First Watch Daytime Cafe Reviewed: Yum

I was delighted to see this recent review of one of my favorite all-time breakfast spots, First Watch Daytime Cafe in Rockville Town Square. I have spent many a pleasant moment in First Watch, not only eating their fabulous food but also holding court in meeting after meeting. If you’re looking for somewhere to go in the day, First Watch is a great bet.

This from the review:

Everyone is always on the lookout for a great brunch and breakfast joint. In the Washington D.C. metro area, one place you’ll want to pay a visit to is the FirstWatch Daytime Café, located in Rockville, Maryland.

Perhaps the only problem with the FirstWatch Daytime Café in Rockville for brunch or breakfast is that there are so many awesome looking menu items that you may have a hard time narrowing down your choices. Some are innovative like their specialty Crepeggs, which offer a thin crepe combined with whipped eggs. Others are more traditional and you’ll find classic breakfast and brunch fare as well.

Read the full review here.

100 Gibbs St., Unit D
Rockville, MD 20850
301-762-0621

POTD: Psychedelic

I visited my favorite burger spot Five Guys just as the sun was setting and saw this. That’s a cool pattern the light casts!

Settlement Reached On Town Square Pavers

As most Rockville Central readers know, last year included a controversy over improperly installed pavers in Town Square. They had to be dug up and reinstalled. Everyone involved pointed their fingers at one another. (Here’s a recap from June 2008.)

The finger-pointing is behind us now, as a settlement has finally been reached in the competing lawsuits. The civil engineer will pay the City of Rockville $1.4 million.

This from the City’s press release:

The City of Rockville has reached a settlement in its litigation with Macris, Hendricks and Glascock, P.A., related to the failure of paver sections of Maryland Avenue, Gibbs Street and the plaza in Rockville Town Square.

Macris has agreed to pay the City $1.4 million and to dismiss its counterclaim against the City for $100,000 in exchange for dismissal of the City’s lawsuit against Macris and a release by the City of its claims against Macris. The settlement also provides that there is no admission of liability by either the City or Macris.

Macris, Hendricks and Glascock, P.A., contracted with the City to provide the full scope of civil engineering design services for the Town Center project.

In June 2008, after the failure of paver sections of Maryland Avenue, Gibbs Street and Town Square plaza, the City filed a lawsuit against Macris in Montgomery County Circuit Court, alleging that Macris had breached its contract with the City and its duty of care to the City in connection with the design of the roads and plaza that ultimately led to the failure of the pavers in Town Center.

More Specials In Town Square

To add to the shopping special we posted earlier this week, here’s another to add once all the snow gets shoveled:

Gordon Biersch Rockville
200 A East Middle Ln

Special: Gift Card Special. Buy $50 you get $5 — Buy 100 you get $15 — Buy $500 you get $100

Come in and buy a couple of gift card, and get a couple of free gift card in return as a gift from us!

That sounds great!

Free Parking In Town Square For The Holidays

As they did last year, the Rockville Mayor and Council chose to make parking free in the three Town Square garages for the holidays. On-street meters remain in effect. This from the City’s press release:

Parking in the three Rockville Town Square garages will be free, beginning Monday, Dec. 14, through Sunday, Jan. 3.

The Mayor and Council voted in October to provide free parking in the three Town Square garages. The garages are located at 215 North Washington St., 30 Maryland Ave. and 330 Hungerford Drive (Route 355) between East Middle Lane and Beall Avenue.

Parking meters will still cost $1 per hour from 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Merchants Offer Proposals On Parking

A recent opinion piece on the sticky question the Mayor and Council are facing when it comes to parking in Town Square has generated more comments than any other on Rockville Central (in large part due to the efforts of reader John Cooper-Martin to catalog the responses of City candidates to his questions on the subject).

At last night’s West End Citizens Association candidate forum, the question of parking in Town Square came up repeatedly, and various incumbents made mention that the Mayor and Council would likely be taking up the issue on Monday’s meeting (October 12).

