The New Deal Cafe is looking for a new partner to manage the long-running restaurant in Greenbelt’s historic town center.

A member-owned cooperative with a 25-year history of food and live music, New Deal is looking for a contractor/owner-operator for the restaurant, which is turnkey-ready.

The facility seats 120 guests in three spaces (the coffee shop, event space and an outdoor patio) with a fully equipped commercial kitchen, pastry cabinet, and commercial espresso machine.

The co-op also stresses that the location has ample foot traffic and free parking as well as access to mass transit.

The cafe is currently open seven days a week with live music six nights a week and a full calendar of community events. It was among the Washington City Paper’s “Best of DC 2020” and has won other regional awards.

Experienced restaurant industry professionals ready to take over the cafe’s food and beverage operations in the next three months are invited to send a letter of interest to ndcvendorselection@gmail.com to receive a full prospectus.

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Another apartment building is coming to University Town Center in Hyattsville.

A lot located at the northeast corner of Belcrest and Toledo roads, currently a surface parking lot, will be home to a five-story building with 361 apartments.

The building will also have several amenities, including a fitness center, bike room, pet wash area, courtyard, pool, and lounge areas.

Two investment firms, EJF Capital and the NRP Group, have secured a $61 million loan to construct the building, which is expected to be finished in late 2025.

“Hyattsville is an exciting submarket that benefits from its proximity to one of the most powerful regional economies in the country,” said Asheel Shah, head of real estate development at EJF.

Funding for the project came in part because that part of Hyattsville is an opportunity zone, a special tax area designed to encourage development as part of the 2017 tax cuts legislation.

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Denizens Brewing Co. garnered attention recently for being a majority woman-owned brewery now in its 10th year in business, breaking the barriers in a heavily male-dominated industry.

This past week, Co-founder and Chief Brand Officer Julie Verratti, who co-owns Denizens with her wife Emily Bruno and their brother-in-law Jeff Ramirez, appeared on the TV news show “Morning Rush” for a segment on women in craft brewing.

Verratti, who is also an associate administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration under the Biden administration, said the biggest challenge in starting Denizens in 2013 was getting startup money, saying 11 out of 13 banks they approached wouldn’t even meet with them.

“If you are someone who does not have those built-in networks already, getting a bank to take you seriously and sit down with you can be difficult,” she said.

According to a recent survey by the Brewers Association, a trade group for independent and craft brewers, only roughly one out of every four brewery owners are women. Even in breweries with multiple owners, the majority had no women.

At the same time, women beer drinkers under 25 now outnumber men, and analysts worry that may leave the industry with “blind spots” on its own best customers.

You can check out the full interview on “Morning Rush” here.

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A restaurant just off Route 1 is getting noticed for its highly-rated homestyle cuisine from Eritrea, a country in the Horn of Africa next to Ethiopia.

Located at 2910 Bladensburg Rd. NE, just south of Bladensburg, Eden’s Kitchen uses 100 percent teff flour to make its injera, a spongy flatbread that is a staple of Eritrean and Ethiopian cuisine.

The traditional injera recipe gives it a more intense flavor and makes it gluten-free. Vegetarian and vegan dishes are also available.

The menu includes breakfast options such as shahan ful, a traditional Eritrean breakfast with slow-cooked fava beans and yogurt, and fit-fit, made with shredded injera and berbere spice mix.

Dinner items include vegan kitfo dilot, made with minced tofu; bamya, a slow-cooked okra dish; spris made with cubes of sautéed beef; and lemon garlic tilapia. Kids and less adventurous diners can also have spaghetti with tomato sauce.

The restaurant has attracted more attention this summer with an outdoor concert in late July on its patio hosted by DC Squared.

Eden’s Kitchen is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, with carryout until 8:30 p.m. You can also order online on UberEats, DoorDash or their website.

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The city of Mount Rainier is fixing up the sidewalks and streets around Pennyroyal Station and Era Wine Bar.

In late July, contractors with Usource Construction began a $1.1 million project to demolish existing walkways and landscaping to make way for a refurbished streetscape in the 3300 block of Rhode Island Avenue, next to the roundabout.

The new, modern design will feature special sloped landscaping designed to reduce storm runoff as well as a “nature play area,” new benches, in-ground solar-powered LED lighting and repaved sidewalks.

Large new planters with small ornamental trees will also make the sidewalk feel safer from nearby traffic, which should help improve outdoor seating for customers at Pennyroyal and nearby Era Wine Bar.

The bulk of the money comes from a $1 million grant from the Covid-19 stimulus bill signed by President Joe Biden in 2021. The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development and the Maryland Historical Trust also contributed money.

Last year, the city of Mount Rainier also spent money improving the facades of businesses in the same area, which is essentially the southern gateway to the Maryland portion of the Route 1 corridor.

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Another Lidl discount grocery store is coming to the Route 1 corridor.

The German chain has signed a lease for the former Price Rite location at 3104 Queens Chapel Rd. in the Avondale community of Chillum in an unincorporated area of Prince George’s County close to Hyattsville and Mount Rainier, next to Mid Atlantic Seafood. It joins a Lidl in College Park that opened in 2019 on Baltimore Avenue.

Located down the road from the West Hyattsville location of Aldi, a major Lidl competitor, the future space comprises 33,000-square-feet and takes up about half of the strip mall.

The new store will replace another Prince George’s location that Lidl recently closed in Oxon Hill which was underperforming.

The Price Rite location was previously a Giant supermarket, famous as the location of a visit from the late Queen Elizabeth II during a 1957 trip to the United States.

Lidl, a popular discount grocery chain, has been expanding along the East Coast in recent years.

Other locations around D.C. include Columbia Heights, Takoma Park and Wheaton.

The expansion is part of a boom in grocery store openings that has been taking place along the Route 1 corridor in recent years.

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Four Metro stations on the Route 1 corridor are closed for the next six weeks.

The West Hyattsville, Hyattsville Crossing (previously known as Prince George’s Plaza), College Park and Greenbelt stations will be closed until Sept. 4.

The stations are closing so that Metro crews can install fiber optic cables, which will be used to run security cameras in the station and improve the radio system.

The cables run between the tracks, which is why the stations have to be shut down entirely.

Work crews will also use the shutdown for regular renewal and maintenance, such as cleaning the track bed, removing weeds and replacing cables.

During the closure, there will be shuttles running every five to 10 minutes which go between the four stations and Fort Totten, where riders can take a Green or Red Line train downtown.

Due to traffic, you should allow 20 minutes to a half hour to your usual travel time for the shuttle service.

Alternately, you can use regular buses from any of the stations.

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