Fish Taco is almost ready
If you’ve been waiting for the opening of Fish Taco at the Wildwood Shopping Center, the time is almost here: Owner Francis Namin says he hopes to be in business by early March. This will be the second location for Fish Taco, whose first restaurant on Macarthur Boulevard has been hugely popular since it opened in 2013. Namin, who also owns Food Wine & Co. in downtown Bethesda, says a third Fish Taco will open shortly afterwards in that area. To hear his description of the Wildwood restaurant, click here for our Oct. 8 edition.
New spa in North Bethesda
Woodhouse Day Spa is planning a late February opening at North Bethesda Market on Rockville Pike, where it will target the health-conscious customer base from neighboring Whole Foods and Seasons 52. This will be the first Maryland location for Woodhouse, a Texas-based chain with a presence in 18 states. The spa menu includes facials, massage, mani/pedis and lavish skin treatments like the Wild Lavender and Seaweed Sugar Glow shown here. For more on Woodhouse, click here.
New place for bubble tea
A new bubble tea shop opened on Rockville Pike this week, in the former home of Yocake across from Wintergreen Plaza. Tea-Do, which has another location in Philadelphia, features a menu of light Japanese food as well as smoothies, specialty coffees and custom drinks with ingredients like lychee jelly, aloe, red guava, kumquat and Thai coconut. Yocake, a small family-run chain that specialized in cake and ice cream mash-ups, went out of business last summer.
Tell us about your family’s favorites — and win FREE ArcLight tickets
For our upcoming Store Reporter Kids Issue, we’re asking readers to help us choose the best kid-friendly businesses in the greater Rockville/Potomac area. We want to hear about your favorite restaurants, toy stores, children’s clothing stores, after-school classes… all the local places that you and your kids enjoy. Send us your suggestions, and we’ll also enter you into this month’s drawing for FREE tickets to the ArcLight Cinema! To post your comments on our Facebook page, click here. To email them to us directly, click here. Update: We’ve already named the winners for this contest, but stay tuned to Store Reporter for more great giveaways.
On the Lululemon beat
Haven’t read anything interesting about Lululemon in awhile? We’re on it. In The New York Times this week, company founder Chip Wilson offers his views on punctuality, the Landmark leadership program, and also that time in 2013 when he blamed women’s thighs for those transparent Lululemon yoga pants. Wilson is no longer running Lululemon. But his family has a new clothing chain, Kit and Ace, that opened a store in downtown Bethesda last November. To hear what he has to say, click here.
CVS starts Target takeover
This week CVS began its takeover of the pharmacy departments at Target stores nationwide. By the end of this summer, our local Targets will be sporting CVS signage (conveniently red, just like the Target logo) and staffed by CVS employees. If you’ve ever been stuck in that ridiculously long line at a CVS pharmacy — particularly the one at Cabin John Shopping Center — this may not necessarily be good news.
Peapod pickup on the Metro
This week Peapod by Giant started testing a grocery delivery service at three D.C.-area Metro stations: Fort Totten, Glenmont and Vienna. Shoppers can order their groceries online, then pick them up as they exit the Metro between 4 and 7 p.m. Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. The three participating stations have lockers to store the groceries and staffers available to help shoppers to their cars. If things go well with this six-month test, more stations will be added to the program.