Business in Brief: A decade ago, Van Ness wanted a Trader Joe’s. One is landing nearby.

Shoppers at a Trader Joe’s in Connecticut, not on Connecticut Avenue. (2007 photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Friendship Heights is getting a Trader Joe’s. The Tenleytown/Friendship Heights ANC got confirmation last month when Trader Joe’s put in for a liquor license at Chevy Chase Pavilion (5335 Wisconsin Avenue). We can’t complain; MOM’s Organic Market will open at 4250 Connecticut Avenue in the next few months. But judging from responses to our reader survey a decade ago and messages we’ve received in the years since, we know Trader Joe’s would have done well at Van Ness.

Bread Furst is on Netflix. Last June, this happened:

.@PhilRosenthal was at @BreadFurst filming for a DC episode of Somebody Feed Phil pic.twitter.com/C3zZ9L0N6j

— Eat DC (@eat_dc) June 14, 2023

Now you can see what that was all about. The seventh season of Somebody Feed Phil is now on Netflix. And DC restaurants, including Bread Furst, are featured in episode five. Eater DC has listed every DC eatery in order of their appearance.

Politics and Prose + Buck’s Fishing and Camping + Joan Nathan. A neighborhood team-up of our foodie dreams is happening on April 14th, but alas, it is sold out. Joan Nathan is an award-winning author, an authority on Jewish food, and a Forest Hills neighbor. And, she is celebrating the launch of her latest cookbook with an event co-hosted by Politics and Prose and Buck’s, and with food prepared by some of Nathan’s chef friends – Mark Furstenberg and Buck’s own Ryan Garsiek among them. Nathan’s book – My Life in Recipes: Food Family, and Memories – uses recipes to chronicle her family’s and her own history. It’s available for preorder ahead of its April 9th release.

Cherry blossom tea at Hillwood. ‘Tis cherry blossom season, between the blooms on the trees and the celebrations around DC. And those celebrations can include a leisurely afternoon tea. Several places around town are serving teas and sandwiches and cakes. But according to Washingtonian, only one is doing so in a garden surrounded by the blossoms. That’s the Merriweather Cafe at Hillwood Museum and Gardens. The cherry blossom-inspired afternoon tea will be served through April 14th. You’ll find the menu and reservation information here.

BP stands for “Back to Pumping Gas.” The BP service station at 5001 Connecticut spent almost two months tearing out and replacing its underground gas tanks. The work is now complete and the gas pumps reopened on Friday, March 22nd.

The Connecticut Avenue BP station in late January.

And on March 23rd.

A true original. Some of the original apartment and commercial buildings that appeared along upper Connecticut Avenue in the 1920s remain there to this day. But we can think of only two buildings that still house the original businesses: The Avalon Theatre, which opened in 1923, and Forest Hills Inclusive Senior Living, which will be celebrating a century at 4901 Connecticut Avenue in 2026.

Forest Hills CEO Tina Sandri was at the ANC 3F February meeting to talk about the anniversary, and present-day plans to integrate its Forest Side memory care facility on Military Road into the main building on Connecticut. The transition was to be complete at the end of March.

“We’re very excited because we think this is going to lead to better quality of life care for our residents that need memory care support services,” Sandri said. “We are incorporating our elders into our community.”

Ready to welcome some newcomers? Slated for late spring-early summer opening: Dog Haus and The Whale Tea at 4340 Connecticut, and Rosedale across the street at 4455. And MOM’s Organic Market at 4250 Connecticut “keeps plugging along,” said Van Ness Main Street executive director Gloria Garcia at ANC 3F’s March Meeting.

Garcia also put in a plug for the Main Street’s Second Saturdays pop-up artisans market, featuring the Carpe Librum used book pop-up sale outside and as many as eight local makers inside the Van Ness Main Street office at 4340 Connecticut. The next one is April 13th.

Forest Hills Connection is an editorially independent program of Van Ness Main Street.