College Park - News, Events, Updates, Questions and Developments Etc. (Baltimore: affordable apartment, light-rail)

[DoughLow805]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Still no date-night or upscale restaurants in College Park. We lost two good ones; Kapnos Taverna and OMG.

College Park has to get some upscale eateries if it wants to compete with even Riverdale or Hyattsville. We have plenty of fast casual Asian eateries, pizza joints, and bars. But nothing like Burton's or even Franklins.

College Park does not even have an Outback, Olive Garden, or MIller's Ale house equivalent. If College Park wants to attract and retain grad students and young professionals, they need something more than just College Park Grill or Nando's Peri Peri.

The retail spaces that are being created in these new developments are too small for anything more than more fast casual eateries.

College Park needs to grow up a little and perhaps start creating incentives for new chefs and concepts or College Park will continue to get looked over compared to Hyattsville, Riverdale Park, and Silver Spring.

No brewery in College Park? It is a college town. No place to get a nice steak dinner with white tablecloth service? No restaurant with a Sommelier?

We're about 10 years into making College Park a top 20 college town and these amenities are still lacking even with all the billions currently being invested.

A few mid tier restaurants would be nice. We don't have to jump straight to a Ruth's Chris or Charlie Palmer. A few ideas:

1. Maggiano's
2. Uncle Julio's
3. Cheesecake Factory
4. Any brewpub?
5. Wildfire
6. Founding Farmers
7. Clydes

I can't even find a good burger in College Park anymore. Looney's? Five-Guys doesn't count. Still fast-food. Bobby's Burgers was somewhat gourmet. But they are gone of course. So is Five-Guys the best we can do?

The nice new tall buildings in College Park are nice but if all we can get is Five-Guys and another Ramen place, there's not much more to offer young professionals. This needs to change.

It would be nice to have more of these things in College Park, but in practice, folks from CP are traveling to and through Riverdale Park, Hyattsville, and/or Greenbelt almost every day. They are separate by name and zip code, but they all blend in terms of resident use. I can't count how many times I've heard the "new Whole Foods at Riverdale Park Station in Hyattsville." College Park Academy is in Riverdale Park. The lines imo don't exist in reality.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by DoughLow805

It would be nice to have more of these things in College Park, but in practice, folks from CP are traveling to and through Riverdale Park, Hyattsville, and/or Greenbelt almost every day. They are separate by name and zip code, but they all blend in terms of resident use. I can't count how many times I've heard the "new Whole Foods at Riverdale Park Station in Hyattsville." College Park Academy is in Riverdale Park. The lines imo don't exist in reality.

This is true. All of those other eateries are within reach of College Park. But it would be nice to have something downtown and not on the outskirts. Granted College Park is not that big anyway. With all these new shiny buildings, you'd think one of them would have a nice place to sit down and eat instead of fast casuals.

When you think about it, when all of the buildings are complete along RT. 1, College Park will have as many housing and retail units as National Harbor within a few square miles sans the fancy sit down restaurants at National Harbor. That's a lot of people in one city for there not to be one fancy restaurant.

[Catcprtc]

I recently heard that the OMG restaurant space in the hotel has a new lease, but I do not know any details

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by Catcprtc

I recently heard that the OMG restaurant space in the hotel has a new lease, but I do not know any details

Well this sounds promising. Hopefully with the hotel being a 4-star, it will have the requisite steak or French white-tablecloth full service restaurant.

Looking forward to it. We ate there a few times for breakfast after OMG! closed. It was just okay. Nothing that would make it our go-to for brunch.

It needs a good chef that can jazz up the menu a bit.

[hikerMD]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Still no date-night or upscale restaurants in College Park. We lost two good ones; Kapnos Taverna and OMG.

College Park has to get some upscale eateries if it wants to compete with even Riverdale or Hyattsville. We have plenty of fast casual Asian eateries, pizza joints, and bars. But nothing like Burton's or even Franklins.

...

The retail spaces that are being created in these new developments are too small for anything more than more fast casual eateries.

...

No brewery in College Park? It is a college town. No place to get a nice steak dinner with white tablecloth service? No restaurant with a Sommelier?

Originally Posted by DoughLow805

It would be nice to have more of these things in College Park, but in practice, folks from CP are traveling to and through Riverdale Park, Hyattsville, and/or Greenbelt almost every day. They are separate by name and zip code, but they all blend in terms of resident use. I can't count how many times I've heard the "new Whole Foods at Riverdale Park Station in Hyattsville." College Park Academy is in Riverdale Park. The lines imo don't exist in reality.

I agree with both of you. Folks from Collete Park go to Riverdale Park or Hyattsville without even thinking about the city lines. But CP could use some fine dining in downtown. But CP can support one or at most two options, so with the site at the Hotel (where OMG was) and perhaps one at the City Hall it should be set.

By the way, given the piano music, the locale, and the top-notch food I actually thought College Park Grill was more upscale than Burton's?

[hikerMD]

Originally Posted by Catcprtc

I recently heard that the OMG restaurant space in the hotel has a new lease, but I do not know any details

Great news! Hopefully it doesn't end up being another CVS Hoping for something nice.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by hikerMD

I agree with both of you. Folks from Collete Park go to Riverdale Park or Hyattsville without even thinking about the city lines. But CP could use some fine dining in downtown. But CP can support one or at most two options, so with the site at the Hotel (where OMG was) and perhaps one at the City Hall it should be set.

