Beans Last Days

Thirteen years ago, at The Rouse Company annual shareholders meeting, Tony Deering announced that catalog retailer LL Bean would be opening its first ever retail (non-outlet) store at The Mall. The story goes that this announcement upstaged the retailers own plans to break the news. To show their displeasure at this preemptive PR strike by a real estate developer, LL Bean went ahead and opened their Tysons Corner store first.

Despite this corporate silliness, LL Bean opened its Columbia store in May of 2001, a few months after Tysons Corner. This Sunday, after twelve years selling khakis and canoes to HoCo locos, the Columbia store will close. By midsummer the 30,000 square foot building that housed them will be gone, replaced by a new plaza and a reopening of the old main entrance.

Growler Guy

Beer is best when it’s fresh from the tap and one of the best ways to enjoy that freshness at home is the beer growler. Last year the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation to allow HoCo restaurants and liquor stores to sell draft beers in growlers. Less than one year later I've become a regular growler guy.

Growlers are also one of the best ways to enjoy the seemingly endless progression of craft beers. At the Wine Bin in Ellicott City for instance, they feature six growler offerings at any given time. Once a tap goes dry it is replaced with something new. There is always something different to try when I go in for a refill. Since they also offer a 32 oz growler you don’t have to make a big commitment to any one brew. Anyone can drink two pints of beer they only sort of like, right?

There are some things to take into consideration with growlers. For one, they don’t keep long. If you bring home beer in growler you should drink it within a week. The longer it sits, the more it loses that freshness. How it’s filled could be an issue as well. In his Thirsty in Seattle blog, Dan Swanson writes he’s “had enough flat, oxidized growlers to know that consistency in properly filling growlers is a big problem, at least at some establishments.  Let’s look at the array of filling technique advice.  Some folks say you should bottom-fill a growler using a tube.  Others say you can just fill from the top.  There are even more pro tips: Use a CO₂ purge, make sure the growler is cold, cap on foam, use plastic polyseal caps (not the cheap white metal ones), and fill using counter pressure.  With all the varying information out there, it’s no wonder growlers aren't consistently filled flawlessly.”

“If your growler was not filled and capped properly, the beer will start to oxidize and go flat the minute you walk out the door.”

So far, I haven’t experienced any freshness failures. I guess the Wine Bin boys are using proper filling techniques but I can just as easily appreciate how that might not always be the case.

Still I like the upside. As Josh Christie writes in Brews and Books, "Growlers are also environmental friendly and often less expensive than prepackaged beer, which works out for everyone.”

I’ll drink to that.

Mumbles & Squeaks Closing

Mumbles & Squeaks is not just a toy store with a great name, it’s a great toy store. For twenty some years Ed and Frank offered HoCo locos an alternative to big box and mall toy stores. Mumbles & Squeaks was like a curated exhibit of simple and unique toys. I don’t believe they carried anything electronic.

I refer to them in past tense because yesterday, on their Facebook page, Ed and Frank announced that they are closing up shop “to fulfill a long time dream of becoming beach bums in Florida.”

Can I come?

They will remain open until the end of the month as they sell off their inventory.

“We travel lite so we will only take our memories. Everything must go! Please come by wish us well! Share our news and our sale with all your friends so we don't miss anyone. You may forward this message to them.

Please come to Mumbles and Squeaks to share a story, a hug, a tear. As we said, this is bitter sweet. We won't say, "Goodbye." We would rather say, "We will save you a seat on the beach!"

Mumbles and Squeaks was one of those businesses that make Ellicott City unique. They will be missed.

Kimco QR Fail

This afternoon I spotted this QR code stuck to one of the windows of the former Produce Galore space in the Wilde Lake Village Center. I was curious to see if it would enlighten me about the progress that Kimco is making on the redevelopment of the center. I whipped my i5 and gave it a quick scan.

