BiBiBop Asian Grill is closing at 4820 Bethesda Avenue at Bethesda Row, the company announced to customers in an email today. The fast-casual restaurant will close permanently tomorrow, Sunday, February 12, 2023. Customers are being directed to BiBiBop's locations in North Bethesda and downtown Silver Spring. BiBiBop opened at Bethesda Row in 2017.
Stopped by there for a delicious lunch, too bad they're leaving. One employee said it's because of too high of rent. The food is fairly priced, the place always busy also during other visits. If they can't afford the rent, who can? Plus just means higher and higher margins and therefore prices. Who thinks Bethesda is going to implode? They better nip the crime problem/image problem in the bud! Itsgetting dangerous out there!
ReplyDeleteThat's a bummer. I liked that place too.
ReplyDeleteIf this place can't make it and is busy all the time based on 1:58 PM's observations, who in their right mind would make an investment to open another restaurant at that location? This is how you wind up with moribund retail bank branches.
Bethesda Row submarket — the business and retail center of Bethesda, Md. — boasts the lowest vacancy rate in the region at sub 2 percent, according to Federal Realty Investment Trust, owner and developer of the premier Bethesda Row mixed-use development.
ReplyDeletehttps://rebusinessonline.com/d-c-retail-sector-is-a-tale-of-two-markets-downtown-and-everywhere-else/
ReplyDeletehttps://rebusinessonline.com/d-c-retail-sector-is-a-tale-of-two-markets-downtown-and-everywhere-else/
The Bethesda Row submarket — the business and retail center of Bethesda, Md. — boasts the lowest vacancy rate in the region at sub 2 percent, according to Federal Realty Investment Trust, owner and developer of the premier Bethesda Row mixed-use development.
All the numbers aside, I remember the same stats and early prognostications for Downtown Silver Spring and look what happened: lost to hookah lounges, hip hop bars, litter, crime so bad that camera's on poles are installed along Georgia Ave. The Po-po moved out and things accelerated down hill. New development doesn't seem to be helping at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the MCPO doing to keep the same from happening to Bethesda? Do they think Marriott's presence will be salvation? Higher rents will up our game? Higher rents will up the thieves and shooters game.
There's more numbers that say there's funding for more police, but no candidates. Who'd be a cop in today's liberal climate? Add to that MC's mollycoddling politics, a recipe for disaster. Come real Spring and Summer, there will be an uptick in crime that will make N(ew) Bethesda the new mecca, til that is squandered and lost too.