The Town Square merchants are trying to reach a compromise with the City whereby they can reduce what they see as a parking arrangement that is too chilling to their business prospects, while still providing the revenue the City needs to begin to pay for the construction of the garages.

The merchants have sent a set of concrete proposals to the Mayor and Council, so that they can be considered.

(Please note that a city council candidate has been visible in this effort with the merchants, but this proposal is no single candidate’s proposal but is instead the work of many merchants working together. For more on Rockville Central’s policies when it comes to elections, please see the end of this article.)

Here are the proposals:

1. Increase the current number of monthly parkers to 400 up from our best guess of the current 100. Merchants are willing to partner with the city in order to make this happen through in house marketing, word of mouth etc. $65 per month would generate incremental revenue $234,000. The 355 garage has 672 total spaces reserving 400 monthly total spaces still leaves 272 spaces for hourly parkers. As we discussed in our last correspondence the merchants are willing to help the city fill these spaces through in store advertising and using some of our mailing list. FRIT has also said they would be willing to include a message about this in their direct mail pieces. RTS merchants are also willing to take on the responsibility of designing a flyer to be printed by the City for distribution. This is by far the best guarantee the City has for increased revenue. . . .
2. Monday through Friday parking from 6-10pm at $1 per car (also in line with ALL surrounding garages). Increased revenue from $1 per car would be $121,420. Based on [the City's figures] the anticipated decrease in revenue from the garages is actually only $25,980 not the $141,970 [previously discussed]. . . .
3. Increased revenue from the above totals $355,420 without the increased revenue from on street parking from 7-10 estimated . . . at $101,250. This already brings us to $456,670, well above the original estimates of $300-400k. These assumptions don’t include any paid parking in Town Center on Saturday. The merchants strong preference is that Saturday parking remains free to keep us competitive with surrounding shopping districts.

Note: The information in this article was submitted to us by Trapper Martin, who is a candidate for City Council. Rockville Central does not endorse candidates. We are encouraging towards all people who choose to run for office the city and try our best to make ourselves open to all. We actively encourage candidates to submit opinion pieces and other news. We don’t include every last bit, but we try to be fair to all and give useful information about what is happening. We ran this piece because it adds to the substantive debate on a subject that people are concerned with.

Between A Rock And A Hard Place: Parking In Town Square

As many readers of Rockville Central know, because of some of the lengthy comment trails on a a number of articles, there’s a storm brewing over the parking in Town Square. Until recently, it’s been low-level, but on October 5 the time when people have to pay to park is set to be extended.

As Samuel Johnson said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” People are, for want of a better word, focused.

By and large, the Town Square merchants would like to make it as easy as possible for people to park and be customers. (This stands to reason.) Many merchants are concerned that additional parking fees will drive people away. Furthermore, one merchant who has been very active in this issue of late is a candidate for City Council (Trapper Martin). That is neither good nor bad, but it does complicate things when it comes to decision making.

In the midst of all this, the Mayor and Council as a body appears reluctant to act. (I am not talking about individuals, but the whole.) Not only that, but this particular iteration of the parking issue has become a heated political issue. The Gazette has a good recap of the situation.

But my favorite update is by Roald Schrack of the Alliance of Rockville Voters, who writes:

The September 21 , 2009 meeting of the Mayor and Council epitomized the past two years experience with this M&C. The Citizen’s Forum was largely taken up by a plea from the restaurateurs of Town Center to delay the onset of regular parking fees that had been scheduled for October 4 . It seems that a big coordinated advertising campaign has been arranged for “Restaurant Week in Rockville” starting on October 5. The restaurateurs felt that the success of their campaign would be seriously hurt by the need for their customers to pay for parking. The Mayor [Susan Hoffmann] said they would take up a solution under New Business later in the evening. When it came time for New Business John Britton made a motion to delay the imposition of paying for parking (after 7:00 pm) for one week to avoid being coincident with “Restaurant Week”. The motion failed for want of a second (the Mayor cannot introduce a motion or second it according to Robert’s Rules of Order). [Phyllis] Marcuccio, [Piotr] Gajewski, and [Anne] Robbins gave various reasons for objecting to the motion. . . . [T]here it sat with no action taken to soften the blow of parking fees on “Restaurant Week”. Everyone on the M&C knows that the survival of the Town Center restaurants is vital to the success of Town Center but the M&C fear that citizens would see any compromise on the parking fees as a further burden on the taxpayers. It is estimated that the additional parking fees earned from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm would bring in $400,000 a year. Delaying the fee for one week would only cost about $8000 and could be absorbed by the city. But the problem remains after the week is over. The restaurateurs would return after the week and again ask for continuing relief from parking fees. The City is between a rock and a hard place. It isn’t just $400,000, There is an additional $2,400,000 that the city must trim from the budget because of the recession’s impact on state revenues. Why anyone would want to run for M&C in this environment is hard to see. The next two years are going to be very difficult for the city.

