Whether the diner would move to a new location, remains to be determined. If the deal goes through, Montgomery County officials should insist that a Hot Shoppes restaurant be included in the future hotel to balance out the nostalgia factor.
The Marriott headquarters project is a partnership between the hotel giant, property owner Bernstein Companies and Boston Properties. It is expected to deliver in 2022. Tastee Diner is located at 7731 Woodmont Avenue, a corner of the same block as the Marriott site, which is addressed as 7750 Wisconsin Avenue.
133 comments:
you need a new source.
How so?
Logistically speaking, can the diner be moved?
Seems like it would be easier to recreate elsewhere.
What about Woodmont Grill? It'll make for a really odd cutout if that lot isn't part of the assemblage!
Regarding requiring a Hot Shoppes, if we look at the Stonehall comparison, requiring a restaurant was allowed and then taken out after the fact.
Move it to the top of the parking garage across the street.
Big, big news. Right to the heart of Bethesda.
Moving it should be feasible. The Bethesda location has already been moved twice, once when delivered to its original location of 6604 Wisconsin Ave in 1939 from the O'Mahony Dining Car Company factory in Elizabeth, NJ, then sometime in the '50s or '60s when it was moved to its current location.
The Tastee chain should be no stranger to moving diners- they moved the original 1935 Silver Spring location to Rockville when the 1946 model was delivered, then moved that 1946 O'Mahony Diner from its original site to the current one in 2000 when the lot was sold to build the Discovery Channel building.
The reporters at the other website are scrambling because they got scooped on easily the biggest story of the week, and probably month.
Ironic since their offices are right across the street. Get to work, Hull's boys! A lone blogger got better info than you guys who get paid to write about this stuff!
9:47 AM Presumably you're trolling, trying to get Dyer to lash out and see your name in lights here?
I don't like it in one sense but in another sense Tastee Diner has gone downhill over the years it will be missed that's for sure
They moved the one in Silver Spring, which had the same original foundation.
The question is, even if they can move it, does any Bethesda property owner want it?
It could end up like that trash barge that kept going up and down the east coast, but no one wanted it to dock in their state.
Any chance they could move it to that empty plaza at the Bethesda Metro Center?
Tastee Bethesda will not be moved. Gene is getting older now and already has two other successful Tastee locations plus a fresh batch of money in his pocket that could be 5 million. He doesn't need the headache of moving and restarting Bethesda. As to Houston's, if Marriott wants and needs that, they'll get that too. This is once in a long time for them. Marriott will be there potentially forever. One shot deal.
Robert, when are you going to cover the new French school planned on Old Georgetown Road near Beech Ave.?
Hi Robert! My God, this is awfully news for a hometown guy like myself!
So, am I reading this correctly Robert, are they going to demolish the restaurant itself??
And the Hot Shoppes thing is crazy interesting!
11:08 - tell me more about the French school. Where exactly? Do you know if they are going to move out of their current school behind St. Jane de Chantal?
Why move it? Bethesda has a growing surplus of street-level retail sites waiting to be filled.
11:41 AM Yes, lots of vacant spaces even just in the Woodmont Triangle.
This is fake news folks. Roberts source got some bad info.
Stop lying, birdbrain. This wasn't a scoop. Business Insider had this four days ago. You live here and weren't even the first to report. #sad as you'd like to say. Especially for your slightly failing blog.
11:29: If the deal goes through, they would move the diner and build in its place. Where the diner would go I guess would be up to the owner, unless he conveys the diner along with the property. It has been moved before.
The only precedent for a Hot Shoppes is that they have one in the new Marriott Marquis downtown, so why not in their corporate flagship hotel in Bethesda? It would make perfect sense.
It would be funny if they opened a Hot Shoppes, and their only customers were a couple of 80- and 90-somethings who spent most of their visits complaining about the high prices.
WTOP reporting that there is no deal
http://wtop.com/business-finance/2017/04/bethesda-tastee-diner-not-sold-yet/
Taking over 3 lots South of Beech on the Wyngate side of Old Georgetown. It's Elementary only. Main campus stays.
There is no Hot Shoppes in the Marriott Marquis, the restaurant is called Anthem and it has like 3 items that reference Hot Shoppes but to claim that there is a Hot Shoppes there is completely false.
1:33 - Ok, so the campus in the neighborhood behind de Chantal stays? Got it and too bad. Great site for a Co-ed archdiocesan high school
I was wondering about Dyer's headline starting with his source. Gives him an easy out which he'll surely take saying he wasn't the one that was wrong.
