Le Creuset opens in Friendship Heights

Le Creuset has arrived in Friendship Heights. It is located at 5481-B Wisconsin Avenue, in the Collection at Chevy Chase development. The store will host a grand opening celebration from September 10-13, 2026. There will be free refreshments, and a free Le Creuset apron for the first 10 customers each of those days. A purchase of $250 or more will get you a free pumpkin butter dish, while supplies last.

Just Salad opens in Friendship Heights

Just Salad is now open at 5300-D Wisconsin Avenue NW at what's left of Mazza Gallerie in Friendship Heights. The fast-casual salad restaurant is the latest addition to the ground-level retail spaces in what is now known as the Residences at Mazza. Reusable bowls and a large number of plant-based alternatives to meat (the real thing is also still available at Just Salad, though) are part of what the chain calls "Earth-friendly" dining. 

To celebrate the Chevy Chase opening, Just Salad is offering 50% off your first digital order. Use the code MG50 through June 30, 2026. That's a good deal in tough financial times like this in Montgomery County.

GEICO campus, Brookdale Park trees facing the clearcut chainsaw in Friendship Heights

What would Warren Buffett do? Well, we know what the Montgomery County Council and Planning Board will do. The recent mega-downsizing of GEICO from its lush, longtime campus in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase to a modest office in Bethesda is quickly leading to a massive redevelopment of that land long feared by neighbors. Central to the plans to building luxury apartments and townhomes on the site is the removal of almost all of the large trees from the 29-acre campus.

"This includes trees that are over 50 inches in diameter; some have been there for more than 100 years," the Little Falls Watershed Alliance warned in a email. "LFWA opposes this large scale destruction of the trees as well as many other elements of the plan that will have a negative impact on the environment." Developer EYA is also seeking permission to remove trees from Brookdale Park, the organization said. LFWA is encouraging residents to email the Planning Department and County Council, and ask them to preserve the trees.

Toastique opening in Friendship Heights

Toastique is coming soon to the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase. It will be opening at 5310 Western Avenue at The Shops at Wisconsin Place. Toastique is a fast-casual, health-conscious all-day cafe chain. Not surprisingly, their signature menu item is their Gourmet Toast with toppings like Avocado Smash, Spicy Crab, Tuscan Tuna, and PB Crunch. Also on the menu are healthy bowls, fresh juices, iced collagen lattes, smoothies, wellness shots, waffles, and sweet baked goods.

The local chain was founded by Brianna Keefe. She opened the first Toastique in Southwest Washington, D.C. Today, there are locations in 25 states. Besides being healthy, the menu items are consciously designed to be photogenic for social media. Construction on Toastique is expected to begin by summer.

Indecent exposure in Friendship Heights

Montgomery County police responded to a report of indecent exposure in the Village of Friendship Heights in Chevy Chase yesterday afternoon, May 9, 2026. The incident was reported at a park in the 5400 block of Friendship Boulevard at 2:45 PM Saturday. That appears to be Willoughby Park at the corner of Friendship and Willard Avenue. It's quite disturbing that this took place during daylight hours on a busy Saturday afternoon.

The Cinema movie theater building cleared out in Friendship Heights (Photos)

The building that was long home to The Cinema at 5100 Wisconsin Avenue NW in Friendship Heights has been cleared out. Like some other shuttered movie theaters, it was eventually converted into a gym - Crunch Fitness, in this case. A one giant-for-the-time screen theater, it could seat 800 moviegoers. It was known for its 70mm projector from the 1980s onward, and for being a theater where you might turn your head during a Tom Clancy thriller to see a United States Senator or national security potentate pumping his fist during a particularly patriotic moment. You might have also spotted, or even been interviewed by, a TV personality from WTTG Fox 5, which used to be right across the street.

Beyond the high-profile clientele, the theater's architecture combined space-age utilitarianism with attention-grabbing Googie neon signage. Passing through the ownership of several chains since its opening in 1965, the Cinema's anodyne name functioned much like Bar in Ocean City: mention you were going to The Cinema, and everybody in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Northwest Washington knew exactly which theater you were referring to.

