Thursday, May 09, 2019

Playa Bowls to open at Cabin John Shopping Center

Playa Bowls, a Jersey Shore-based acai bowl chain, will open its first Montgomery County location at 7733 Tuckerman Lane in the Cabin John Shopping Center. The 535 SF space was formerly home to Robeks Juice. The company's only existing Maryland location is in College Park.

Use of all-plant-based cutlery, bowls, lids and straws is part of Playa Bowls' green branding. Superfoods used in their bowls include acai, pitaya, chia seeds, coconut, kale and bananas.

Photo courtesy Playa Bowls

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Superfoods used in their bowls include acai, pitaya, chia seeds, coconut, kale and bananas."

"Superfood" is a magic word to separate gullible hipsters from their money. LOL

"Superfood is a marketing term for food with supposed health benefits as a result of some part of its nutritional analysis, or its overall nutrient density. The term is not commonly used by experts, dietitians and nutrition scientists, many of whom dispute that particular foods have the health benefits claimed by their advocates."

Acai: "As of 2015, there are no scientifically controlled studies providing proof of any health benefits from consuming açaí. No açaí products have been evaluated by the FDA, and their efficacy is doubtful. Specifically, there is no scientific evidence that açaí consumption affects body weight, promotes weight loss or has any positive health effect."

Pitaya: "A 100 gram amount of pitaya contains 268 calories, 82% carbohydrates, 4% protein, and 11% of the Daily Value each for vitamin C and calcium."

Chia seeds: "Chia seeds are under preliminary research for their potential effects on health, but this work remains sparse and inconclusive. In a 2015 systematic review, most studies were of poor quality and did not demonstrate significant effects of chia seed consumption on cardiovascular risk factors."

Coconut: "Per 100-gram serving with 354 calories, raw coconut meat supplies a high amount of total fat (33 grams), especially saturated fat (89% of total fat), moderate content of carbohydrates (15 grams), and protein (3 grams). Micronutrients in significant content (more than 10% of the Daily Value) include the dietary minerals, manganese, copper, iron, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc."

Banana: "Raw bananas (not including the peel) are 75% water, 23% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contain negligible fat. A 100-gram reference serving supplies 89 Calories, 31% of the US recommended Daily Value (DV) of vitamin B6, and moderate amounts of vitamin C, manganese and dietary fiber, with no other micronutrients in significant content. Although bananas are commonly thought to contain exceptional potassium content, their actual potassium content is not high per typical food serving, having only 8% of the US recommended Daily Value for potassium."

(All information is from Wikipedia. Bibliography available under each article.)

Just stick with kale - or any other member of the cabbage family. That's the only one on the list that has any substantial nutritional value. But the thought of kale ice cream is gross.

Anonymous said...

"Use of all-plant-based cutlery, bowls, lids and straws is part of Playa Bowls' green branding."

Aren't you the one who's always clutching your pearls over the desire of County Council members to ban styrofoam and other plastic packaging?

Roald said...

Big, big, big!

Anonymous said...

The shops inside CJM have moribund foot traffic. The Liquor store is at one end, McDonalds the other end. In between, no one roams. All kind of fast food establishments have come and gone. They die very quick. The sushi place was good, and they're gone. Jerrys gone, Orange Leaf frozen yogurt gone. Is the coffee/bakery place still there? RD, whats up with Sisters? thai food?

Robert Dyer said...

6:25: Yes, Sisters Thai is expanding from Fairfax County.

6:23: Using plant-based items voluntarily is quite different from Big Government forcing a business to use or not use a particular product. If an issue is of import to the community at large, they will vote with their wallet. If residents patronize an establishment using "bad" packaging, then banning it is just more political posturing and self-promotion by our corrupt and criminal County Council.

Anonymous said...

So this place is going on the interior part of CJM? Destined to fail -- poor foot traffic. Most people don't even know the mall has an interior part also.

I agree with Dyer -- the issue is when government forces it upon a business instead of letting the market decide. Didn't the Council just pass a ban on smoking _outdoors_ at restaurants? That was government overreach -- the free market can easily solve that. If people are disturbed by smoke outside, they can simply patronize another establishment.

Anonymous said...

The Robeks location is not interior. It is on the strip of Dunkin, Subway, Cal Tor, etc. Too bad that’s Arden’s couldn’t convince a local company such as South Block to open here. Agree with comments re: nutritional value but that doesn’t stop millennials obsessing (i.e., $$) over açaí bowls.