Marriott is buying it...it just makes sense. Everyone has a price and it is time.
That little corner won't be worth more to anyone other than Marriott.
"Bethesda blogger Robert Dyer reported Monday that Marriott would acquire Tastee Diner and its corner lot for $7 million, citing an unnamed source.
“I did meet with Marriott on Friday, and the guy told me, ‘We don’t really need your spot, but we’d like to have that corner because it’s just a nice corner,” owner Gene Wilkes told WTOP. “After about 10 or 15 minutes and not getting any numbers on the table, I said, ‘Guys I’ve got a busy day. If you’re really serious come up with a reasonable price and give me a call,'” Wilkes said.
While Wilkes says $7 million has never been offered to him, he says a price like that is “getting close” to what he’d want." WTOP 4/24/14
Dyer reports like FoxNews #FAKE.
2:03 PM Let's see how it plays out.
Quincy's was about re-open too. :)
Fox News ain't fake ClintonNewsNetwork watcher.
So, Marriott shows up and wants to buy my tiny piece of property for millions. And I tell them I'm very busy on the grill, please come back?!
2:12:
1) The only one who said that the offer that was "millions", is Robert Dyer, who thinks that 14% of all Montgomery County voters are illegal aliens.
2) In any negotiation, it is best to conceal one's interest until an offer "that cannot be refused" is made.
Curious here, we can all agree this is a good thing for Bethesda. So does that mean since it's a good thing, this has nothing to do with the County Council? I would assume there were some political forces at work here getting Marriott to move to downtown Bethesda.
"The owner of Tastee Diner says reports that he has reached a deal to sell the Bethesda location to Marriott International Inc. are untrue, although he says he is still willing to sell for the right price."
-- WTOP
Dyer brought up the problem of #fakenews in Bethesda. He certainly was right!
It will be sad to see it go but I haven't been back after there was a shard of glass in my egg white omelet.
3:36 PM - Robert Dyer created the problem of fake news in Bethesda!
He has inspired many of his fellow right-wing nutcases to do the same at the national level!
4:45 - those darn right winters
Wingers. Get a life.
1:28: I'm standing by my report. Neither Tastee Diner nor Marriott is going to announce anything publicly at this time. A sale of this type won't close for at least another couple of years. Any deal would likely be contingent upon Bernstein acquiring Woodmont Grill, and Marriott's site plan approval.
The WTOP story confirms details of what my sources told me - there was indeed a meeting late last week, and the owner acknowledged this is the price he wanted.
But, unless you have sources as I did in this case, you're not going to get a confirmation of a sale in April 2017. Understandably, if you don't have sources you'll want to naively cling to any denial that appears to disprove my scoop.
Surprised the troll and competitors would want to take this tack so soon after they fell on their faces with their reports that Quincy's wasn't closing.
They fell hook, line and sinker for the fantastical "waiting a month for the HVAC repairman" story.
#FakeNews
2:03: Until any sale closes, which won't be for 2 years at least, of course both parties can honestly say there's no sale.
I'm standing by my report until I hear something otherwise from credible sources.
3:25: Riff, the Marriott deal was negotiated by the executive branch. The County Council had no role whatsoever.
4:53 - Does your keyboard not have a backspace key? LOL
That's funny. Robert "Fake News and Failing Hobby Blog" officially got caught. Who are we going to believe folks? A tried and true, dependable source of news like WTOP or a hobby blog that makes up the truth like Dyer's blog. Seriously, established news source like WTOP or a guy that doesn't even have a website.
Dyer @ 5:25 PM - Isn't the executive branch, led by Ike Leggett, also part of the MoCo Machine?
Dyer wrote: "A source tells me the owner of Tastee Diner has agreed to sell the venerable restaurant's property, to make way for a larger Marriott headquarters and hotel to be built on that block in downtown Bethesda. After several months of negotiations with the Marriott site property owner, Tastee Diner has reportedly agreed to sell for $7 million."
The owner of Tastee Diner has publicly stated that he has not agreed to sell the property. All your dissembling excuses above don't change the fact that you were flat-out wrong on this.
So any correction by you "won't be for 2 years at least..." Even this is an extremely suspect claim to make, as you have never corrected the many howling errors of fact and logic you have served up in the past. Or was the original article just a "typo"?
5:40 - Things happen quick and my damn phone autocorrects all the time. Point is folks need to stay on topic. Talking about news on the national level and right-wing or whatever has nothing to do with diner or Dyer.
I'm still betting on Dyer's source being right- Marriott will buy this and the Houston's property to incorporate into their HQ.
