Hip Flask, the rooftop bar that’s inside of The Marriott Bethesda Downtown at Marriott HQ, is now open. Hip Flask serves small plates and craft cocktails and is located at 7707 Woodmont Ave in Bethesda. The new hotel also features a 360 degree lobby bar. Seventh State, the hotel’s restaurant, which includes a built-in Italian wood oven and indoor/outdoor seating opened earlier this year.
Per Marriott:
Planet Bethesda, a plant-based food festival, will take place on June 5 from 12-6pm at Elm Street Park in Bethesda. According to the events website, there will be more than a dozen area restaurants and vendors, live DJ, Bier Garten, and a plant-based pie eating contest. Participating restaurants include Dog Haus, Berries & Bowls, True Food Kitchen, and Tikka Masala. Entry to is the event is free and vendor food and beverage will be available for purchase.
Big Al’s Subs and Soups in the Montgomery Mall food court has closed. It was located in the space that was previously home to Wicked Waffles, next to Charley’s. The restaurant, which had a menu very similar to that of Subway, opened in December of 2021. The restaurant offered ten different signature sandwiches, including a vegetarian option called “The Mediterranean”, and a rotating list of soups.
In other Montgomery Mall restaurant news, HalfSmoke Bethesda will be opening in the Montgomery Mall food court, as first reported by The MoCo Source on Instagram. It will be located in the former home of Coldstone Creamery and more recently Gelato Galaxy. HalfSmoke was the first restaurant of its kind to serve gourmet sausages via an assembly line format. Its sausages and toppings can be fully customized to create over 50,000 variations. The HalfSmoke menu also features craft beer, mac and cheese balls, tater tots, milkshakes, funnel cakes, wine, cocktails, and more, but there is no word on if the Montgomery Mall location will offer everything the DC restaurant does. No word yet on an opening date.
That Smoothie Place is coming to Damascus, taking over the location that was formerly home to Sprint in the Damascus shopping center at 9815 Main Street, suite 106. That Smoothie Place has been operating as a food truck since 2018, frequenting Damascus and other surrounding areas. Coming soon signage has been put up in the upcoming storefront, but we are not yet aware of an opening date.
That Smoothie Place offers a variety of smoothies known as “Rock Star Smoothies” named after popular rock stars of the past and present. The featured photo shows a special known as “The Lennox” named after Annie Lennox of the popular 80s group Eurythmics and contains apple, banana, apple cider and a few other ingredients. Other smoothies on the menu include the Ozzy, Ringo Starr, Jagger, Morrison, and more.
Coming soon signage is up at the Olney Crab House, located at 18200 Georgia Avenue, the former site of the Olney Tavern in the Hillcrest Center in Olney. In February we were informed by the property management of the center that the original owners had pulled out of the location and new owners had just recently taken over the lease. We first reported that the Olney Alehouse was coming back in November 2019. Renovations on the building began in the summer of 2020 but remained dormant until the new tenants took over. No opening date has been announced.
J. Hollinger’s Watrerman’s Chophouse will open on Tuesday, May 10 in Silver Spring, according to a report by Source of the Spring. It will be located in the Lee Plaza building at 8601 Georgia Avenue, in the space that was previously home to Ray’s the Classics (later known as just the Classics) from 1998 until 2018. The restaurant is being opened by Jerry Hollinger and Mike Ellis. Hollinger currently has two other Montgomery County restaurants- The Daily Dish on Grubb Road and The Dish & Dram on Kensington Pkwy in Kensington.
Executive Chef, and Olney native, Mike Ellis was most recently the executive chef at Charlie Palmer Steak in DC. He helped open the restaurant as a sous chef under Bryan Voltaggio and came back in 2016 as executive chef after earning a Michelin star at Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen in Sonoma County. According to a recent report by Eater, “Look for a la carte cuts of meat along with produce sourced from D.C.-area and Pennsylvania farms.” and “Sundays will be a busy affair, with a live jazz brunch followed by prime rib night.”
Nearly a year ago, in July of 2021, it was announced that the Montgomery County Green Bank and Sandy Spring Bank are teaming up to provide flexible financing to help the Olney Ale House re-open. In September of 2021, we spoke with a representative from Montgomery County Green Bank who let us know that the construction is moving along well and that it could take around 3-5 months for the Ale House to open, but that it was just an estimate.
The reopening of the Olney Ale House is one of the most asked about topics by our readers, and we have reached out several times since our last update, but have not heard back. Earlier today we stopped by to check out the progress, but there was not much progress at the location. We will be reaching out again this week and hope to be able to provide you with an update on a potential reopening.
Signage is up and construction is ongoing at Naz’s Halal at 11209 New Hampshire Ave in White Oak, the former location of White Oak Dry Cleaners. Workers let us know that the restaurant is likely “a couple months away.” In December we told you Naz’s would expanding to Germantown, Rockville (1040 Rockville Pike), and Takoma Park (7653 New Hampshire Ave)
The first location outside of New York was also in MoCo, at the Burtonsville Town Center, next to Tropical Smoothie Cafe. That location opened in August 2020 and has become a local favorite with late night hours, remaining open until 2am Sunday through Thursday and 4am on Friday and Saturday.
We spoke with the owner of the restaurant who told us that following the sprinkler malfunction, the restaurant has had to replace every piece of cooking equipment and has undergone two professional cleanings as well as additional cleaning by the owners and employees.
Baronessa has announced that it will be permanently closing at the end of April. The restaurant, located at 1302 E Gude Drive in Rockville, made the announcement on its website earlier this week. The full announcement can be seen below, along with additional information courtesy of the restaurant’s website:
“There is no easy way to put this. We are extremely sorry to announce that Baronessa Italian Restaurant will be permanently closing its doors. We would like to thank our loyal customers who have been patronizing Baronessa for their years of support. Also, we want to thank our landlord Promark Partners, but most of all. THANK YOU to our. wonderful staff. We would never be able to do this without you. Our last day will be Saturday, April 30th 2022.
Dogfish Head Alehouse, which opened its first location at 800 W. Diamond Ave in Gaithersburg in 2005, announced it has donated a combined $1,000,000 to charity over the past 17 years between its three locations.
Dogfish Head Alehouses, which are owned and operated independent from the Dogfish Head brewery in Milton, DE through a licensing agreement, announced recently that it will be closing its Falls Church, VA location at 6220 Leesburg Pike in the Seven Corners Shopping Center. The restaurant says it was unable to come to terms with the property owner when it came time to renew its lease. The last day of service will be on May 15. The Dogfish Alehouse locations at 800 W. Diamond Ave in Gaithersburg and 13041 Lee Jackson Memorial Hwy in Fairfax, VA will remain open.