Walk south from Chevy Chase Circle on a Wednesday in July and the sidewalk between Livingston and Northampton behaves differently than it did last year. Bar stools are full at 5:30. A takeout window is open near the corner. People are walking north from the Avalon Theatre with cones from a Maine creamery in their hands. None of that existed on this block twelve months ago.
The change traces to one address. On June 10, The Wheelhouse opened at 5714 Connecticut Avenue NW, in the former Wine & Organic Market space next to Citibank. The concept is Chesapeake Bay American with a raw bar and a yacht-club interior. The scale is what matters for anyone who lives in Chevy Chase.
What actually opened at 5714
The new room runs 4,500 square feet, seats 211 across indoor and outdoor sections, and centers on a 33-foot bar with sailing flags strung above it. There is a separate takeout counter next to the dining room serving Gifford's ice cream and a weekend brunch menu that began June 20. Most sit-down rooms on this stretch of Connecticut top out around 80 to 100 seats, which makes The Wheelhouse roughly twice the capacity of anything already on the block.
The operator is Bo Blair's Georgetown Events Hospitality Group, the same group behind Millie's in Spring Valley at 4866 Massachusetts Avenue, Surfside, Jetties, Due South and The Bullpen. Chef David Scribner built the menu around Maryland seafood, crudos, crispy rice sushi, crab soup, spiced shrimp, soft-shells, roasted rockfish over coconut rice and steak frites. The dish names lean into the theme: the Topsail Caesar, The Jib, The Boom. Cocktails are named after Yacht Rock musicians.
The reason to care about a restaurant opening in a real estate context is not the menu. It is the geography. For years, the four-block stretch of Connecticut between the Circle and the Maryland line had good restaurants without having a room. Blair told Bethesda Magazine he wants The Wheelhouse to become a "neighborhood family restaurant," which is a bet on regulars rather than destination diners.
The strip, in walking order
Starting from Chevy Chase Circle and moving north, the corridor now reads as a sequence rather than a set of unrelated storefronts:
- Chevy Chase Circle — the southern anchor and the point where the DC and Maryland sides of the neighborhood meet.
- 5500 block — Skip's on the Avenue at 5540, Parthenon & Chevy Chase Lounge at 5510, Starbucks at 5500, Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits at 5544. Everyday services and the coffee stop.
- Avalon Theatre — 5612 Connecticut Ave NW. The cultural anchor and the reason the strip exists in its current form.
- 5700 block — Opal, BirdSong, Parthenon and Little Beast cluster here as the dining core.
- The Wheelhouse — 5712-14 Connecticut Ave NW. The new full-service anchor with a patio and a walk-up window.
- Broad Branch Market — one block west at 5608 Broad Branch Rd NW for provisions on the way home.
- Chevy Chase Lake — two blocks north over the Maryland line, at 8525 Chevy Chase Lake Terrace. The plaza and the summer programming.
That is a single quarter-mile route with a theater, a raw bar, a wine shop, a coffee counter, a corner market and a music plaza on it. The pieces existed. The connective tissue at 5714 did not.
The Avalon's summer, worth planning around
The Avalon has been a cornerstone of the corridor since 1923 and is the oldest operating movie house in the DC region. It is also the only nonprofit film center in Washington. This summer the theater is running a Summer 1980s series alongside its long-running Wednesday Signature Series and Senior Cinema Thursday.
A few specific dates on the current calendar:
| Date | Program | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sun, Aug 2, 10:30 AM | The Natural | One show only, Summer 1980s series |
| Mon, Aug 3, 7:30 PM | Reading Lolita in Tehran | Author Azar Nafisi Q&A after the screening |
| Third Thursday monthly, 10:30 AM | Senior Cinema Thursday | $6 tickets, open captions |
| Wednesdays, 8:00 PM | Signature Series | Downstairs theater |
The Avalon Café off the lobby opens 30 minutes before the first show and closes 30 minutes after the last one begins. It serves espresso, beer, wine, sandwiches and ice cream, and anything bought there can be taken into the auditorium. That is a practical detail for anyone building a night around a screening.
The relevant point for residents is that the Avalon has never had a proper full-service dinner spot immediately adjacent to it on Connecticut. It does now. The walking distance from the marquee at 5612 to the bar at 5714 is about ten minutes at a stroll.
Two blocks north at the Lake
Cross the Maryland line and the second half of the summer story is at Chevy Chase Lake. Wine Down Wednesday is the property's outdoor acoustic concert series on the lawn at 8525 Chevy Chase Lake Terrace, with wine flights from Uncorked and food from the on-site restaurants, including Elena James and Playa Bowls. Lake Buddies is the monthly family series on weekends. Earlier this spring the plaza ran an oyster event with eight participating restaurants.
There is a longer arc here that most residents do not know. Summer concerts at this exact address are not a marketing invention from the 2020s. An 1896 Washington Post advertisement described Chevy Chase Lake with music from Donch's Band, and a division of the U.S. Marine Band took over the program in 1901 and held it for the next fourteen years. Thursday evening jazz on the lawn is the current chapter of a program that started when the horsecars still ran up Connecticut.
A weeknight, mapped
The point of tracing this circuit is that a Wednesday evening in Chevy Chase used to end in the car. It no longer has to.
A working version of a July weeknight: acoustic music on the plaza lawn at Chevy Chase Lake from six, then a walk south down Connecticut to The Wheelhouse for a raw bar seat by nine. Total driving involved: none. The corridor between the Lake and the Circle is roughly one mile of sidewalk with a theater, a full-service dinner room, a wine shop and an ice cream counter along it.
A working version of a Saturday: the Chevy Chase Farmers Market at 5701 Broad Branch Road NW from nine to one, coffee at the Avalon Café before an 11:30 screening, ice cream from the Wheelhouse takeout counter on the walk back down Connecticut. On a Monday the same route ends at Skip's on the Avenue at 5540 Connecticut for trivia at seven.
Season notes for residents
A few practical items that only matter if you already live here:
- Reservations tighten Fridays and Sundays. Blair's other rooms book brunch first. Expect the Sunday raw bar at The Wheelhouse to be the harder table by late August.
- Road work at the southern approach. The Maryland State Highway Administration began resurfacing the southbound lanes of Connecticut Avenue from Club Drive to Chevy Chase Circle the week of July 5. If you are dropping in from the Kensington side, plan an extra ten minutes.
- Art All Night Chevy Chase is scheduled for September 12, 4 to 10 PM, organized by Chevy Chase Main Street along the corridor.
- Senior Cinema Thursday at the Avalon runs the third Thursday of each month at 10:30 AM. Tickets are six dollars and all films screen with open captions, which is worth knowing if you are bringing a parent or a neighbor.
The larger point is not that one restaurant opened. The larger point is that the block from the Avalon to Chevy Chase Circle spent years being described as a place people drive through on the way to Bethesda or downtown. This summer, for the first time in a long time, it is a place with its own evening. If you have lived on the 20015 or 20815 side of the line for a decade, the corridor two blocks from your door just gained a room that will be full for the next several summers. If you are newer, you now have a default answer to "where should we go tonight" that does not begin with a bridge.
For clients considering how neighborhood texture translates to long-term value in this corridor, Jill Schwartz Group is available for a private, confidential consultation.