The diner isn't worth millions to anyone other than Marriott. The time is right to sell.
A lot of folks commenting here don't understand how real estate deals go down. Dyer has worked the development beat for awhile now and gets it.
6:44 - You are exactly right. I said from the beginning that if Marriott wants this and Houston's properties or any other they're gonna get them period. This is a once in a lifetime deal and I also predict it is gonna go down. I'm not sure Tastee is worth 7 million. But Marriott can and will overpay and diner owner is anything but dumb. He has a big number in his head and knows they can hit it. He said at 7, they're getting closer. He isn't young anymore, has a shit ton of money already and still two other successful diner locations. This will happen. And yes, Dyer is likely correct here.
This may eventually be true but at the moment the owner has straight up said it is currently false. So the scoop is wrong for now.
In Dyer We Trust :)
8:15pm the owner may just not be ready to announce publically.
Dyer has solid sources.
5:42: Did WTOP break all the details of the River Road crash that evening and overnight, including first confirmation it was a Whitman family, when the community had no other source to turn to for almost 24 hours? No. Did WTOP break the story that Bruce Variety was closing? No. Westbard cemetery scandal? Nope. Underground fuel spill in Bethesda? No. Glen Echo streetcar snuck out of town by NPS? Nyet.
Who is the "established news source" in Bethesda? Good question.
5:45: You obviously don't understand how real estate deals work, especially ones with as many moving and contingent parts as this Marriott deal.
I've never printed any "howling errors." That's a good phrase to describe the careers of your bosses on the County Council, though. Judging from your comments, there's an outbreak of Robert Dyer Derangement Syndrome at 100 Maryland Avenue, as Election 2018 approaches.
8:17/8:19 - Twice in just four minutes?
5:44: Of course, but YOU asked me about the Council role.
Ultimately, it's irrelevant, as the Marriott HQ isn't a net addition. They're merely moving their massive deck chair down the Titanic deck from Rock Spring to downtown Bethesda.
Not a single major corporation has moved to Montgomery County in two decades.
The owner has publicly stated this blog post is "untrue." Issue a correction, Robert.
@9:22 PM - Get a life. Let's wait until the amount is publicly revealed. If Dyer ends up being incorrect then he should issue an apology for a bad source. However, just because someone says a journalist/media outlet is incorrect in their portrayal of them doesn't necessarily mean it isn't correct. We need to wait until all the facts come out. Under your logic, a convicted murder could claim a new media's portrayal of their convicted crime as "untrue" but the facts show a judge/jury has convicted them beyond a reasonable doubt.
"You obviously don't understand how real estate deals work"
Dyer forgets there are professionals in many fields that read his blog.
Agreed. Dyer has a very educated and influential readership.
6:44 PM, 7:06 PM, 8:17 PM, 8:19 PM, 4:57 AM, 5:14 AM -
"Attaboy, Dyer!"
Nearly a day later, and Bethesda Beat still hasn't "plagiarized" Dyer's "scoop.
Man, this is a huge blow to credibility.
"However, just because someone says a journalist/media outlet is incorrect in their portrayal of them doesn't necessarily mean it isn't correct."
It isn't "someone" you utter dolt - it's the owner of the property in question who was literally in the meeting. Dyer posting uncited hearsay (or simply fabricating what he wants to type and attributing it to an imaginary source) without offering a correction noting that the primary party involved has - literally - called this report "just more fake news" is absurd. It makes Dyer look terrible that he isn't handling this appropriately.
Dyer was found to be totally wrong and can't admit it. Sad
8:36 AM Come on, use a little critical thinking.
Just because Quincy's owner claims they're temporarily closed because of electric issues doesn't mean we have to believe it.
Or the Pizza Pass is reopening soon, even though they liquidated everything not hammered down :)
Looks like Bethesda Magazine's Tortoise beat Robert Dyer's Hare again!
9:15 with no shout out to Dyer.
9:19 AM says "Attaboy, Dyer!" just four minutes later.
Robert - we are here for you. Everyone makes mistakes - even huge mistakes. You will survive, but it will take time to regain credibility.
What never ceases to amaze me about Dyer's journalism "skills" is that he will not visit or pick-up the phone and ask someone what is going on. If he had asked the owner of Tastee Diner what were his plans, he would have avoided being accused of "fake news" by the owner. You see this failure to investigate frequently on this site. For example, why puzzle out loud what the Honda dealer' plans are for their newly constructed wall and garage -- ask them for god's sake.
Creeping around late at night reading window signs is not journalism.