By the way, given the piano music, the locale, and the top-notch food I actually thought College Park Grill was more upscale than Burton's?

College Park Grill has a more intimate atmosphere with darker colors and the blinds are almost always closed. But the menu...... is lacking. At least Burton's, with a scratch kitchen, has more offerings. And while the atmosphere isn't as intimate, it looks just as "upscale."

I have eaten at CPG many times. The food is okay. The food at Burton's is just a tad better and the bar is almost always full of customers (Better drinks? bartenders?) CPG needs a chef willing to push the envelope. After going many times, the menu never really changes. If there was a chef in the kitchen really expanding the menu and giving people something that would cause them to leave Silver Spring, Hyattsville, or Riverdale to come to CPG, that's what I'm looking for.

For the old OMG! spot at the Hotel at UMD, it would be nice to get a DC caliber restaurants. Any of the steak restaurants in DC would be okay. Urban Butcher in Silver Spring was nice but it closed. But a 4-star conference hotel should have something a bit more upscale than pizza and bagels and a placeholder hotel restaurant. Which, by the way, isn't even listed on the hotel website. Does it even have a name? lol

[DoughLow805]

Originally Posted by hikerMD

I agree with both of you. Folks from Collete Park go to Riverdale Park or Hyattsville without even thinking about the city lines. But CP could use some fine dining in downtown. But CP can support one or at most two options, so with the site at the Hotel (where OMG was) and perhaps one at the City Hall it should be set.

By the way, given the piano music, the locale, and the top-notch food I actually thought College Park Grill was more upscale than Burton's?

The things that have had success at The Hotel are within the college kid budget. Red Door Spa, gone. OMG, gone. Kapnos, gone. I wouldn't be surprised if it landed another nice restaurant, but it's a difficult location. Maybe future development will allow better longevity for a restaurant there. Access to every restaurant in downtown college park is a problem for professionals. I'd rather find parallel parking in DC than try to figure out where I'm going to park to go to OMG or CPG or Nandos or Northwest Chinese or Sweet Green or Looney's, etc. I drove past the ramp and hotel circle to lay eyes on OMG, so I'll circle around the block, drive into an upper level parking deck, walk through the hotel lobby, and into OMG? Do I park in the Vigilante lot and run across the street to Sweet Green? Do I park near in the lot with CVS and run over to City Hall? Can I park here? Do I have to download a new app to park here? Is there a valet at least for these ramps? No incentives considered, I'd imagine an upscale restaurant would survey the area and find itself opening at Riverdale Park Station again.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by DoughLow805

The things that have had success at The Hotel are within the college kid budget. Red Door Spa, gone. OMG, gone. Kapnos, gone. I wouldn't be surprised if it landed another nice restaurant, but it's a difficult location. Maybe future development will allow better longevity for a restaurant there. Access to every restaurant in downtown college park is a problem for professionals. I'd rather find parallel parking in DC than try to figure out where I'm going to park to go to OMG or CPG or Nandos or Northwest Chinese or Sweet Green or Looney's, etc. I drove past the ramp and hotel circle to lay eyes on OMG, so I'll circle around the block, drive into an upper level parking deck, walk through the hotel lobby, and into OMG? Do I park in the Vigilante lot and run across the street to Sweet Green? Do I park near in the lot with CVS and run over to City Hall? Can I park here? Do I have to download a new app to park here? Is there a valet at least for these ramps? No incentives considered, I'd imagine an upscale restaurant would survey the area and find itself opening at Riverdale Park Station again.

I do agree that the parking in College Park lacks efficiency and convenience. However, for an upscale restaurant in an upscale hotel, valet parking is or should be available. We almost always use valet parking when dining in DC because even though there are parking garages within a few blocks, we'd rather just pay the $20 to have it parked for us. I think the Hotel at UMD has valet parking as well.

Parking in other areas of the city could be way better. I never liked the fact that the city has different parking vendors all over the city. So, you're downloading multiple apps just to park in the same city.

The small parking lot at the Varsity is a joke. At least the Aster will have street parking and a parking garage.

In fairness to the city, Kapnos was gone due to the owner's private legal issues. But still, it has been years since it has closed. The space isn't too big for another restauranteur to take over the space. Not sure who the hotel owners are looking for to fill these spaces. To be honest, the pandemic probably scared a lot of people from starting new restaurants anyway. No since in opening a new spot if people are too scared to eat out.

[terp80]

I don't bike but I am all for bike lanes everywhere. This is a College town, anything to promote kids getting out of their cars and using alternate modes of transportation is a good thing to me. GOTTA make them protected, need to make people feel safe. Unprotected bike lanes only attract the expert riders. In a college town need to get novices comfortable too. Don't be penny wise and pound foolish, if we are going to get bike lanes, do it right and make them protected.

https://dbknews.com/2022/05/03/bike-...e-line-at-umd/

The University of Maryland campus could be one step closer to getting its first bike lanes as the construction of a new bike lane has already been funded while feasibility studies are being conducted for others, according to the Department of Transportation Services.

The university funded bike lane would run alongside the Purple Line on Campus Drive, from the west side of campus to Rossborough Lane, according to the Department of Transportation Services. Future bike lanes can be part of the facilities master plan, which is in development.