The following message immediately appeared on my phone:

The Marketing Package for the selected site was not found. Possible reasons include:

• The site reference ID is incorrect, invalid or no longer in use
• The site has been sold or removed
• Documentation is not available

I scanned it again just to make sure. Same message.

It’s obvious that something is about to get cooking besides fast food at the old village center. There is now a stockade construction fence surrounding the former KFC building and there's an asbestos removal notice taped to another storefront window.

Maybe I should have asked Siri what was going on.

No Scanners No Problem

On more than one occasion I've encountered an empty scanner rack at Giant. I hate this. No scanners mean no Scan It for me, not on this trip anyway. I’m a big fan of the little handheld buggers so that when I find none available I get a little bummed.

They've fixed that problem, at least for people with smartphones. Earlier this week I saw this notice in the Columbia Palace Giant announcing a Scan It mobile app.

I've haven’t tried it out yet but it sure sounds like a good idea.

And…this week I bought my first iPhone. More on that later…

Spring Stuff

The only thing I dislike about spring is that many of the acts of natures great color show end too soon. A week or sometimes just days can dramatically change the scene from brilliant color to something greenish. Catching the really big shows like the cherry blossoms in the Tidal Basin is often a matter of luck and timing.

Columbia looks good. There are flowering trees all over the town and some like the bradford pear have already done their spring thing. Others like the kwanzan cherry are just getting amped up. 

 Life is returning to the lakefront too. Earlier today I walked by Clyde’s. The new façade is up and new employees are being trained. Paul Kraft, the general manager, told me that they hope to reopen by next Monday. He let me peek in the door and, from what little I could see, I was impressed. New ceiling, new lighting, new back bar, new carpet, you get the picture. It’s familiar yet different. “That’s what $5 million will get you,” he quipped.

I understand it also paid for a kicking new kitchen and bathrooms.

There will be announcement soon about who will takeover the former Red Pearl space. I've sworn not to reveal what I know even though it’s killing me. I’ll just say that I’m excited.

You can find more pictures here that I snapped around town while goofing off a little this afternoon.

Busboys and Poets

A couple of months ago I discovered Busboys and Poets for the first time. I was in Hyattsville on a work assignment and came across their newest location in the Gateway Arts District. I had heard the name before but I’d never been in so I decided to check it out.

 My first reaction was that Busboys and Poets would rock in Columbia. That was only further reinforced when I read how they describe themselves on their website.

“Busboys and Poets is a community where racial and cultural connections are consciously uplifted...a place to take a deliberate pause and feed your mind, body and soul...a space for art, culture and politics to intentionally collide...we believe that by creating such a space we can inspire social change and begin to transform our community and the world.”

Am I crazy or does this sound like it came right out the Jim Rouse playbook?

I decided to see if I could make a Columbia location happen so I sent an email to Andy Shallal, the impresario behind Busboys and Poets. I refer to Andy as the impresario because, as Judith Rosen writes in Publishers Weekly, “I’m not really a restaurateur,” says Shallal, who opened his first restaurant in 1987. “I’m an activist with food. We all eat. There’s a commonality.” 

He responded to my email in relatively short order, thanking me for the “vote of confidence” in his venture. Regarding downtown Columbia he wrote that he’d “keep this in mind.”

Now the real work begins. 

More Food for Turf Valley

When I visited the new Turf Valley Town Square last weekend, I noticed two more restaurants were joining Facci and Petite Cellars in the new shopping center, a sports grill and Xitomate.

 It would be fun if one of these new watering holes dedicated a special drink to Marc Norman, the Turf Valley activist who fought hard to keep this shopping center from being built.

I’m thinking something with sour grapes would be fitting.

Black Mulch

Home Depot had a big sale on mulch this weekend and we took advantage of the opportunity to load up. We weren't the only ones. In the Ellicott City store on Saturday the staff in the garden center struggled to keep up with the demand, particularly for the black stuff.