Anonymous said...

But Robert, do you not frequently fault Big Government for NOT requiring a cinema in downtown Bethesda??

Anonymous said...

Hipster grocers = BAD

Hipster restaurants = good.

I learned this from Bobbie D.

Robert Dyer said...

7:47: The cineplex was key to the entire downtown economy. When approving a minor master plan amendment in that context, we should absolutely expect the government to get something for the people out of a deal that allows the developer to make bonus profit from something otherwise not legal to build.

That is what planning authority, which every jurisdiction has, is all about.

Anonymous said...

This pro movie theater politician is baffling. WHO IS PAYING YOU OFF DYER?!

Anonymous said...

8:49 AM Landmark is wonderful chain focusing on smaller, independent and international film.

Bethesda doesn't have a blockbuster multiplex showing popular films or family films.

So, everyone going to see Black Panther last year had to take their dollars out of downtown Bethesda to the surrounding towns. Hurts the local restaurants.

Anonymous said...

8:49 AM

Yes good point on Bethesda not having a conventional movie theater and how movie dollars are being spent elsewhere. That being said, B-Town's movie dessert is not an indication of a moribund county. Those dollars are being spent it Rockville, Germantown and Wheaton which are all in Montgomery.

Anonymous said...

That doesn't help the restaurants on Bethesda Row and surrounding area in Bethesda!

I remember Jetties said...

All of the crowds seeing Avengers over the past couple weeks- not one dollar went into our local downtown restaurants.

Time for another walking tour!

Anonymous said...

Never heard of most of those ingredients. Neither have most people.

Anonymous said...

Hmm . . . . Leaving Bethesda. Last time I checked ArcLight is in Bethesda. Also there is a little thing called clearances. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-nasty-world-of-theater-clearances-and-why-it-matters-to-filmgoers/2016/01/29/5bc6a540-c5d2-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html

Anonymous said...

"Bethesda doesn't have a blockbuster multiplex showing popular films or family films. So, everyone going to see Black Panther last year had to take their dollars out of downtown Bethesda to the surrounding towns. Hurts the local restaurants."

Everyone who eats dinner at a restaurant and sees a "blockbuster" film in the same night always goes to a restaurant and a cinema in the same neighborhood? Are you sure about that?

Also, why do you hate complete sentences?

"Last time I checked ArcLight is in Bethesda."

And so is iPic, the red-headed stepchild of Pike & Rose. Even though Dyer's Rockville blog proclaims it "in Rockville".

Anonymous said...

3:06pm fyi- Montgomery Mall has long had a theater. Nothing new about that. There was theaters at white Flint and several on the DC side of Wisconsin Ave.
So, I don't understand your point.

Anonymous said...

3:42pm your idea of "date night" apparently is to open a tin can of sardines, turn on your 20 inch TV and say "who needs movie theaters?"

Robert Dyer said...

4:21/3:42: Wrong - the Council's whole line is about walkable communities, not having to go to another area to see a blockbuster movie. Yes, dinner-and-a-movie has been a thing - for about 100 years. That's one reason for hundreds of open parking spaces in the garages at Bethesda Row now, which used to be full at dinnertime BEFORE the theater and Barnes & Noble closed.

Theaters at Mazza Gallerie and Montgomery Mall do NOT help restaurants in downtown Bethesda. Economics 101.

Anonymous said...

In spite of having a cineplex that shows blockbuster films, the area around Mazza Gallerie has far fewer restaurants than Bethesda Row. Just Maggiano's, Cheesecake Factory and Chatter (former Chadwick's).

Booeymonger is a local institution going back over four decades, but they are hardly a "dinner and a movie" kind of restaurant.

Robert Dyer said...

5:26: Your carpetbaggerness is showing again. You missed quite a few restaurants in your count, including Clyde's, Lia's, P.F. Chang's, Capital Grille, to name just a few.

Anonymous said...

I thought that area was a sea of "vacant storefronts, aging apartments, and smashed-out bus shelters."

That's what you told me last night.

Glad to see that it's vivibund!

Robert Dyer said...

7:29: No one is confusing middle-class restaurants with the ultra-high-end shops that went out of business because of rich flight in Chevy Chase. But understandable that you keep trying to move the goalposts, as you're the tackling dummy who lost the debate a long time ago.