On Monday, Mar. 4, WETA’s “Signature Dish” TV show will feature one of the newest vendors at the miXt Food Hall in Brentwood.

In an episode on “Food Hall Finds,” host Seth Tillman will have a mushroom burger from vegan vendor Mush DC at the popular food hall.

The eatery, which opened in 2022, uses mushrooms as an alternative to meat for vegan meals that are all organic and soy free, including vegan versions of a chicken sandwich, a Vietnamese bánh mì, a jerk barbecue sandwich and a steak-and-cheese version.

Chef Tarik Frazier and business partner Alex Hamilton told the Hyattsville Wire that they started the restaurant to show there were meat alternatives aside from opti0ns such as the lab-created Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers.

Frazier previously ran a private chef service and worked at Kith/Kin and American Son,

Previous episodes of “Signature Dish” have featured Route 1 restaurants: Hyattsville’s Chez Dior, Riverdale Park’s 2Fifty Texas BBQ and Mount Rainier’s Pennyroyal Station.

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A short drive from the Route 1 corridor in Upper Marlboro lies a haunting reminder during Black History Month: a long stone block once used to exhibit enslaved people at auction.

Though there was slavery throughout the county, the heaviest concentration was in the eastern part of the county due to the number of tobacco farms there which depended on their unpaid labor.

Legendary bluesman Archie Edwards ran a barbershop for decades just outside Mount Rainier, where he held regular jam sessions starting in the 1950s with everyone from amateurs to blues greats.

Located at 2007 Bunker Hill Rd. NE, the Alpha Tonsorial Palace, was a hotspot from the late 1950s through the 1990s. On Saturday afternoons, musicians of all ages, races, and experience levels would gather to play the blues.

Born in Eastern Virginia in 1918, Edwards learned to play guitar from his father, a sharecropper who played harmonica, banjo, and slide guitar and hosted similar jam sessions at his home.

Edwards learned to play what is generally called Piedmont blues, which uses a more fingerpicking style that was influenced by ragtime and string bands.

After serving in World War II, Edwards worked odd jobs in the D.C. area before opening the barbershop in 1959. A chance meeting with his childhood idol, bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, led to a close friendship as the two played local venues as well as concerts and festivals.

Edwards regularly played with a loose group of musicians he called the Travelling Blues Workshop and began hosting the sessions at his barbershop. After one session, a German talent scout signed him to record his first album, “Living Country Blues Vol. 6: The Road is Rough and Rocky,” released in 1982.

A longtime advocate for blues history, Edwards co-founded the D.C. Blues Society in 1987 to promote traditional music, holding the first meetings in his barbershop.

He then toured the U.S., Canada and Europe, including regular appearances at a music festival at Prince George’s Community College, and recorded two more albums, “Blues ‘N Bones” and “The Toronto Sessions,” which was released posthumously.

Edwards died of cancer in 1998 and was buried at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood.

His friends established the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation in his memory, holding regular jam sessions at the barbershop until it was sold in 2008. It then moved to a space in Riverdale Park until 2019 and now meets at 4502 Hamilton St. in Hyattsville’s Arts District.

Still standing, the original Alpha Tonsorial Palace was recently included on a list of 300 Black history sites around D.C. released to mark Black History Month by the city’s Historic Preservation Office.

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Chef Chris Van Jura is bringing some New Jersey to the Route 1 corridor.

Van Jura, who hails from the Garden State, makes Jersey-style hot dogs and other staples, such as disco fries with brown gravy, inspired by the state’s diner culture. In fact, New Jersey boasts more diners than any other state in the country.

After starting Catalyst Hot Dogs in 2020 as a food truck, which can be found at its own concession stand at the University of Maryland Xfinity Center and all over Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, Van Jura partnered with Denizens Brewing Co. at the Station at Riverdale Park over a year ago.

Located at 4550 Van Buren St., the brewery now features a menu by Catalyst with options like a Hanks hot dog in the style of a New Jersey eatery; the deep-fried A La Rutts, named for another iconic New Jersey hot dog place; and the Capital, made with mambo sauce. On weekends, from noon to 3 p.m., it offers Taylor ham, egg and cheese on a Kaiser roll and a secret menu item that you can ask about.

Van Jura says that not everyone who comes into Denizens recognizes the references, but he can always spot the New Jersey natives who do.

All of the hot dogs are made with black Angus, dry-aged beef from Roseda, a farm in Monkton, Md., which Van Jura says makes them much higher quality than other hot dog places. The chili and relish are both made from scratch.

Apart from the hot dogs and diner fries, Denizens’ Catalyst menu also features other classics like the big pretzel with spicy brown mustard and beer, cheese garlic knots, and jumbo wings. For something sweeter, you can order funnel cake fries and chocolate-chip cannolis — think New Jersey by way of Wildwood, a Mets game, and Coney Island.