I watched a steady stream of customers empty out a pallet load of the stuff within fifteen minutes. During that time the brown and red mulch bags were hardly touched.

Brown mulch is out. In HoCo, black mulch is suburban yard chic. 

Beer Madness

In yet another play on the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament  The Washington Post has been running its 7^th annual Beer Madness, a blind tasting of 32 regional craft brews to determine a loco king of beers. A panel of nine has been “sipping, spitting and scribbling their way through 32 brews from the Chesapeake region.”

This is the first year the competition has focused solely on Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

“In previous years we've gone mass-market, global (in honor of the Olympics) and all-American. In this, the seventh annual Beer Madness, we decided to celebrate the local renaissance and showcase the best this region has to offer. All 32 entries come from breweries in the Chesapeake Bay area. We included some local brewpubs whose distribution doesn't stretch outside their front door, and a few small newcomers, such as Wild Wolf Brewing in Nellysford, Va., and Union Craft Brewing in Baltimore, that are just poking their noses into Washington and suburbs. But you can find all of these beers, on tap or in bottles or cans, within the confines of the Beltway.”

We are truly experiencing a beer renaissance in this country. In 1980 there were fewer than ninety breweries in the US. Today there are over 2,400, the highest number ever.

It’s beginning to get a little overwhelming. Earlier this week, To2C reader and occasional contributor Andy Liberman sent me a note about a new wine bar coming to Turf Valley. He wrote that it was purportedly backed by the folks at Perfect Pour in the Gateway Exchange shopping center. It had been some time since I was last in Perfect Pour so I decided to drop in and see what I could find out. While I didn't discover anything new about the Turf Valley venture, I was bowled over by the craft beer selection in the store. They have one of the most extensive offerings of craft beer in HoCo. There’s a pretty good chance that you will find most, if not all the 32 beers in the WAPO Beer Madness tournament in the store.

Andy later informed me that the name of the Turf Valley place is Petite Cellars. Yesterday I dropped by the new shopping center and saw that work was well underway. He also thinks the new place will be similar to Liquid Assets in Ocean City.

Pure Wine Gets a Patio

Last night when PJ Strain told me that he was adding a patio to his Pure Wine Café in Ellicott City my first thought was where. Sitting inside the small cafe I thought the place was boxed in on three sides, with no room in front for outside tables.

I was wrong. PJ walked me out front and showed me the empty lot next to his building that will soon provide outdoor seating for about twenty Pure Wine patrons. The patio is actually perched about ten feet above Main Street.

In addition to the patio, PJ is also adding another dining room, next to the existing bar area that will fill the space between the bar and the new patio.

Work is expected to be completed this spring.

Preaster

Those of us who aren't actively religious still acknowledge certain traditions at this time of year, just like humans have done since mankind began. Certain religious rituals are harmonious with the notion of renewal that comes with spring. I know fellow Catholics who haven’t seen the inside of church in years, yet still give something up for Lent, sincere or otherwise. I actually gave up beer for about ten days, well short of the required forty, a damnable offense I’m sure.

Today I bought a traditional ham, as well as some secular Easter stuff; hollow chocolate bunnies, three dollar cupcakes, cards, and some tulips. A couple of weeks ago I bought home tulips from Wegmans for the first time and was pleasantly surprised by the quality. Under Mama Wordbones practiced hands, they lasted twelve days, which is not too shabby for grocery store tulips.

I didn't buy a Wegmans ham. I would have but I only needed a small one, just like the ones they sell at the ham store in Dorseys Search. It used to be called Heavenly Ham but that company was bought by Honeybaked. I don't care what they call the place as long as the ham is the still the same .

At the ham store they were rigged up with stanchions and rope to handle Christmas sized crowds but I breezed right through. The cashier told me that this was just an abnormal break between storms. I was just lucky. Then again it was the middle of the work day.

