The Bethesda Community Store and Deli at 8804 Old Georgetown Road has been closed for nearly a decade. Plans to renovate the historic structure have been floating around nearly as long, but are finally moving forward. Those plans included a rear addition to the building, which was in poor condition. You can see the building now extends much further back than the original store. The parking lot had hosted food truck tenants in recent years - most recently Call Your Mother Deli, which is now opening a bricks-and-mortar location in downtown Bethesda. As had been the idea all along, the building renovations and addition are designed to make the property more appealing to a prospective future tenant.
The original, one-room store was built in 1921, when a trolley line ran along today's Old Georgetown Road to Rockville. That line originally terminated at Bethesda Park, a 50-acre amusement park on the west side of Old Georgetown Road, between today's streets Greentree Road and Cedar Lane. By the time the store was built, Bethesda Park had long ago burned down, and streetcars were running all the way to Rockville. You can travel a large segment of the old trolley route today, on foot or via bicycle, using the Bethesda Trolley Trail.
6 comments:
Shame that they haven't had a viable business there. Lots of hungry busy people across the street.
this is crazy. just knock it down. what an eyesore
It will be refurbished as part of the rehab project.
If you are not from here, this "little store", as most locals called it, served the Bethesda community across generations. It means something to many of us.
I actually appreciate that it was designated as historic.
6:07 - It was not referred to as the "little store", rather, Brown's Store.
That too. My family (grandfather, father, cousins, etc.) always called it The Little Store. As a dad now, I would love to bring my kids to whatever use this ends up being. Hopefully a cafe of sorts - coffee, sandwiches, wine bar later, etc. It would do very well if executed properly.
They're busy when not on their scheduled "health walks," taking their free contract busses around, or just milling about. NIH is one big deep hole we shovel money into.
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