New Indian food at the mall
Spice 6, the “modern Indian” restaurant that’s been under construction since last winter in the Dining Terrace at Westfield Montgomery mall, is finally set to open in mid-August. The chain specializes in pizza and wraps made from naan bread, plus kabobs and rice bowls that can be customized with your choice of proteins and topped with Indian curries and chutneys. There’s also a full catering menu with traditional Indian dishes, from biryani to samosas to dosas. This will be the third location for Spice 6, which also has restaurants in D.C., Hyattsville and Vienna. To check out the menu, click here.
Shake Shack and Cava almost here
Lots of progress this week at Cabin John Village, where Montgomery County’s first Shake Shack is expected to open next month and Cava is shooting for Wednesday, Aug. 8. We don’t have a ballpark date yet for Le Pain Quotidien, but the owners of Sisters Thai tell us they’re aiming for late fall. Stay tuned to Store Reporter for the latest.
More bubble tea for Rockville
Downtown Rockville has yet another new option for ramen and bubble tea: Side-by-side restaurants Yamachan Ramen and Pearl Lady opened their doors last week at 201 E. Middle Lane. This marks the first U.S. location for Pearl Lady, a popular Japanese chain offering milk teas, matcha teas, green teas and frappés. There’s no shortage of the bubbly stuff in downtown Rockville, which already is home to Lab Cafe on Gibbs Street, Kung Fu Tea on North Washington Street and Gong Cha inside the new Asian food hall. Can one neighborhood really sustain all that slurping? We expect some fallout in the next 12 months.
Bye bye Brookstone (again)
Brookstone, which shuttered its Westfield Montgomery mall store last January, filed Chapter 11 this week and anounced the closing of its 101 remaining mall locations. The company plans to keep its 35 airport stores open in hopes of selling them to another retailer. This is the second (and likely final) bankruptcy filing for Brookstone, which was bailed out in 2014 by a last-minute buyer.
Goodbye to C9 at Target
Target and Champion just announced the end of their 15-year partnership, which means you won’t be seeing the C9 activewear brand at Target for too much longer. Like many national retailers looking to fatten their profit margins, Target has been expanding its selection of private-label merchandise for the past few years. The company has launched its own activewear brand, JoyLab, which will completely replace C9 by 2020. Meanwhile, Champion’s parent company, Hanesbrands, says it may look for another retailer to carry the C9 line.
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