Robert Dyer is so much in certain people's heads that they can't speak his name.
"What never ceases to amaze me about Dyer's journalism "skills" is that he will not visit or pick-up the phone and ask someone what is going on"
Look at the content in Dyer's articles, it's not really surprising that no one will speak to him, or be quoted...except maybe Ficker. The only recorded source Dyer uses are his own biased and hateful opinions/anecdotes.
Roald, it's strange that you believe that, since every comment I see mentions Robert Dyer explicitly.
Roald is the Alex Jones of Commentville
I'll just leave this here:
[Wilkes] told his friends and customers not to worry—there’s nothing final yet, despite ongoing rumors and a blog reporting a million-dollar buyout. “That’s just more fake news,” he said.
11:21 AM Yes, I'm sure Quincy's owner said the report of them closing was fake news as well.
I wouldn't take every PR comment from business owners at face value.
Dyer's mom is fast! Gets those atta-boys up quickly.
Remember how Dyer claimed that Smashburger was closing in January 2015? And then tried to claim that his 2015 story was true because they lost their lease in 2017?
9:32: I haven't made a mistake. Your problem is, you naively buy whatever you're told by a business as fact. Pizza Pass, Bethesda Barbeque Co. Quincy's..."You will survive," but without the skeptical mind of a journalist, you won't "regain credibility."
Did the owner (or Marriott) spill the beans? Someone let the cat out of the bag, or spread the word around for a reason.
9:15: Plagiarism takes time, I guess. Their "story," much like their jobs, were made possible by me.
It's too late, I already broke the story. You would never have found out a meeting had taken place last week, were it not for my report.
They'll also regurgitate this scoop a few years from now, when Marriott announces they've bought the whole block, as if it's new and riveting news.
Nobody - other than the County Council - wants to read about "there still isn't a deal, and the diner will operate for centuries to come." These are the same folks who told you Bethesda Barbecue Co. was going to reopen with a new concept, even as the toilets were being carried out to a moving truck. Some tortoises will fall for anything.
11:42: I wasn't the one who reported that. I linked to a report that said it was closing. Which was absolutely true - the owner let them stay 2 more years when no one else would lease the space.
11:08: I hope people look at the content - because they'll ask themselves why they've been wasting time reading propaganda for the MoCo political cartel elsewhere. Here they can get the "rest of the story"
Strange Hull tasked an intern write to a story about Dyer's scoop but was too afraid to mention Dyer by name. More childish games by the old media.
I thought they had agreed to refer to Robert Dyer as "that man" at least.
8:36: So when Trump calls CNN fake news, you believe him, and CNN "looks terrible?"
Robert are you related to the Dyer clan that lived on Cheltenham Drive in the 60s?
Jimmy Dyer and Donald Dyer?
#UnsignedDyer @ 12:17 PM - Kleenex?
Dyer comments at 12:12 and 12:15... then comes the comment from "Tim" at 12:17. LOL
Answer the question Robert...did you make any attempt to contact the owner before running your story?
As I said earlier, Robert Dyer is clearly in the head of some folks around town. So much so, they can't say his name or reference him.
Same as Robert Dyer won't mention or let anyone earn mention a certain other publication. Lol.
"you naively buy whatever you're told by a business as fact"
Wow. Good to know that the small business owners in Bethesda are liars. Is there anyone that Dyer won't insult (except Trump)?
The fact that Dyer even refers to himself as a "journalist" is a joke.
"...in the head of some folks around town"
...whom "Roald" "can't name or reference."
LOL
2:10 PM Dyer is a journalist. There's no badge to officially designate someone a journalist.
Agree or disagree with him, he's still a journalist.
Robert is a blogger, I'd hardly call him a journalist...he's just a manchild with a digital camera and computer living in his mom's basement.
2:54 PM is back to the ad hominem personal attacks with no basis in reality.
Dyer certainly gets a rise out of the old media folks.
Mark M.: Not to my knowledge, although I've heard of them over the years.
2:45: Is that why the Washington Post had to plagiarize my reporting the night of the Whitman accident? Why everybody is writing about Tastee Diner after my report? At least WTOP was ethical, and linked to my original article, unlike the small and slightly-failing magazine.
#Triggered
Now dyer is accusing the Washington post of plagiarism too. Wow.
2:10: So, you're saying the outgoing business owners who tried to mislead the public and lie about staying open are honest and forthright? No wonder you support the County Council!
The fact that you call people who can't even follow Journalism 101 rules about citing sources "journalists" is the real joke, loserman.