It was a very quiet day at our office. It’s Good Friday and good Catholics don’t work on Good Friday. I figure there must be an awful lot of good Catholics because all the office parking lots in Columbia were empty but the retail parking lots around town were buzzing. I forgot to check the church parking lots.

There was one other thing I couldn't get at Wegmans, an iTunes gift card in a denomination below fifty bucks that didn't say Happy Birthday. Their stock had been depleted so from the ham store I headed to the Giant where I spotted this impressive display of spring flowers. I decided that for a non religious guy like me, today was more like pre-Easter than Good Friday, or Preaster for short. A Friday in spring when work slows down and people buy flowers in grocery stores.

Happy Preaster!

Cracker Barrel Rolling Into BWI

Nothing says road trip to me like Cracker Barrel for breakfast. I can’t even imagine what it would mean if there were one close by where I could get an artery clogging fix of sourdough French Toast lathered up with a Marion Blackberry topping and real whip cream anytime I wanted?

They open at 6:00 AM….every day.

Right now, according to their website, the closest Cracker Barrel to me is in Stevensville.

But not for long.

According to this story in City Biz Real Estate, the gastronomic giant of the interstate is building a restaurant in the BWI Business District “adjacent to the intersection of West Nursery Road and MD Route 295..." It "is scheduled to open in the third quarter of this year.”

You've been warned.

Three Things about Food

Sushi Sono is celebrating their fifteenth year in downtown Columbia and right now they are the only restaurant open on the downtown lakefront. The good news is that parking has never been easier the bad news is that right now they are the only restaurant open on the lakefront.

Well maybe not the only one if you include Waterside in the Sheraton and the Lakeside coffee shop. I don’t think hotel restaurants count and the Lakeside coffee is…doomed. Once Whole Foods opens next door with a café, Lakesides days will be numbered.  

But Sushi Sono is doing just fine. I can easily see them hanging around another fifteen years.

That’s one.

When we were having lunch at Sushi Sono on Thursday King mentioned that there would soon be another restaurant in the space next door. It’s been empty since the Red Pearl closed last year.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know but I think it’s French,” he said.

I tried getting more out of my sources at Howard Hughes but all I could get was that a deal for a new restaurant was very close to being signed.

That’s two.

 Late yesterday afternoon I dropped by Victoria Gastro Pub and got the chance to chat with Tori. She was all excited. The restaurant has been nominated by the Restaurant Association of Maryland for “Craft Beer Program of the Year.” This is the first year for this particular award and they'll find out if they won on April 15^th.

She reminded me that they were also recognized as one of the best  restaurants in Baltimore by Baltimore Magazine, one of only two HoCo restaurants to make the list. Tersiguel's in Ellicott City was the other one. Victorias also won the magazines reader poll for Best Pub Food.

That’s three.

Parking and Adaptive Reuse

Two buildings in Columbia are adapting to new uses and dealing with resultant parking challenges. On Dobbin Road, the building that now houses the Frisco Grille and two other retail uses was originally constructed for industrial use. In downtown Columbia, a former office building is being converted to retail. They both have different parking lot issues to deal with as a result of these changes.

On Dobbin Road, the owners of 6695 Dobbin Road want to reduce the setback from Dobbin from the existing 25 feet to the county minimum of 7 feet in order to accommodate 20 new parking spaces. Anyone who has ever tried to get a parking space at the Frisco Grille can attest to the need for more spaces. This is indicative of the changing nature of the Dobbin Road corridor, originally conceived for more industrial type uses which generally required fewer parking spaces.

In downtown Columbia, Howard Hughes is seeking to reduce the number of parking spaces at the former Rouse Company headquarters building. As part of the buildings redevelopment the developer proposes to reconfigure the existing parking lots which will result in a reduction of 98 parking spaces. Part of this reduction is due to mitigation of storm water runoff. The reconfigured parking lot will treat “50% of the existing impervious area for water quality within Micro-bioretention facilities within the parking islands.”

