New year brings extended calendar to downtown’s outdoor markets

By Jennifer Deseo | Jan 4, 2010
Photo: How do you like them snowy apples? From the Dec 5, 2009, farmers market in downtown Silver Spring. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: How do you like them snowy apples? From the Dec 5, 2009, farmers market in downtown Silver Spring. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Resolved to eat more fruits and veggies in the new year? Silver Spring’s farmers market can hook you up starting this weekend. Want some cool tchotchkes for your crib? The Fenton Street Market hits you with that in the spring.

On Saturday, FreshFarm holds its first installation of a year-round farmers market in the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center. Expect the locally grown goods to hit Ellsworth Drive at 10:00 a.m., one hour later than usual, a market spokesperson told The Penguin.

FreshFarm considered a year-round market last summer, when it surveyed local shoppers with an informal “pin the dot” poll. Most respondents seemed to dig the idea of 12 months of markets, though a few felt cold weather would make shit out of the experience, according to The Penguin’s unofficial tally of survey results.

Some of that wintry weather already made its presence known to market patrons on Dec 5, 2009, when a relatively small snowpocalypse dropped four inches of slush on apples and greens. The weather that day drew fewer shoppers than usual onto Ellsworth, despite a concurrent crafts fair on that street. (more…)

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Vendors, visitors flood Fenton Village craft mart

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 30, 2009
Photo: A jewelry vendor at the Fenton Street Market. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: A jewelry vendor at the Fenton Street Market. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Editor’s note: Fenton Village scored a sweet deal in September when the Fenton Street Market opened. Part craft mart, part yard sale, it was popular enough to spawn weekly sales starting spring 2010.

Saturday morning was all about baubles, bicycles and hand-knit scarves at the inaugural Fenton Street Market.

About 40 vendors set up shop in a paved parking lot on Fenton and Silver Spring Avenue. Many sold beaded jewelry, scarves and wool yarn, while others peddled paintings and photographs. A few offered used tchotchkes, Hawaiian shirts and VHS tapes. (It’s what people used to watch before they streamed shows off Hulu.)

Meanwhile, a steady stream of people snaked around vendors’ tables and inspected da goods. Dozens more in their cars circled the block and spilled onto East Silver Spring’s residential streets in search of coveted parking. (more…)

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South Silver Spring coffee house to close

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 10, 2009
Courtesy of Flickr user UltimateLibrarian.

Photo: Customers at Mayorga's South Silver Spring coffee house. Courtesy of Flickr user UltimateLibrarian.

The Mayorga Coffee Co. is closing its Georgia Avenue coffee house, according to a press statement on the company’s website.

“Sustainability is such a vital part of everything we do, but the ultimate sustainability is being able to thrive and succeed as a business,” Martin Mayorga, president of the Rockville-based company, announced Wednesday. “Sadly, that is no longer a reality for that location.”

In other words, the store couldn’t turn a profit, said Barry Soorenko, who leases the 6,200 square-foot space along South Silver Spring’s Arts Alley to Mayorga. The coffee company is still obligated to pay $30 per square foot in rent to Soorenko each month, or at least until a new tenant is found, he said.

In the end, it was cheaper for Mayorga to pay rent on a vacant space than it was to keep the coffee house in operation, Soorenko said. (more…)

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Fenton Village restaurateur says no to charcuterie, yes to bar

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 8, 2009

Searching for sliced prosciutto or gabagool in downtown Silver Spring? Ain’t gonna happen at Jackie’s Restaurant, Fenton Village’s hipster haven. But patrons looking for a stiff drink or rare beer can holler.

Photo: The bar inside Jackies Restaurant is about to get a little company. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP

Photo: The bar inside Jackie's Restaurant is about to get a little company. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP

Jackie Greenbaum, who runs the eponymous eatery, canceled plans to convert extra space at her Sligo Avenue building into a charcuterie (read: meat market). Instead, she’s tricking it out into a new bar, she told The Penguin at Saturday’s snowy farmers market on Ellsworth Drive.

The bar will occupy what used to be a hair salon plus one other retail space at the corner of Sligo and Georgia Avenue, adjacent to Jackie’s. To satisfy the county’s liquor-control people, the bar technically will be an extension of the restaurant — it’ll connect with the main dining room and its backroom gallery, Greenbaum explained.

But the 1,300 square-foot bar will have a “low-fi” vibe to it. Where Jackie’s is polished and sleek, the bar will be designed for hanging out, shooting pool and possibly playing a little Ms Pac-Man, she said. (more…)

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Downtown pizzerias show varying signs of progress

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 17, 2009
Photo: Flippin' close to the finish. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photos: Flippin' close to the finish. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

UPDATE — On one end of downtown Silver Spring, a franchise pizzeria is poised to fling open its doors and sling a few pies into its ovens. At the other end, a locally owned parlor sprouts slowly from scratch. It’s the tale of two pizzerias on different tracks of development.

On Colesville Road near Ramsey Avenue, Flippin’ Pizza promises to deliver “a slice of New York” to Discovery HQ employees and other area office workers. A quick visual inspection Friday revealed workers adding final touches to the small restaurant’s lighting. An exposed-brick wall framed posters of the Brooklyn Bridge (holler!) and the New York skyline. Two wide wooden paddles hung on a wall behind the counter, next to flat, stacked pizza ovens.

A brief glimpse on Monday morning showed an orange ladder leaning against Flippin’ Pizza’s dining room wall.

Electrical workers inside the restaurant said on Oct 28 that the place would open for business the following week. Almost three weeks later, the place still isn’t open. However, Penguin ninja and Twitter buddy @joshourisman reported seeing employee training inside the place last week. (more…)

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County, developer reach agreement on Fillmore music hall

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 13, 2009
Photo: Lets do this shit already.

Illustration: Let's do this shit already.

Stick a fork in it — negotiations to build a Fillmore music hall in downtown Silver Spring are done. Or as MoCo exec Ike Leggett exclaimed after a town-hall meeting Thursday night, “It’s done, done, done!”

“We are moving in Silver Spring,” he told about 150 people huddled in a Takoma Park school cafeteria. “We’ll get those things done to improve the quality of life.”

The county’s long-awaited deal with the Lee Development Group (LDG) means plans to build the Colesville Road venue can lurch into the design and development phase, Leggett spelled out to The Penguin. Expect a shovel in the dirt sometime next year, he said reluctantly.

So what the hell was with all these negotiations anyway? It’s complicated, Leggett said, and full of gives and takes on both sides of the table. On the surface, LDG surrenders a former JC Penney department-store site on Colesville, valued at $3.5 million, on which the venue will be constructed. The company also puts in $500,000 worth of “management services” to oversee construction of the concert hall.

LDG made other concessions, according to Leggett, but he didn’t specify what those were. (more…)

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