Eden Center is a Vietnamese American strip mall located near the crossroads of Seven Corners in the City of Falls Church, Virginia. The City's Economic Development commission considers it the #1 Tourist Destination in the City. The center is home to over 100 shops, restaurants and businesses catering to the extensive Asian American, especially the Vietnamese-American, population. Eden Center has created an anchor for Vietnamese culture serving the Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania areas, as evidenced by the large number of phở soup restaurants as well as Vietnamese-American cultural events that are regularly held at the Center. The name derives from the 1960s Saigon arcade Khu Eden.
An unusually high percentage of the businesses in the mall are restaurants, specifically Vietnamese restaurants, specializing in various levels of formality and in various aspects of Vietnamese cuisine. These range from carry-out-only places that serve stir-fry dishes and spring rolls to high-volume phở soup restaurants to sit down restaurants with large varied menus and a formal decor.
Eden Center emerged in 1984 as the Vietnamese-American community in Northern Virginia (and the Washington, DC, metropolitan area) grew following the Vietnam War. The site, located on Wilson Boulevard in Falls Church, Virginia, was formerly known as the Plaza Seven Shopping Center.
In 1997, the Falls Church Police Department opened a substation at Eden Center after a fatal shooting. The property landlord also began operating 22 closed-circuit monitoring cameras.
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—Bible: Hebrew Genesis 2:9-10.
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