Baked Bear, BBQ, Trader Joe’s and a Wildwood Update

Hottest ticket in town for a sweet treat: The Baked Bear at Pike & Rose, where lines have snaked around the block every weekend since the ice cream shop opened on May 19th. Everyone is waiting to try those instantly Instagrammable ice cream sandwiches, which are made to order with customized combinations of brownies, cookies and donuts. We tried them. We liked them. And it looks like we’ll be seeing more of them: Baked Bear owners tell us they’re already eyeing another location at Rio Washingtonian Center.

Update on the new Trader Joe’s at Travilah Square Shopping Center: The company tells us it’s shooting to open sometime this summer. Trader Joe’s fans have been waiting impatiently for this store since it was first announced in the fall of 2016. It will be the company’s second location in Rockville, replacing a Gaithersburg store in Montgomery Village that will close when the new one opens. Trader Joe’s has been a game-changer for the newly revitalized Travilah Square, helping the center attract new tenants like Cafe Rio Mexican Grill and the True Food Kitchen spinoff Flower Child. (For more on Flower Child in our May 17th edition, click here.)

This summer will be a busy one at the Wildwood Shops, where a portion of the parking lot has been blocked off to accommodate construction in and around the now-closed Red Door Spa. The entire space is being reconfigured to make room for the new Flower Child restaurant (same as the one coming to Travilah Square — details in our May 17th edition) as well as a relocating Salon Nader. There’s still room one more tenant on that end of the shopping center — and we hear it will be another restaurant. More details soon.

Branded 72, a longtime fixture on Gude Drive, is under new ownership with a new menu and a new name: Crossroads BBQ and Grill. Co-owner Paul Poto, who purchased the restaurant with a partner earlier this year, says many of the new recipes are actually throwbacks to the restaurant’s original identity as O’Brien’s Pit BBQ. “Ken O’Brien was an American Airlines pilot who sampled the barbecue in Texas and brought it here in 1972,” Poto says. “We’re extending his idea to include barbecue from St. Louis, Memphis and the Carolinas — an intersection of where four great barbecues meet.” To check out the restaurant’s new menu, click here.

This week brought another announcement of closings for the struggling Sears chain. Once again, the Westfield Montgomery Mall location is not on the list of stores that are slated to close. But it’s only a matter of time.