the leading dairy producer in the commonwealth of Virginia.

You could drive out to the new Dulles Airport and on all sides of the road were cows.

Now it's tech firms!

(laughs) I saw Annandale start to change in the late '80s.

Best Group developed a little shopping center on Little River Turnpike.

Later, that shopping center was purchased by Korean American businesses.

And quite frankly, when the Korean American business community came in, they sort of salvaged some areas of Annandale that were really struggling.

SYLVIA: My mom's restaurant was definitely a first generation Korean restaurant.

It was a restaurant made for just the actual Korean community itself that had migrated there.

And I think it's the joys that I saw from preparing the food, eating the food, and like how it brought people together that brought me into the restaurant world.

Kogiya, the direct translation in Korean is, "Hey, it's me."

We are a Korean barbecue restaurant in the heart of Annandale.

We attract the suburban areas and then we also are not too far away from D.C. Korean barbecue is so interactive.

There's no cooking done really in the kitchen.

Everything is done in front of you.

So, it's engaging, it's just fun.

It brings people together.

When you want to get good Korean food, Annandale is the place to come.

Anything authentic, you need to get to Annandale.

The fact that the Korean community was here and it's still known as like, the original Koreatown of Virginia, I think still has that draw.

PENELOPE: We're a very welcoming community.

We always have been.

I've always felt my children got great education because they were raised in a diverse community.

SYLVIA: It's the close-knit community that I love and the authenticity, and the quality of, um, everything that's...

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