Bethesda Bagels announced on Monday that they would be closing its Dupont Circle location in Washington DC this Sunday, April 24, after failing to come to a lease agreement with the landlord of the property.

After nearly 12 years and millions and millions of bagels, our Dupont Circle location will be closing. Our last day will be Sunday, April 24th. Unfortunately, we have not been able to come to an agreement with our landlord to extend our lease. Our family is EXTREMELY THANKFUL for your support over the last decade plus. We will be relocating most of our employees to our other locations.


Hickory Bar & Grill, located at 15420 Columbia Pike B in Burtonsville, has closed.

It has been closed for a while, with Google stating that the closure is temporary, but Site Realty has now placed signs in the window stating that the space is available to lease (you can call 301-622-9300 if you’re interested in leasing the space).


Back in November we let you know that The Pretzel Bakery, which opened it’s DC location at 257 15th Street SE in DC back in 2012, was coming to Cabin John Village in Potomac. The bakery is located in the space formerly occupied by the Hair Cuttery at 7961 Tuckerman Ln. According to its website, the Pretzel Bakery serves small batch, hand-rolled, Philadelphia-style soft pretzels fresh-out-of-the-oven all day.  In addition to traditional pretzels, they also sell pretzel dogs, pretzel calzones, stuffed pretzel “bombs”, and pretzel sliders.

It is now open. According to Google, the hours of operation are as follows:


A new restaurant, Laperaux, the journeymanchef’s Bistro,  is coming to 18056 Mateny Rd in Germantown, the former home of Gumbo Ya Ya, Dickie’s BBQ Pit, and Cafe Mileto (located in the same strip as Shoppers). Chef and owner Gregory Webb, who has earned such accolades and awards as “Chef of the Year 1998” in Houston, Texas, “Winner all Categories” at the Texas Open Wild Game Cookoff, “Top Chefs of Mexico City” and many others, will be bringing a French bistro to the location, which hopes to open this Spring.

The restaurant will offer high casual cuisine created by Webb, who has competed against Bobby Flay on The Food Network, and won numerous ‘chopped style’ competitions put on for various local charity and fund raising events, including DC Central Kitchen’s Chefs Cook Off. Webb decided on the location because it’s close to his Gaithersburg home. Previously, he spent 7 years as the executive chef at Downtown Crown’s Paladar. He looks forward to continuing to serve the community and is hoping for an August opening. We’ll have updates for you as construction progresses at the upcoming restaurant.


Two Montgomery County restaurants (the only ones on the list) took the #1 and #2 spots in the latest Eater DC list, pointing diners toward the 15 most intriguing or otherwise buzzworthy new restaurants in the D.C. area.

#2 went to Planta, an upscale plant-based restaurant featuring a menu by Chef David Lee, that opened at 4910 Elm St at Bethesda Row in the location formerly occupied by Cafe Deluxe. Planta was founded in 2016 and currently has several locations in Florida, New York, and Toronto. Planta has been notable for serving a long list of different celebrities who aren’t plant-based like Rob Gronkowski, Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber and more, pushing that the restaurant was created for everyone. The Bethesda Row location seats approximately 140 people inside, as well as an additional 50 people on an outdoor patio.


Eater has released a list of ‘7 Exciting New Pizza Places to Try Around D.C.’ and the top two spots have got to two new Montgomery County restaurants.

Coming in at #2 is the recently opened Underground Pizza, which opened its first Montgomery County location in February after serving the area via pop-ups since 2020. Underground Pizza is located at 8235 Georgia Ave in Silver Spring. in the space that was formerly home to Olazzo.


The Burger King located at 16004 Shady Grove Rd has reopened after being closed for renovations since the start of 2021. Along with Burger King comes Ripieno’s of Ocean City and Jo Jo’s Express, which has a location in Salisbury. All three restaurants have separate menus and cashiers and the setup of the restaurant is similar to that off a food hall/food court with a common dining area.

Ripieno’s features its famous 28” wood-fire pizza, calzones, and subs. JoJo’s Express features “American style” dishes like fried chicken, steak, and fried seafood. The Burger King has the standard Burger King menu and is available from the drive-thru (the other two restaurants are not available via drive-thru). All three restaurants also share a salad bar. Check out this video of how huge the pizza actually is.


View More Stories