A look at the final hours of Amazon Fresh in Friendship Heights (Photos)

Today is the last day of operations for the Amazon Fresh stores in Friendship Heights, and across America, with the exception of California where Governor Gavin Newsom has forced the grocery chain to keep operating until March to comply with the state's superior layoff notification requirements for grocery stores. I'm reminded of when some states required TV broadcasts to continue longer, even as living room sets were allowed to go dark in Maryland and other jurisdictions with corporate puppet elected officials. Some states just take better care of their (non-homeless) residents. Let's take one last look at the ambitious Amazon Fresh experiment in Friendship Heights, as the final grains of sand cascade into the bottom of the hourglass:

Both Chevy Chase Amazon Fresh stores closing

The Amazon Fresh grocery stores in Friendship Heights and at Chevy Chase Lake will permanently close this Sunday, February 1, 2026. Amazon is closing all of its Amazon Fresh and Go grocery stores across the country, as a very expensive experiment with Amazon-branded physical grocery stores by the retail giant concludes. In Montgomery County, that means the losses of Amazon Fresh stores at Chevy Chase Lake, Friendship Heights, Shady Grove Road on the border of Rockville and Gaithersburg, and White Oak. It's an especially raw deal for all involved at the Chevy Chase locations, as residents of Chevy Chase Lake had expected to have an on-site grocery store, Friendship Heights residents will now have only the hipster house brands of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market as full-size supermarkets within walking distance, and the Chevy Chase Land Company was counting on both to anchor their respective developments of Chevy Chase Lake and the Collection at Chevy Chase.

Armed robbery at Amazon Fresh in Friendship Heights

Montgomery County police are seeking the public's help in identifying and locating four suspects in the November 20, 2023 armed robbery of the Amazon Fresh store at the Collection at Chevy Chase in Friendship Heights. Detectives say four people entered the store sometime prior to 12:43 PM Monday, and began to fill bags with merchandise. When an employee approached two of the suspects, one of them raised his shirt to display a handgun in his waistband, and announced that this was an armed robbery of the store.

The employee backed away, and allowed the suspects to leave with bags filled with merchandise of undisclosed value. When the suspects were last seen, they were carrying their bags toward the Friendship Heights Metro station. Police have now released surveillance footage of the four suspects.

Suspect one is described by police as a Black male with a medium build, approximately 6-feet, 1-inch tall and 180 pounds with a beard. Suspect two is described as a Black female, approximately 5-feet, 2-inches tall and 220 pounds. Her hair was dyed orange and worn in braids. Suspect three and four are described as two Black males, one with a medium build and the other with a beard.

Detectives are asking anyone with information regarding this crime or the suspects involved to call Crime Solvers of Montgomery County toll-free at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477). A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information that leads to the arrest of the suspects. Callers may remain anonymous.  

Amazon Fresh to "go big" or go home in Montgomery County?

A long-completed but yet-to-open Amazon Fresh store filled with empty shelves on Shady Grove Road has become the local poster child for a nationwide freeze on Amazon's expansion plans in the grocery sector. Amazon successfully opened Amazon Fresh stores in Friendship Heights and Chevy Chase Lake, but the 270 Center store on the border of Rockville and Gaithersburg has been frozen in time since the fall of 2022. Yesterday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy offered the first update on the cloudy future of the retail giant's bricks-and-mortar grocery adventure to the Financial Times, and it was a vaguely positive one.

Empty shelves inside the completed-but-unopened
Shady Grove Amazon Fresh store

Amazon plans to "go big" on expansion of its physical grocery stores this year, Jassy said in an exclusive interview with the FT. He said the halt he ordered on the openings and leasing of new locations cost the company $720 million in Q4 of 2022, and blamed the problems that warranted the pause on the pandemic. He said that now "we're hopeful that in 2023 we have a format we want to go big on, on the physical side."

That sounds like we can expect the Shady Grove store to go forward this year, and that the hysterical forecasts of all Amazon Fresh stores closing will prove to have been premature. Surprisingly, Jassy sounded more bullish on bricks-and-mortar stores than on the company's Amazon Fresh online delivery service, saying "people want to actually touch and feel" the foods they are buying before making a purchase. The FT noted that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had promised to remain engaged on the grocery push after stepping aside as CEO in 2021. It's likely Bezos wasn't too pleased to hear the company hesitate on a plan that was meant to facilitate major growth in Amazon's online same-day-delivery service, which is dependent upon having neighborhood hubs like the Amazon Fresh grocery stores function as warehouses.

Bezos has a home in Washington, D.C. You can be sure he is going to be monitoring the progress of a Shady Grove store that is practically right under his nose in Montgomery County.

Amazon Fresh opens at Chevy Chase Lake (Photos)

Amazon Fresh has opened at Chevy Chase Lake early this morning. The grocery store, located at 8525 Chevy Chase Lake Terrace, is the second Amazon Fresh store in Montgomery County. It is the first to offer Just Walk Out technology, which adds up your purchases as you shop and allows a quick exit if you want to avoid standing in lines. The system will be retrofitted to the existing Amazon Fresh at the Collection at Chevy Chase; a third Amazon Fresh store will open soon at the 270 Center on the border of Rockville and Gaithersburg.

This Amazon Fresh is larger than the first store, and the interior seems to have benefitted from the building being new construction, rather than an old supermarket converted into an Amazon Fresh. There is a cafe seating area, where shoppers can enjoy the many fresh and hot prepared foods sold at the store. Customers can also enjoy two hours of free parking.

Amazon Fresh sets opening date at Chevy Chase Lake

The anchor retail tenant of Chevy Chase Land Company's new Chevy Chase Lake development now has an opening date. Amazon Fresh will open there on September 1, 2022. This will be the first Amazon Fresh store in Montgomery County to feature the company's Just Walk Out payment technology. Another Amazon Fresh will be opening very soon on Shady Grove Road, on the border of Rockville and Gaithersburg at the 270 Center.

More signage, more displays at Chevy Chase Lake Amazon Fresh grocery store (Photos)

Keeping tabs on the transformation of Chevy Chase Lake, this morning we shift from the west side of Connecticut Avenue to the Chevy Chase Land Company site on the east side. There, more finishing touches are being put on the anchor retail tenant of the development, an Amazon Fresh grocery store. More shelving and displays have been put into place, but there is still no actual merchandise on them yet. Outside, some blade signs have been attached outside the apartment windows above the store, joining the main signage that was installed about a month ago.

Amazon Fresh, Truist signage installed at Chevy Chase Lake (Photos)

Exactly eight months after I broke the story that Amazon Fresh and Truist would be part of the new Chevy Chase Lake development on Connecticut Avenue, the signs for both businesses have been installed. The Truist sign is already lit. There are also Amazon Fresh curbside pickup signs posted at designated parking spaces outside the future grocery store. Inside, the store is in final preparations for opening, sporting the bare shelves and display cases seen recently at the soon-to-open Shady Grove Road location.

These are the only retail tenants to have signage so far at the development, which is located at a future Purple Line station. Others that have signed leases so far include CVS Pharmacy, restaurant Elena James, Playa Bowls, ice cream shop The Charmery, and wine shop Uncorked.

Taking a look at the rest of the property, you can see the grand lobby of The Barrett, and still-under-construction apartment tower The Claude. Some of the premium construction materials can be seen. A Eurocobble shipping crate outside The Claude contains Milano cobblestone from a quarry in the Italian Alps.