While hot dogs originated in Europe, New Jersey-style hot dogs had their origin in the 1930s and typically feature an Italian roll and toppings such as bell peppers, onions and potatoes.

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A burger praised as one of the D.C. area’s best has come to miXt Food Hall in Brentwood.

In 2023, then-Washington Post critic Tim Carman highlighted chef-owner Ismael Montero’s prime Angus burger from his Eat Well MD food truck as a runner-up on a list of the area’s “10 best burgers.”

Now, Montero has built on the success of his burger food truck and recently opened The Burger Shop at miXt, located at 3809 Rhode Island Ave.

Montero told the Hyattsville Wire he decided to start making burgers because so many food trucks feature tacos.

“I wanted to do something different,” he said.

The most popular items at The Burger Shop are its acclaimed Angus burger and lamb and chicken sandwiches, with vegetarian options such as the Impossible burger and portobello mushroom sandwich.

Montero told the Wire he likes the miXt Food Hall because it provides an “opportunity to grow,” especially given “the progress that has been happening” on the Route 1 corridor.

Meanwhile, the burger food truck is still in operation, regularly parked at Streetcar 82 Brewing Co. in Hyattsville and Atlas Brew Works and Lost Generation in D.C. Montero said the truck is also available for private parties and catering community events.

Throughout his career, Ismael Montero has worked with many notable chefs, such as José Andrés, Scott Drewno, Michael Herr, and Andrea Skala. He opened La Michoacán with his brother Lucio Montero and has worked as a sous chef at Little Miner Taco. The Burger Shop is his newest culinary endeavor.

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Before becoming a rock star, Jim Morrison attended high school in Alexandria, Va., and occasionally came to Route 1.

Greenbelt author Mark Opsasnick dived deep into the local haunts of the future Doors’ frontman for his latest book, “Orange Brick in Warm Sun.”

Opsasnick told the Hyattsville Wire that he did not include the Route 1 connections in the book because they lacked the “extensive corroboration” he wanted.

But he found evidence that Morrison visited the Stanton Art Theatre on at least two occasions. Located just off Route 1 at 3100 18th St. NE on the border of the Woodridge and Brookland neighborhoods of D.C. just off Route 1, the Stanton was” one of only a handful of theatres in D.C. at the time that showed art, offbeat and foreign films,” Opsasnick told the Wire.

Morrison tended to go to arthouse theaters that were easier to get to from his home in Alexandria since he would have to ride with friends in a car to get to the Stanton.

But he said that Morrison was a big fan of Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein and watched his film, “Battleship Potemkin,” which was shown at the Stanton in November 1959 and in April 1960.

“It is also believed that he was back at the Stanton in January 1961 to see the movie ‘Pull My Daisy,’ the Beat Generation film narrated by his literary hero, Jack Kerouac,” Opsasnick said. “This may have been the only D.C. showing of the film from 1959-1961, and friends recall Morrison having seen the movie while living in the D.C. area.”

The Stanton closed in 1990, and the building is now home to the Grace Covenant Church.

Opsasnick will be reading from “Orange Brick in Warm Sun” at Maryland Meadworks on Sunday, Feb. 18. Doors open at 11 a.m., with a talk at 1 p.m., followed by live music from Hyattsville-based Doors cover band, Love Her Meadly.

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Hyattsville Latin American eatery Cocineros recently added a mixed-drink menu inspired by its owner’s travels to Latin America and the Caribbean, including Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Located at 3513 East-West Hwy., across from the Mall at Prince George’s, Cocineros now includes a sit-down bar with various alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink options alongside its wide-ranging menu of items from Mexico, Central America, and Chile.

The drink menu includes margaritas, mojitos, micheladas, and sangria, as well as beer and wine. Co-owner Carlos Alvarado told the Hyattsville Wire that the most popular drinks on Friday, the first day he started offering mixed drinks, were the hibiscus margarita and the piña colada.

Non-alcoholic versions of the piña colada and daiquiri are also available, along with soft drinks, Jarritos, iced tea and coffee.

Alvarado told the Wire he is also looking to partner with other Route 1 businesses, including area breweries.

He also runs Taqueria Habanero, which had to close its location in College Park when the shopping center was sold.

Along with his family, Alvarado, who previously worked for noted D.C. chef José Andrés, also runs Uno Más in Petworth, Comedor San Alejo in Hyattsville and Tequila & Mezcal in Columbia Heights.

For now, that location is now running out of a food truck in front of its old location in the Campus Village Shoppes at 8145 Baltimore Ave.

Alvarado told the Wire that when construction starts, he plans to keep the food truck somewhere else on the Route 1 corridor until the restaurant can reopen in a new brick-and-mortar location.

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