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Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria, Wood-Fired Pizzas with Delivery, on the Dining Deck at Westfield Montgomery Mall - Closed


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Didn't like the pizza when I tried it last summer. Over-baked, dry, wooden. Only one visit though. Did like that you could get beer and wine at the quick-serve counter and drink in the food court. 

Maybe Westfield was a little over-ambitious with this grand food court to bring mall's back? The bathrooms and "family comfort areas" are incredible though. 

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The amount of money recently lost by restaurants in this mall is incredible... Naples, Met, Blaze, Lobster Place, Jamaican Place, Dumpling Place, and I'm sure there are many more. Crazy rent- too much food in mall- bad concepts -or a combination?

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And yet the place is consistently packed, bringing a much-needed energy to the Sargasso Sea that is Montgomery Mall (and surrounding environs of North Bethesda/East Potomac/South Gaithersburg). Still, there's an awful lot of competition for some of the venues, and it's a headscratcher on how some of them survive - thinking about the waffle place and the crepe joint in particular.

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Sorry to mark it closed a day early, but I'm traveling tomorrow, and I'll forget. 

The Patina Restaurant Group only had one restaurant in Maryland, and this was it - they're very much of a New York-based restaurant group.

Not only does Bethesda have a lot of restaurants, but it has a disproportionately high percentage that have closed in the past twelve years.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a correlation between Montgomery County housing prices, and the stubbornness of restaurant owners to believe that Arlington County and Fairfax County have them trounced when it comes to restaurants (although Arlington County's star is quickly fading, and boy, is it a sad thing to behold).

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10 hours ago, mdjordy said:

The amount of money recently lost by restaurants in this mall is incredible... Naples, Met, Blaze, Lobster Place, Jamaican Place, Dumpling Place, and I'm sure there are many more. Crazy rent- too much food in mall- bad concepts -or a combination?

I suspect there's a mismatch between the retail and food options. I wouldn't call Montgomery Mall's food court high concept, but the average shopper seems to be younger than, say, the Tyson's or previous White Flint crowd, and some of those places certainly were on the more expensive end of mall food (not necessarily prime high school open lunch destinations). Cava Grill and Sarku seem to perennially be the most popular destinations there.

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22 hours ago, DonRocks said:

I wonder if anyone has ever done a correlation between Montgomery County housing prices, and the stubbornness of restaurant owners to believe that Arlington County and Fairfax County have them trounced when it comes to restaurants (although Arlington County's star is quickly fading, and boy, is it a sad thing to behold).

What Bethesda and Arlington have in common is unprecedented competition from restaurants in easily accessible DC. To me, that's why so many independent white tablecloth places struggle in Arlington and Bethesda, if you're going to spend $$$ at a nice place like that why not make a night of it and Uber/Metro to way more fashionable spots in the city? Mid-priced sit-down chains still do OK in Bethesda because families who live nearby want something that doesn't require much thought or effort. 

I think restaurant growth to the north of Bethesda has hurt downtown and west Bethesda too. So many more choices at Pike & Rose and even up in Gaithersburg, Rockville and Potomac keep people from Bethesda. Just like Georgetown and Cleveland Park used to be destinations for diners from further afield, Bethesda was too. Bringing in people from up-county, Potomac, Silver Spring, Takoma Park, etc. Not as much need for that now. 

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On 1/26/2017 at 4:44 PM, DonRocks said:

Sorry to mark it closed a day early, but I'm traveling tomorrow, and I'll forget. 

The Patina Restaurant Group only had one restaurant in Maryland, and this was it - they're very much of a New York-based restaurant group.

Not only does Bethesda have a lot of restaurants, but it has a disproportionately high percentage that have closed in the past twelve years.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a correlation between Montgomery County housing prices, and the stubbornness of restaurant owners to believe that Arlington County and Fairfax County have them trounced when it comes to restaurants (although Arlington County's star is quickly fading, and boy, is it a sad thing to behold).

The fact that anybody doing business in Montgomery County has to deal with the DLC can't help matters, either.

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4 hours ago, fuzzy510 said:

The fact that anybody doing business in Montgomery County has to deal with the DLC can't help matters, either.

It seems like businesses are starting to figure out the DLC, at least with beer (I have no idea about the rest of the segment).  Don't get me wrong, I think reform is needed, but just look at what Owen's Ordinary and Downtown Crown Beer and Wine have going on. 

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3 minutes ago, pras said:

It seems like businesses are starting to figure out the DLC, at least with beer (I have no idea about the rest of the segment).  Don't get me wrong, I think reform is needed, but just look at what Owen's Ordinary and Downtown Crown Beer and Wine have going on. 

Paying too much for beer (as opposed to wine) is like paying too much for a pair of socks (as opposed to a suit). 

People might cringe at the thought of paying $20 for a $5 pair of socks, but it won't change their lifestyle; if you pay $3,000 for a $750 suit, that can be an entire month's rent.

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1 hour ago, DonRocks said:

Paying too much for beer (as opposed to wine) is like paying too much for a pair of socks (as opposed to a suit). 

People might cringe at the thought of paying $20 for a $5 pair of socks, but it won't change their lifestyle; if you pay $3,000 for a $750 suit, that can be an entire month's rent.

I think the price argument is a bit overblown at this point as well.  Prices at Owen's and Crown are as good as most similar places in DC.  As far as selection goes, recently I went to my favorite DC beer store and was looking for some new Sierra Nevada IPAs that I knew were available in Montgomery County.   They weren't in stock yet in DC.

Again as stated in my previous post I am against county control, but I think the situation is drastically better than it has been.

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I think "drastically better" is an overstatement.

The things they do directly come into the county early and at a good price sometimes, but they often drop the ball on reordering and not running out between their shipments the DLC receives. The Private guys do a generally better job, but I run across more and more wines and beers that are simply never available in the county, despite being in Maryland. The vendors tell me the hassle and general pain in the ass, means they never get listed in the county. For instance, if a vendors has 10 six packs of a wine or 5 sixtels of a beer for the whole state of Maryland they can easily just sell it open state and be done with it. And there are plenty of vendors that choose not to offer wines here. 

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We went 3 times, including the final night of service.  The first time the food was average and the service was terrible.  The second time our meal was comped as a result of the terrible first experience.  The food was definitely below average that trip and the service was a shade above average.  Saturday the food sucked--the pizza was wet with grease and the service was actually good.  We won't miss it.

(I had missed that Met closed as well--what does it say that I can tell you we ate there following a screening of Secret Lives of Pets but neither BL-4th grader nor I can tell you what we ordered???)

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