This is a huge improvement over existing conditions that offers no storm water mitigation.

In both instances the parking ratios will remain in compliance with county zoning regulations for the new uses.

HoCo Loco Brewski

Randy Marriner wants to sell you some truly HoCo loco beer. Randy is the proprietor of Victoria Gastro Pub and if the General Assembly approves House Bill 1405, he hopes to sell beer in his restaurant that he brews on his Howard County farm. According to this story by Arthur Hirsch in The Sun, the farm brewery bill would “currently apply only to Victoria Gastro Pub…”

Presumably the Ale House doesn't have its own HoCo farm...yet

The End of an Era

Watermont Pharmacy is closing. After serving the community for fifty two years, the family owned business has fallen victim to a changing health care marketplace.

I feel at least partially to blame. When we first moved to this Ellicott City neighborhood in 2006, I began getting my prescriptions filled at Watermont. By then the pharmacy was being run by Jodi (Dagold) Lare, the daughter of the original pharmacist, Donald Dagold. The pharmacy provided the kind of personal service you’d expect from local owners, including home delivery.

Over time however, as my health plan changed and I had to shoulder more of my own medication costs, I switched to an online pharmacy reducing my costs by a third. Undoubtedly this was true with other of their former customers as well.

The store reminded me of pharmacies I knew growing up, when they typically included a soda fountain. Though the soda jerks are now long gone, the counter and stools remained as reminders of another era.

The name Watermont was coined by combining the names of the crossroads where the store was located, Waterloo and Montgomery. 

Vanishing Postcards

A friend in Cleveland recently asked me to help out her fifth grader with a school project. The students were tasked with soliciting postcards from around the country. The postcards were to be mailed to the classroom and include a few pertinent local facts. It wasn't all that long ago that my own fifth grader received a similar assignment and I appreciated the response she received from friends and family so I readily agreed to help out.

It never occurred to me that I’d have difficulty finding a loco postcard. My resultant, albeit unscientific, research would seem to indicate that the business of picture postcards is going the way of Saturday mail delivery. There was a time that local picture postcards were easily found in any drug store. The once ubiquitous five foot carousel racks were commonly found near the registers.

They are not so easily found these days. On a recent visit to Walgreens I had to ask a clerk for help.

“Do you carry postcards?”

“I think we do.”

She led me to an aisle but we didn't immediately see them.

“Ah, here there are,” she said, somewhat surprised by her own discovery, "I thought we had them."

On the end cap of the aisle, on a portion of the top shelf, next to refrigerator magnets, sat a small carousel with a meager offering of cards.

Judging from this product placement I suspect it won’t long until they vanish from the shelves completely.

Blockbusted

It doesn't seem like all that long ago that having a Blockbuster store nearby was seen as a plus. Then came Netflix in 1997, Redbox in 2002 and Video on Demand shortly thereafter and the corner Blockbuster store began to lose relevance.

Seeing this banner draped across the Blockbuster storefront on Dobbin Road reminded me just how quickly a hot retail trend can cool off. The first Blockbuster opened in 1985 and by 2004 the company had over 9,000 stores and 60,000 employees. Six years later the company sought protection of the bankruptcy court. Today, the company now owned by Dish Networks, has approximately 1,000 remaining stores. I believe this is the last one in HoCo.

Crate & Barrel Coming to Hanover

The home furnishings retailer, Crate & Barrel has leased 78,000 square feet of warehouse space in the Parkway Industrial Park in Hanover, just across the HoCo border.

Could a HoCo store be far behind?

The location of this new link in their supply chain puts Crate & Barrel right in the middle of its existing Maryland stores in Towson, Annapolis and Bethesda. A store in Columbia would seem to make strategic sense.

Crate & Barrel is owned by Otto Group, and also operates the CB2 and Land of Nod retail brands. The closest CB2 store is in Georgetown. Land of Nod, a children’s furnishing concept, doesn't have any stores on the east coast.