Italian Kitchen for sale in Silver Spring

Italian Kitchen is now being offered for sale in Silver Spring. The restaurant closed last August after a successful decade in business. Nearly a year later, a banner attached to the building is announcing the business - not the building - is now available for sale. Italian Kitchen is located at 8201 Fenton Street in downtown Silver Spring.

AutoZone nears opening at White Oak Shopping Center in Silver Spring

AutoZone is in the home stretch at 11259 New Hampshire Avenue at the White Oak Shopping Center in Silver Spring. Signage has been installed on the building, which was formerly home to Sears Auto Center. Inside, as you can see in the photos below, workers are now beginning to stock the shelves. The building is looking sharp amid the surrounding architectural gems such as the iconic-but-vacant Sears store, and the Enclave apartments.

Silver Spring neighbors complain of fried chicken aroma from Royal Farms

Could you ever get tired of the aroma of fresh Royal Farms fried chicken? Some neighbors of the new Royal Farms store at 9475 Georgia Avenue, in the Montgomery Hills area of Silver Spring, have. And the Maryland convenience store chain has heard them. The company has agreed to install a "Chicken Exhaust Scrubber," which it hopes will "resolve the aroma of fried chicken in the neighborhood." Royal Farms is directly adjacent to a residential neighborhood.

Photo courtesy Royal Farms

Franciscan friars selling campus in Silver Spring

Franciscan friars are selling their campus in the Four Corners area of Silver Spring. The site comprises two lots, currently improved with a 3-story retreat center, and a single family home. Located at 10400-10410 Lorain Avenue, the property also has western frontage on the major Maryland commuter route of Colesville Road. Current zoning allows a variety of institutional and residential uses, as well as major redevelopment potential. The latter is a significant driver behind the listing's asking price of $2,150,000.

YeEnat Kitchen opening in Silver Spring

YeEnat Kitchen is coming to downtown Silver Spring. The Ethiopian restaurant will be located at 8301 Georgia Avenue. That was previously home to Lucy until its recent closure, meaning this corner will remain an Ethiopian dining destination for some time to come. YeENAT Kitchen has a liquor license hearing scheduled for July 16, 2026 at 11:30 AM.

Shah's Halal Food opening soon in Silver Spring

Shah's Halal Food is opening soon in downtown Silver Spring. It will be at 8517 Colesville Road, in the former Jerry's Subs & Pizza space in the Hale Center. Shah's began as a pushcart in Richmond Hill in Queens, New York in 2005. Founder Ibrahim Mashriqi's sons would ultimately build Shah's into the juggernaut it is today, rapidly expanding nationally and internationally.

Shah's has a famous signature white sauce that tops its meat and rice platters, gyros, and wraps. If this sounds familiar, well, it's because Ibrahim was one of many entrepreneurs in New York inspired by the 1990s innovations of The Halal Guys. But his sauce stands apart because he incorporated spices from his native Afghanistan into the recipe. Silver Spring diners will soon have a chance to taste test the difference for themselves.

Silver Spring bank to become dental clinic

The vacant Bank of America branch at 8788 Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring has a new tenant. Capital Kids Dentistry & Orthodontics has leased the space, which will obviously need some significant transformation inside. For example, each patient room or workstation will need plumbing hookups. Capital Kids Dentistry has an existing location at 4200 Wisconsin Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., but the Silver Spring office will offer full orthodontic treatment in addition to pediatric dentistry.

AutoZone to open in White Oak

AutoZone is coming soon to White Oak in Silver Spring, according to a sign posted in the window of its future storefront. The auto parts and accessories retailer has leased the vacant former Sears Auto Center building at 11259 New Hampshire Avenue at the White Oak Shopping Center. This will be the fourth AutoZone location in eastern Montgomery County. In case you want to open a department store, the larger Sears store building remains available for lease.

Colesville Smoke & Vape opens in Silver Spring

Colesville Smoke & Vape is now open in downtown Silver Spring. The smoke shop has filled the vacant Record Exchange space at 8642 Colesville Road, in the Danshes Building. As you can see, the vintage display windows are not currently being utilized. I can't find any website or social media accounts for the shop as of this writing, but Montgomery County residents are likely familiar with what they will find in these stores, which have become ubiquitous over the last decade.

7-Eleven closes in downtown Silver Spring

A 7-Eleven store has closed in downtown Silver Spring. The convenience store was located at 8484 Georgia Avenue. Signage has been stripped from the building, and the storefront windows have been covered. It looks like 24-hour convenience store Hakim 1-Stop Shop arrived just in time at 8433 Georgia Avenue!

