Sunday, April 14, 2019

Hawkers to open at Bethesda Row

Mysterious lucky cat window screens appeared on the front of what used to be Redwood on Bethesda Lane this weekend. They fill the windows of a newly-divided space that is about 4000 SF in size, compared to the much-larger Redwood. I can now report that the future tenant is Hawkers Scratch-Asian Street Fare, a chain with a number of east coast locations. This will be their first in the Mid-Atlantic area.

Hawkers was launched in 2011 in Orlando as a "high energy" casual restaurant serving high-quality cocktails and recipes for street cart favorites from across Asia. They are essentially going to offer the now-trendy Asian food hall experience under one owner and menu.

The Hawkers menu features small plates like Singapore's national dish Chilli Crab, Korean twice-fried wings, Malaysian Roti Canai, Filipino-style Chicka-rones, and Siu Yoke, which is a crispy pork belly with hoisin dipping sauce. They also serve five kinds of noodle soups. four salads, five rice entrees, and a large noodle dish menu.

Desserts range from a "royal pairing" of creme brulee and mangosteen compote to sticky rice. Beverages include Asian coffees and teas, sodas, and a decent-size list of cocktails, sake and Japanese whisky, including 1 oz. whisky flights for sampling.

This sounds like a nice addition to Bethesda Row, and fortunately not just more retail on a pedestrian street that's lost some energy since Redwood shuttered. With Poke Dojo also coming to Bethesda Lane, Asian flavors are getting a major boost at the Federal Realty property. Construction on the interior has not yet begun. Stay tuned for an opening date.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really concerned about Peter Pineapple.

I hope they find him - I am concerned for his welfare.

Anonymous said...

So is it like The Spot where you walk up to each stall, order and pay, like a food court? Or is there table service like a sit-down restaurant?

I ate at Redwood many times so I know the space. Seems like it would be a squeeze to have a bunch of stalls and room for people to line up at each one.

Anna said...


8:575AM #2 - Say...that isn't in Montgomery County...that's in ...dun.dun.dun...Frederick County, Maryland. Curious.

Roald said...

Big, big, big!

Maloney Concrete said...

A mysterious cat on the loose on Bethesda Lane and Robert Dyer is on the case!
Looking forward to this one.

Anonymous said...

Nice that this is a unique restaurant in the DMV, and maybe a bit of a draw from outside the immediate area. I’ve read a few reviews of others in Florida, and they seem to be very popular, and highly rated. I think this will be only the seventh restaurant in the chain.

Anonymous said...

are you effing kidding? this is the best we can do?

Anonymous said...

Happy to see more Asian food options in Bethesda and not another Greek/Italian/small plates inspired concept. I'm sure the owners of Penang aren't too thrilled about this though.

G. Money said...

Poke is Hawaiian (e.g., Pacific Islander), not Asian in origin, FYI.

Anonymous said...

How does their choice to open here fit with the Robert Dyer theory about the declining foot/consumer traffic in downtown Bethesda since the loss of the cinema on Wisconsin Ave. and the horrible business environment created by the so-called "MoCo Cartel"?

Robert Dyer said...

8:09: Neither fact is in dispute. The garage "Spaces Available" signs speak for themselves. The Bethesda Avenue garage was regularly "FULL" at dinnertime during warmer months just two years ago. Now hundreds of spaces are available, and that's with no quantifiable increase in parking in the Capital Crescent garage.

Crowd sizes and foot traffic around the Row are down, there is little traffic inside Anthropologie minus the popularity of the associated Terrain Cafe, and the area - like the rest of downtown Bethesda - goes dead after 9-10 PM even on weekends.

Maybe the local business community will finally "get dangerous" as Bob Ehrlich exhorted them to do 15 years ago, and elect some Republicans or even some fiscally-conservative/business-friendly Democrats to the Council in 2022. But it's going to be a long four years. #VoterRemorse

M O R I B U N D

Anna said...

There is no cartel.

It exists only in the mind of Gen-X full of anger and envy.
You know, Gen-X "condemned by numbers alone to nicheville,"

Robert Dyer said...

6:19: There is indeed a cartel, and we know who the members are. They now control all 9 seats on the County Council, to boot.