3:33: Just look at the articles. Details I got from a source AT THE CRASH SCENE were later in the evening added to a vague traffic accident/road closure report by Martin Weil, with no citation of my work. Or perhaps like Bethesda Magazine, he simply sensed via ESP that a family miles away was heading to a school play. Yeah, that's the ticket!
That and more were lifted from my report without attribution.
Dyer deletes any reference to another site yet he complains about others not including him. Ha.
"Details I got from a source AT THE CRASH SCENE were later in the evening added to a vague traffic accident/road closure report by Martin Weil, with no citation of my work."
How do you know that Weil didn't talk to the same source that you did?
4:13: He's manning the Metro desk at the Post on weekends. He's not out on River Road, and there's no phone yet that can detect the numbers of people you don't know, who just happen to be at a crash scene. It's bad enough when you use that tired excuse when Bethesda Magazine plagiarizes me. Here you just sound like a complete nutjob.
4:00: If the whole premise of your article is taken from my article, you MUST cite me as the source in your article. Journalism 101.
Dyer has the whole town talking (again) and waiting for his next big scoop :)
And Dyer never attacks county council members, planning department staff, readers, commentors, trolls, other publications.
Did you ever take a course called "Journalism 101"?
Dyer's troll eventually gets back to his well worn 3 or 4 insults on every article. He can't beat Dyer, so he "anonymously" defames him instead.
I'm gonna miss the diner.
And Skippy "anonymously" defames the commenters.
Cycle of life.
Skippy = Dyer's Mom
No Skippy is probably Robin Ficker.
It's hilarious that Dyer thinks that all of the critical comments on this page are from the same person.
I wrote to J. Willard Marriott a while back suggesting they bring back
a Hot Shoppes or two. It'd do a killer business, and they wrote back saying their concession to the public's desire to have a Hot Shoppes back was to serve some of the classic fare at one restaurant in DC—at exhorbatant prices.
This is at the Anthem Restuarant.
http://www.marriott.com/hotelwebsites/us/w/wasco/0-modules/restaurants/5641401_anthem/module_PDFs/Anthem_Lunch_100414.pdf
Roald is probably Dyer's mom
#fakenews - even Marriott is disputing it.
You mean scoop or incorrect story? Marriott said themselves that this deal hasn't gone through and they are fine without it.
6:07 PM They're certainly not going to say "OMG...we absolutely need your diner."
The asking price would just go up several million $$.
You really need an informed source, like Dyer has, to know the real deal going down. The rest is PR.
6:07: You must be pretty gullible to fall for whatever a press release says. I guess you're still waiting for the "deli" to open in the Bethesda Barbeque Co. space, as Bethesda Magazine falsely reported based on the what the owner told them, even as the toilets were being carried out of the restaurant.
Good luck - I've actually been inside there. It's stripped, and available for lease to future tenants. There's no deli, and there never was going to be.
I would strongly dispute the idea that Marriott doesn't want the diner site. They have been pursuing it for months, as recently as Friday. Two parties saying, "I don't need this property," and "I don't need to sell," is just standard, smart negotiating position in a real estate deal. If Marriott said they desperately wanted it, the asking price would just go up further. And to not sell to Marriott, the owner would be making a huge financial sacrifice for..what, exactly? Who would leave $5-7 million on the table just to say, "I took one for the community. I kept the diner open." Marriott can't show their cards yet, because this whole corner depends on getting the Woodmont Grill. Without that, the diner site isn't worth $7 million to them.
That's what all the public posturing is about right now.
Dyer leaving comments about himself. Doesn't change the fact he has a blog...that he can't even cobble together a website. People come purely for the entertainment...to see people pushing back on him. Folks rely on WaPo and Bethesda Mag for real news.
5:12: You sound like a complete nutjob. Washington Post plagiarized my breaking news on the Whitman River Road crash the night of the accident, and Bethesda Magazine plagiarizes my work all the time. Why would anyone "rely on WaPo and Bethesda Mag" when the "real news" is right here on my site?
Note well that Robert Dyer did not deny the allegation @ 10:32 AM.
"A source tells me the owner of Tastee Diner has agreed to sell the venerable restaurant's property..."
You spelled "souse" wrong.
Nope. It wasn't 7:18 who typed that alleged crazy comment. It was me @10.32.
Still no denial. Hmmm.
1:54: A denial of what?
Because your source has bad info.
There is no deal, no sale, no nothing. This is completely false news.
7:02: Is that why the owner isn't answering questions, and the manager says she thinks it's going to happen?
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