Greenbelt will mark the 27th anniversary of the New Deal Café on Saturday, Oct. 8, with a free music festival.

The Crazy Quilt Music Festival will feature music, dancing, special activities for kids and lots and lots of bubbles, starting at 11 a.m. outdoors at the Roosevelt Center, moving indoors to the cafe at 8 p.m. and ending at 11 p.m.

The lineup includes a Community Drum Circle with Katy Gaughan, folk band Grief Cat, bluegrass from Rock Creek Revival, Dirty Soul playing the blues, world music from Dogo Du Togo, brass party grooves from Black Masala and classic rock from Just Stones.

For kids, there will be a special art project and chalk drawings on the sidewalk. Families can also enjoy the BYOBB (Bring Your Own Bubble Blaster) using toys that “shoot” bubbles and a surprise appearance.

Vendors will also be on site and an original Eleanor Roosevelt festival T-shirt will be available in multiple colors and sizes.

Sponsors include New Deal Café, Friends of New Deal Café, Todd Turner, Greenbelt Online, City of Greenbelt, Colin Byrd, Sarah Liska from Freedom Realty, Marc Hershkowitz from TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, McCarl Dental Group, Beltway Plaza Merchants Association, Charles A. Smith, Kim Kash of Compass, Judith Davis, Kristen Weaver, Ric Gordon, Paul Pinsky, Alonzo Washington, Jonathan Harper and Connecting Across Greenbelt.

For more information visit newdealcafe.com.

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A Hyattsville nonprofit is surveying historic buildings along the Route 1 corridor from Baltimore to the D.C. border to help save them.

The Anacostia Trails Heritage Area is hiring an architect to develop the survey, which will highlight the retro buildings typically referred to as mid-century modern architecture.

These buildings often include futuristic Space Age stylings, a consumer aesthetic sometimes known as Populuxe and spare architectural designs using simple geometric shapes.

Dozens of these buildings have been torn down already, although the iconic saucer from the library, the Lustine-Nicholson Chevrolet building and the old Marché Florists building are some local success stories.

The $17,000 survey will determine which remaining buildings are notable in order to help develop plans to protect them and find new uses.

Apart from the mid-century buildings, the survey will also look for notable architecture from the colonial era, the early railroad, the introduction of the streetcar and the development of the Beltway.

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The City of College Park will host its signature event, College Park Day, on Saturday, October 15 from noon to 6 p.m. at the College Park Aviation Museum and Airport.

After a hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2022 event marks a big return for the city’s community-focused festival.  The event features live music, food and drink vendors, a kids and family zone with a dedicated stage, attractions, games, free College Park Aviation Museum entry, community exhibitors, and helicopter fly-in.

Live entertainment on the main stage features performances by the Wild Anacostias, East River Band, Groovalicious, and MONSOON & S.T.O.R.M Reggae Band.

This year will feature an even bigger kids and family area with a dedicated family stage with performances by Barry Louis Polisar, The Great Zucchini, Terrapin Brass Quintent, Sense of Wonder, Zig Zag Magic Show and a paper airplane contest. There will also be live performances by Gymkana, stilt walkers, jugglers and more. Visitors are encouraged to check out fun activities, crafts, games (for kids and adults), and giveaways from community groups as well.

College Park Day will feature more food and drink vendors than before. Food vendors this year include: Taim Mediterranean Kitchen, Tatak Pinoy Fil-Asian Cuisine and Street Food, Big D’s Wings, Kodi’s Grill, Mr. Magic, Taqueria Habanero, Bills Backyard BBQ, Amity Kitchen, Cocineros, Cakelady Deserts, and Turtle’s Tasty Treats. To drink, beer will be provided by Denizens and Franklin’s Breweries for adults 21 and over.

This is a family friendly event, but please keep pets at home.

The event will take place at the College Park Aviation Museum located at 1985 Corporal Frank Scott Drive. Free parking is available at the corner lot by Corporal Franks Scott Drive and Campus Drive, the College Park – UMD metro station garage, and Linson Pool/Wells Ice Rink.  Bike racks will be available for those utilizing local trails to get to the event.

Find more information at www.collegeparkday.org and on the city’s YouTube channel here.

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A new eatery which opened last week at the miXt Food Hall in Brentwood uses mushrooms as an alternative to meat to serve up vegan meals that are all organic and soy free.

Mush DC, which calls itself a plant-based sandwich and salad shop, serves up vegan versions of a chicken sandwich, a Vietnamese bánh mì, a jerk barbecue sandwich and a steak-and-cheese version.