Roald makes good points. As many know, I am in favor of people having to pay for parking in Town Square. The Mayor and Council are indeed between a rock and a hard place. At some point, the parking lots must get paid for. But a week delay seems as if it might have made sense all around.

If it had been raised earlier that waiting one week (until after a major retail event) might help things, it is likely there would have been enough time to deal with the one-week delay. Of course, it may not have — it might take the October 5 deadline to actually spur action. Furthermore, someone might have raised it already and it fell on deaf ears.

In any event, many Town Square merchants are hoping for a reprieve so that Restaurant Week can take place without the added burden of the extended paid hours. It is unclear whether that is possible.

Don’t Forget Kids Can Eat Free Tuesday Night!

Remember, Tuesday night (that’s tonight) is Kids eat Free Night at Rockville Town Square!

From 5:00 until 8:00 pm, kids can eat free at these restaurants:

• Austin Grill
• Bobby’s Crabcakes
• Fractured Prune
• Gifford’s Ice Cream
• Gordon Biersch
• Lebanese Taverna
• Noodles & Company
• Oro Pomodoro
• Primo Italiano
• Robek’s Smoothies
• Spice Xing
• Sushi Damo

Rules: Mention “Kids Eat Free” when ordering. One free kids meal with purchase of each adult entree. And, some restrictions may apply. See restaurant for details. (The hours for Oro Pomodoro are 4:30-6:30.)

Get Ready To Pay For Parking More In Town Square

If you visit Rockville’s Town Square, you probably know that getting there after 7:00 pm or anytime on the weekend makes good sense, as the parking has been free at that time. That’s soon to end.

The City is set to institute a new payment schedule in Town Square:

Starting October 5, paid parking will run Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., at the current rate of $1 per hour.

This issue has long been a contentious one in Rockville. Town Square merchants say that it makes for bad business when customers have other options with free parking nearby. Some residents say they don’t want to visit Town Square if they need to pay for parking. Meanwhile, city officials point out that the cost of the parking structures must be borne somehow — whether by parking fees or by taxes.

(My view: Paid parking is fine but the current system should be overhauled because it is too complicated for ordinary people to use easily.)

Rockville residents can get some relief from the paid parking regime, though. In response to some of the earlier complaints, the City has set up a system where each household can have 12 free parking credits to use as they see fit. In order to pick up your own free parking code, go to one of these locations:

• City Hall, 111 Maryland Ave., Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m.-8 p.m., and Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
• Twinbrook Community Recreation Center, 12920 Twinbrook Parkway, Monday through Friday, 6 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
• Thomas Farm Community Center, 700 Fallsgrove Drive, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

At Monday night’s Mayor and Council meeting,  some business owners complained about the upcoming charges and got little relief. The change has already been budgeted into the 2010 plans and it represents between $300,000 and $400,000 in revenue. One possible change might be that parkers may be able to pay in 30-minute increments instead of by the hour.

Rockville Business Looking Up, Says News Report

News Channel 8 (WJLA) has a terrific report that brings what could be good news: A number of Rockville firms have seen their business bounce back. Some who had to lay off have fully rehired. Businesses point to a feeling of neighborliness as well as the comfortable feel of Town Square as two major factors.

Here’s the video:

Nice to have some good news these days!