Among the highlights of the theater's four-decade operation was being one of only a couple dozen movie houses in the U.S. and Canada to show The Exorcist upon its opening date of December 26, 1973. You can imagine the hysteria of this exclusive engagement at The Cinema, with the Washington setting only topped by the outlandish spectacle delivered by the movie itself. Local newspaper reporters were all-too-eager to file colorful reports of Cinema patrons collapsing, vomiting, or simply fleeing the auditorium with what was left of their sanity intact. 

Later, beginning with the release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, The Cinema would draw cinephiles from far and wide to experience the adventures of Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan in 70mm grandeur. With the building now empty, isn't it time for one of our few remaining local billionaires to step in and restore the movie magic to 5100 Wisconsin Avenue NW? The Cinema was a true remnant of a golden age when there were neighborhood movie houses, ones we still remember from Damascus to Twinbrook to Spring Valley to Georgetown Square to - yes - Friendship Heights.

Assault at Whole Foods in Friendship Heights

Montgomery County police responded to a report of an aggravated assault at Whole Foods Market at 4420 Willard Avenue in Friendship Heights Thursday morning, March 26, 2026. The assault was reported at the supermarket at 9:47 AM Thursday, continuing the troubling trend of violent crimes being committed during daylight hours in Montgomery County. It appears to have been related to a shoplifting incident at the store, another persistent crime trend in the County.

Joy by Seven Reasons closes in Friendship Heights; contents to be auctioned off

Joy by Seven Reasons has closed at 5471 Wisconsin Avenue at the Collection at Chevy Chase in Friendship Heights. The contents of the restaurant will be auctioned off beginning on March 25, 2026. Conceived as a more-affordable spinoff of Seven Reasons in Washington, D.C. to better match the sinking median income level and stagnant economy of Friendship Heights, online reviewers noted that prices were still too high for their wallets, and that the restaurant was not exactly packing in the crowds. 

With empty storefronts ticking upward again at the Collection, and Saks Fifth Avenue departing by summer, property owner CCLC could look to reimagine this massive and prime site as a mixed-use "town center" development. As the Montgomery County Council damaged the area once known as "Montgomery County's Rodeo Drive" by encouraging the very wealthy to flee to lower-tax jurisdictions in the region, high-end retail and restaurants suddenly began vanishing in Friendship Heights. The collapse would give CCLC an argument to go big with a redevelopment plan, likely starting with the Saks end of the property.

Saks Fifth Avenue to close in Chevy Chase, opening potential major redevelopment opportunity

Saks Fifth Avenue will close its store at 5555 Wisconsin Avenue in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase by the end of May. The high-end department store chain announced it will close 12 stores as part of its ongoing bankruptcy woes. This includes the Tysons location, as well as landmark stores on Chicago's Magnificent Mile, on Long Island, and at South Coast Plaza in Orange County, California. Saks' Chevy Chase outpost has been just such a landmark since it opened in 1964, as the grand department stores slowly realized the future - and their customers - were in the suburbs.

The departure of Saks will open a potentially huge redevelopment opportunity for property owner CCLC. With Amazon Fresh also having closed at the Collection at Chevy Chase development, the company is free to seriously consider knocking most or all of the retail and office structures down, and build a mixed use "town center" that would fall somewhere on the scale between their Chevy Chase Lake project and Federal Realty's Pike & Rose. The current Collection retail center was constructed at a time when community input and civic associations had a much greater role in development, leading to the low-density project that resulted.

Fast forward to 2026, and the zoning and density restrictions are wildly more liberal. Montgomery County government no longer listens to public input, civic associations, or even the once-decisive powers like Kenwood or the Columbia Country Club, having paid no price whatsoever at the ballot box for defying public or power-player opinion on matters like the Westbard sector plan, the Little Falls Parkway road diet and the Purple Line.

If you haven't noticed yet, the County has abandoned all of its "Smart Growth" propaganda pablum. Planners no longer regale attendees at community meetings with high-minded platitudes like "transit-oriented development," "quarter-to-half-a-mile from Metro," "eyes on the street," and "activate the streetscape." In 2014, the County said it just wanted the shopping centers for redevelopment. "We won't touch the neighborhoods." Ten years later, it announced it wouldn't just touch, but bulldoze the neighborhoods, with the County Council passage of Thrive Montgomery 2050. 

