On a recent Saturday morning, the line outside a pink horse trailer parked in the Hilltop district stretched past a hundred people before nine o'clock. Some had been waiting since 8:45 for a shop that didn't open until nine. By the time the last cup went out, people had stood for over ninety minutes for a latte. That trailer cost its owners two thousand dollars and a lot of elbow grease. Seven months later, it had a permanent address.
That trailer is Sleepy Cowgirl Coffee. Its move from a parking lot to a storefront is one of several recent business developments in Great Neck and Hilltop.
Sleepy Cowgirl Moves From Trailer To Storefront
Samantha Colonna and her boyfriend Abraham Quirantes, an active-duty sailor with eight years in the Navy, launched Sleepy Cowgirl as a mobile operation in June 2025 out of a refurbished vintage horse trailer. They bought it for two thousand dollars and rebuilt it themselves, then started parking it around Virginia Beach and posting the schedule on social media. The pink trailer went viral. Lines wrapped around parking lots. In January 2026, the business opened its first sit-down location at La Promenade in the Hilltop district, complete with the same cowgirl-pink color scheme, an expanded pastry case, and beans roasted through a partnership with Nashville's Frothy Monkey.
The wait times didn't go away when the trailer became a storefront. Customers were still describing hour-plus lines weeks after the doors opened, which is a different kind of proof than a press release. The storefront puts Sleepy Cowgirl among the newer businesses in the corridor.
Two Doors Down, A Very Different Kind Of New
A few minutes away on Holland Road, a second new arrival opened the same month with a much quieter rollout. Choi M, a bubble tea and dessert shop, opened in January 2026 at 3497 Holland Road, sharing a building with the long-running Cantonese restaurant Guangdong Taste. Choi M specializes in what it calls the Whale Crystal Series, coconut milk blended with colored tea crystals for a layered, glowing effect, alongside smiley egg waffles and matcha or Oreo cheesecakes.
The shop’s opening adds to a corridor whose business mix spans recent arrivals and longtime neighborhood fixtures.
Longstanding Businesses In The Corridor
Alongside the newer arrivals are established businesses with long histories in Great Neck; one relocated from the Oceanfront to Great Neck Road.
Coastal Grill has anchored the Great Neck corridor for more than thirty-five years. Founded by Jerry Bryan and led today by executive chef Maureen Cucchiaro alongside Chris Reynolds, the restaurant built its reputation on a rotating list of blackboard specials featuring freshly caught regional seafood rather than a fixed menu, and it was voted the number one restaurant in Hampton Roads by Hampton Roads Magazine. The restaurant sits three miles from the Oceanfront on the Great Neck corridor.
Black Angus Restaurant is another longstanding business in the Great Neck corridor. The steakhouse has been a Tidewater staple since 1952 and spent more than sixty years at the Oceanfront on Atlantic Avenue. In 2021, ownership moved the entire operation inland to Great Neck Road, into a newly renovated space in the Great Neck Villas shopping center. Reviewers who'd been going since the early seventies followed it to the new address without missing a beat.
What The Timeline Actually Shows
Sleepy Cowgirl Coffee moved from a mobile trailer to a permanent Hilltop storefront. Choi M opened on Holland Road beside Guangdong Taste. Coastal Grill has operated in the corridor for more than thirty-five years, and Black Angus relocated from the Oceanfront to Great Neck Road in 2021.
| Business | What Happened | When |
|---|---|---|
| Sleepy Cowgirl Coffee | Mobile trailer to brick-and-mortar storefront at La Promenade, Hilltop | Launched June 2025, storefront opened January 2026 |
| Choi M | New bubble tea and dessert shop opened on Holland Road | January 2026 |
| Coastal Grill | Independent restaurant, no relocation, still voted top-rated in the region | Operating 35+ years |
| Black Angus Restaurant | Relocated from Atlantic Avenue Oceanfront to Great Neck Road | Moved in 2021, after 60+ years at the beach |
Together, these businesses illustrate the range of activity in Great Neck and Hilltop, from newer coffee and dessert shops to established restaurants.
The Practical Part
If you're weighing where to spend a weekend morning or evening in the corridor, a few things are worth knowing before you go:
- Sleepy Cowgirl Coffee's brick-and-mortar location is at La Promenade in the Hilltop district. If the line is part of the draw for you, mornings still run long. If it isn't, weekday afternoons are a safer bet.
- Choi M is on Holland Road, sharing a plaza with Guangdong Taste, which makes it an easy stop if you're already headed there for dinner and want dessert without driving somewhere new.
- Coastal Grill doesn't take a fixed menu, so the blackboard specials change based on what's fresh. Regulars know to ask what came in that day rather than ordering off habit.
- Black Angus is in the Great Neck Villas shopping center on North Great Neck Road, not the old Atlantic Avenue spot some longtime residents might still have saved in a GPS.
Great Neck and Hilltop offer a mix of new and long-running local businesses.
If you're watching this stretch of Virginia Beach for reasons beyond where to grab coffee, whether that's a move, a sale, or just curiosity about what a neighborhood like this is worth right now, Darlene "Hollywood" Gaines has spent years reading these blocks block by block. Schedule Your Red Carpet Consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