Dor-Ne Corset Shop relocates in Silver Spring

One of Silver Spring's oldest businesses is still going strong, but now in a new location. Dor-Ne Corset shop has cleared out of its storefront at 8126 Georgia Avenue. It can now be found at 12840 New Hampshire Avenue. This isn't the first move the shop has made, as it was originally located in Washington, D.C. when it was founded nearly a century ago in 1932.

Hakim 1 Stop Shop reopens in Silver Spring, but inspection records vanish

Hakim 1 Stop Shop has reopened at 8433 Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring. The convenience store was temporarily shut down by Montgomery County health inspectors for unspecified code violations. These violations had to be corrected, and the premises reinspected by the County, for the business to reopen. 

Intriguingly, neither the original violations nor the successful reinspection can be found in the Montgomery County Food Inspection database. The terms "Hakim" and "8433 Georgia" return zero search results. I then performed an excruciating manual search of the database for all of April and May, and found no trace of either inspection, or even of the required pre-opening inspection from months earlier.

Montgomery County orders closure of convenience store in Silver Spring

The Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services has ordered the closure of a convenience store in downtown Silver Spring. Hakim 1 Stop Shop at 8433 Georgia Avenue has been shut down by HHS inspectors under Montgomery County Code Chapter 15, Section 15-16(b), which reads as follows:

When it is imperative to preserve the immediate health and safety of the community, the [HHS] director may summarily revoke or suspend a license without the notice prescribed in subsection (a), and may direct that the facility be closed to the public until the hazard is corrected. 

The store only recently opened in March. Once code violations are corrected, and the corrections are approved by inspectors, Hakim 1 Stop Shop will be able to reopen. One positive update about the business is that a sign in the window now says it is open 24 hours a day, a rare thing in Montgomery County in recent years.

Elizabeth House demolition update in Silver Spring

Demolition continues at the Elizabeth House apartments at 1400 Fenwick Lane in downtown Silver Spring. The existing structure will be replaced by a Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County housing project. It will ultimately deliver 887 total housing units. The demolition permit was issued last September, but here we are today. I continue to marvel at the 21st-century trend of slow, manual demolition in Montgomery County. It's a point of pride, apparently, that we don't rapidly demolish structures with wrecking balls or explosive charges.

Buna & Barley opening in downtown Silver Spring

Buna & Barley has leased the space at 901 Silver Spring Avenue in downtown Silver Spring. Very little is known about the business as of this writing. It has applied for a Class D Beer and Wine On/Off liquor license from Montgomery County, and is described in its trade name application with the state of Maryland as a "specialty retail shop." The liquor license hearing is scheduled for May 7, 2026, at 12:30 PM.

"Buna" is Amharic for "coffee." The business entity making the filing translates as "Day and Night, LLC." 901 Silver Spring Avenue was previously home to Wesenyelesh International Market, an Ethiopian market.

Society Seafood House opens in Silver Spring

Society Seafood House has opened at 8229 Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring. It is holding a soft opening weekend today and tomorrow, April 11-12, 2026. The restaurant will open at 5:00 PM each evening. "Chic evening attire" is recommended in the announcement. The new restaurant is a change in dining concept from the owners of previous tenant Society Restaurant & Lounge.

Dunkin' Donuts to remodel Silver Spring Metro Plaza store

The interior of the Dunkin' Donuts store at 8401 Colesville Road at Silver Spring Metro Plaza will have a new look later this year. A remodeling and renovation of the downtown donuts-and-coffee destination is expected to begin by summer. New finishes, new display cases, a new ceiling, and even a new door are among the upgrades planned. Plumbing and electrical improvements will also be made.

TD Bank closes at Ellsworth Place in Silver Spring

TD Bank has closed at Ellsworth Place mall in downtown Silver Spring. Their space has been cleared out, and is now available for lease. The departure of the bank and Outback Steakhouse have left a very vacant feeling around this entrance to the mall. TD Bank has been closing branches in the area, including two in downtown Bethesda, so it probably wasn't a failure with this location specifically that led to the closure.

Hakim 1 Stop Shop opens in Silver Spring

Downtown Silver Spring's one-stop shopping destination is now open. Hakim 1 Stop Shop has opened at 8433 Georgia Avenue, next to Chase Bank. Last night, a cashier was behind the counter waiting for customers. The inventory of essential items, plus things you didn't expect to find, is somewhere between a convenience store and a Rite Aid in product range.

Society transitioning to Society Seafood House in Silver Spring

The Society Restaurant & Lounge at 8229 Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring is temporarily closed. According to the restaurant's Instagram, it is rebranding as Society Seafood House. "Coming soon. Downtown Silver Spring's destination for seafood, cocktails and ambiance," their IG bio now reads. The rebranding was first reported by The MoCo Show.