No more dancing around. No more apologies.

Yet, at the Collection, there is not only the land to do something big, but the property is literally at a Metro station. And thanks to the County Council driving the rich to move to lower-tax jurisdictions in the region, Friendship Heights is in decline. As a result, CCLC would actually have a pretty solid basis upon which to argue for an ambitious revitalization project. It doesn't mean CCLC will do it. But the potential is there to go big, and ask for even bigger. It's not 2006 anymore, and the obstacles of public opinion and community that bedeviled developers then have been utterly vanquished over the succeeding two decades.

Assault at hotel in Friendship Heights

Montgomery County police were called to a hotel in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase last night, after someone was allegedly assaulted there. The 2nd-degree assault was reported in the 5500 block of Wisconsin Avenue at 8:20 PM Tuesday, March 3, 2026. A Courtyard by Marriott hotel is located at 5520 Wisconsin.

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.

Kids' gym to open at The Shops at Wisconsin Place in Friendship Heights

A children's gymnasium is coming soon to the Friendship Heights neighborhood of Chevy Chase. It will be located at 5406-D Wisconsin Avenue at The Shops at Wisconsin Place. Used most recently as a restaurant, the space has been subdivided into two retail suites. 

Just Salad, Inspire Nail Bar to open at Residences at Mazza in Friendship Heights

Just Salad and Inspire Nail Bar are the latest businesses to sign leases for retail space at the Residences at Mazza at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C. They join Total Wine, Wonder - a food hall (yeah, that ship has sailed, folks), and TJ Maxx at the redeveloped site of the Mazza Gallerie mall. A luxury mall - demolished!

Just Salad is similar to Sweetgreen and CHOPT, but with a more expansive menu that makes it the best of the three for people who don't want "just salad" for lunch.  They have dinner plates that look more like restaurant entrees than salads, and promote sustainability with returnable, reusable bowls. A nail bar is, well, a nail salon. The chain has many area locations, and specializes in waxing as well as nail services.

The additions continue the effort to recalibrate Friendship Heights downmarket after the flight of the rich to lower-tax jurisdictions tanked "Montgomery County's Rodeo Drive" of high-end boutiques, malls, and restaurants. So go get that salad, a Potbelly sandwich, and grab a six-pack at Total Wine, and think of the Montgomery County Council. Yee-haw!

Cheesecake Factory closing in Friendship Heights

The Cheesecake Factory is closing in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase, Washington, DC. "After extensive review and analysis, the company made the difficult decision to discontinue operation of our restaurant in Chevy Chase," Cheesecake Factory, Inc. Senior Director of Public Relations and Global Branding Alethea Rowe told Fox 5 producer Allison Papson in a statement. "Our last day of service will be January 24, 2026." This will be a devastating loss for nearby residents, as well as for Chevy Chase Pavilion. Everything around that mall is being redeveloped as residential housing, and this will only increase the pressure. Fortunately, we still have The Cheesecake Factory at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda.

Total Wine opens in Friendship Heights (Photos)

Total Wine has opened at 5401 44th Street NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase, D.C. The beer, wine, and spirits superstore is located in the basement of what's left of poor Mazza Gallerie. There is a coupon online to receive $10-off a purchase of $50 or more, in celebration of the opening. It's a mighty strong shot down the hatch to realize that Total Wine is headquartered in Montgomery County, but cannot open a store in Montgomery County due to the County monopoly control of liquor sales. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Update on Trader Joe's in Friendship Heights (Photos)

The interior fit-out of the new Trader Joe's grocery store at 5335 Wisconsin Avenue NW at Chevy Chase Pavilion in Friendship Heights is quite far along. Now we're seeing that trademark wood in every direction in there. Wood shelving! Wood counters! Wood in the vestibule! Trader Joe's loves its rustic wood decor, all right, but what's really getting attention at the moment is the signage that has been installed on the facades of the store's exterior.