The menu also features Peruvian- and Caribbean-influenced bowls and a side dish of braised collard greens marinated in coconut milk, herbs and spices.

Chef Tarik Frazier and business partner Alex Hamilton said they started the restaurant to show that there are alternatives to meat that aren’t made in a lab, like newer vegan products such as Beyond Meat.

“Mushrooms have so many health benefits and mimic the texture and flavors of meat when they’re prepared correctly,” said Hamilton.

Frazier, who has run a private chef service and worked at Kith/Kin and American Son, started the eatery as a pop-up at the Roy Boys restaurant in the Shaw neighborhood before a space opened at miXt, which is located at 3809 Rhode Island Ave.

MushDC serves lunch and dinner from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.

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Manifest Bread plans to open its first brick-and-mortar, full-service organic bakery in Riverdale Park’s town center this fall at 6208 Rhode Island Ave. next to the former location of Banana Blossom Bistro.

When it opens, Manifest will feature popular items like a sourdough loaf, focaccia and bialy; a regular menu of sandwiches like muffaleta, jambon-beurre and pork rillette; a new selection of pastries, including savory options like pissaladiere; as well as a selection of wine and beer for in-house or take-home.

Manifest started out selling in D.C. neighborhoods like Cleveland Park and at local restaurants, but it built a strong local following through word of mouth.

The popular cottage bakery had originally planned to open location over the summer, but was delayed.

Owners Rick and Tyes Cook told the Hyattsville Wire they are wrapping up the buildout and have begun hanging signs in front of their new location. They have also started posting job openings for positions at their new Riverdale Park bakery on Instagram and Facebook.

To pay for the cost of opening the store, they raised more than $64,000 on Kickstarter.

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Franklins in Hyattsville is expanding its general store as it makes plans to eventually add an ice cream shop next door.

Owner Mike Franklin told the Hyattsville Wire that the store will have more space for toys, tchotchkes, jewelry and wine and beer.

“We’re basically expanding a lot of the areas for things that people don’t like to buy on the internet because they need to touch and feel them,” he said.

The remodeled area will include 36 case stacks for wine, and the selection will be expanded to feature a lot more “really good wines for under $10,” in order to keep up with increased competition from nearby Yes! Organic Market and the Town Center Market in Riverdale Park.

Franklin is also planning a small ice cream shop that would sell a dozen to two dozen flavors of house-made ice cream when it opens. He plans to test out the equipment and experiment with different flavors over the next year, perhaps with locally sourced ingredients such as Vigilante Coffee beans.

The ice cream shop may not open for a year or longer due to construction and the current pace of permitting in Prince George’s County, but Franklin said it will have entrances on both Route 1 and the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail that runs behind the building.

He said he expects a lot of bikers and walkers will head down the trail for ice cream, while some others may be inspired to visit downtown Hyattsville to try it out.

“People will travel for good ice cream,” he said. “It’s kind of like beer, or distilleries. There are people who are passionate about ice cream who will come visit an area just to try it out.”

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The Route 1 corridor has a thriving arts scene, but some worry that rising rents driven by new development could hurt it.

In a recent segment on “WETA Arts,” Red Dirt Studio owner Margaret Boozer said that she has been able to stay open because she bought a former firehouse in Mount Rainier in 2014.

“Buying this building versus renting let me have security that I wasn’t going to get priced out of the neighborhood, which we were seeing happen on a daily basis here,” she said. “It let me have enough artists renting studio space to pay all the costs associated with the building and keep the costs down for artists.”

Because of that scale, Boozer was able to withstand the coronavirus pandemic, as over half of the 30 artists working at Red Dirt weren’t able to pay rent at one point or another.

But David Mordini, co-founder of the Otis Street Arts Project, said that recent rent hikes at his Mount Rainier location have limited their growth.

The segment also features John Paradiso, artist and studio manager at Portico Gallery & Studios inside the Studio 3807 apartments in Brentwood.

Paradiso said the five studios, which come with year-long leases, are an amenity and a feature for residents of the high-end apartments in the building.

“The developer of the building is very happy with the success of Portico Gallery studios because he loved the Arts District and he wanted the things that happened in the Arts District to happen in his building and they do now,” he said.

But Boozer said that, ultimately, for the Route 1 corridor to continue to have a vibrant arts scene, it will need more artist-owned buildings to prevent rents from going up or building owners from looking for more profitable tenants.

“Without artists owning their own space, we are going to have an Arts District with possibly very few artists,” she said.

You can watch the seven-minute segment here.

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