In the past fourteen months, Chevy Chase Lake has added a Thai street-food restaurant, a sushi counter and a well-known Montgomery County ice cream shop. In that same stretch it lost the grocery store at 8525 Chevy Chase Lake Terrace. The trail and the transit station meant to connect the Lake to Bethesda and Silver Spring are still behind construction fencing. This fall, the Lake is easier to visit for dinner than for errands, and that will hold until a grocer signs on and the Capital Crescent Trail reopens.
Where the evenings have filled in
Dok Khao arrived first. Bethesda Magazine reported its soft opening at 8551 Connecticut Avenue for July 31, 2025. The menu covers Thai street food, desserts, Asian drinks and homemade cake. The kitchen is open until 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, which makes it one of the later options at the Lake.
Ro Sushi Co. followed on October 16, 2025. It took over the café space that Elena James had used, and Elena James kept the main dining room. Ro Sushi takes reservations along with pickup and delivery orders. Elena James comes from the founders of Nina May in D.C. and serves seasonal, locally sourced food. Its hours are listed differently in different places. The Chevy Chase Lake directory shows dinner only, starting at 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, while the restaurant's own site describes breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's worth calling ahead for a weekday lunch.
Ice cream changed hands too. MoCo Show reported in July 2025 that The Charmery's Chevy Chase shop had closed the month before and that Sarah's Handmade Ice Cream would take the storefront. In January 2026, Bethesda Magazine said Sarah's was planning a soft opening in late February. The shop is now listed as open from noon to 9 p.m. every day.
Uncorked fills out the evening. It's a lounge and shop with a full bar, food to go, and wine, spirits and craft beer for sale. It stays open until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. All of this sits around a landscaped public plaza of about an acre, with water features, public art and community events. The public garage gives two hours of free parking, which is long enough for dinner and dessert.
What is open, what is coming, what is gone
| Business | Status this fall | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Dok Khao | Open | Soft-opened July 31, 2025 |
| Ro Sushi Co. | Open | Opened October 16, 2025 |
| Elena James | Open | Main dining room at 8551 Connecticut Ave. |
| Sarah's Handmade Ice Cream | Open | In the former Charmery storefront |
| Playa Bowls | Open | 8525 Chevy Chase Lake Terrace |
| Uncorked | Open | Bar, wine shop and food to go |
| Osteria Divina | Coming soon | No opening date announced |
| Femi Salon | Coming soon | Nail salon and day spa |
| Amazon Fresh | Closed | Shut down with Amazon's nationwide closures, early 2026 |
The next arrival will probably be Osteria Divina, which plans to serve fresh pasta, seafood, prime meats and a curated wine list. MoCo Show reported in late December 2025 that no opening timeline had been announced. In January 2026, the Chevy Chase Land Company said the restaurant would join the Lake "soon." No firmer date has appeared since then, and the directory still lists it as coming soon.
The errand that disappeared in February
On January 27, 2026, Bethesda Magazine reported that all four Amazon Fresh stores in Montgomery County would close that Sunday. The list included both Chevy Chase locations, at 5463 Wisconsin Avenue and 8525 Chevy Chase Lake Terrace. Amazon said it was shifting to grocery delivery and expanding Whole Foods Market. That Sunday was February 1.
As of late September, the current tenant directory lists no grocer for the space. As recently as March 2025, Bozzuto had reported that 97% of the retail space was leased. The grocery space is now the largest open question in a development that otherwise filled up quickly.
The day-to-day services that remain are mostly the kind you visit on a schedule. CVS is open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 3820 Chaplin Place, and Truist Bank has a branch at 8551 Connecticut Avenue. RTR Pilates opens at 6 a.m. on weekdays, and StretchLab offers one-on-one assisted stretching at 8525 Chevy Chase Lake Terrace. Molly's Dog Care was still under construction in Bozzuto's March 2025 update. It is now open in Suite 302, offering grooming, daycare and boarding.
Across Connecticut Avenue, the older Lake
On the west side of the avenue, the original Lake still covers early mornings. Einstein Bros. Bagels at 8542 Connecticut Avenue is open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. The North Chevy Chase Starbucks shares that address. Manoli Canoli is next door at 8540 Connecticut Avenue, and a local food blogger wrote about a visit there in April 2026. Lake Liberty Chevy Chase runs the service station and repair shop at 8550 Connecticut Avenue.
The 8550 parcel is also where the next phase of Chevy Chase Lake is planned. It has preliminary-plan approval for 220 apartments and townhouses. The 2023 plan called for up to 19,000 square feet of retail and commercial space and about 5,200 square feet of public open space. No construction start date or delivery schedule has been published, so for now the west side looks the way it has for years.
The trail that would tie it together
The Capital Crescent Trail is what would make the Lake a stop on a walk or ride rather than a place you drive to. The paved trail from Georgetown to Bethesda is complete. The former Georgetown Branch segment east of Bethesda, which runs past Elm Street Park, Columbia Country Club and the Connecticut Avenue crossing, has been closed since September 2017. The Purple Line project's closure listing for that segment now runs through December 2026. The project says crews are working on the trail between Elm Street Park and Rock Creek Park through fall 2026.
The new trail will be 12 feet wide and paved, running beside the rail line from Bethesda to downtown Silver Spring, with grade separation almost the whole way. It is designed to bridge Connecticut Avenue and Colesville Road and to pass under Jones Mill Road, 16th Street and Spring Street. Once it opens, walking or cycling from Chevy Chase Lake to Bethesda will no longer mean waiting at the light on Connecticut Avenue.
The reopening date depends on which agency you ask:
- Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail: a tentative reopening in fall 2026.
- Purple Line project closure listing: the segment stays closed through December 2026.
- Montgomery County FY27 capital budget page: main-trail construction finishes in spring 2027.
- Purple Line FAQ: construction is expected to finish in 2026, the trail will open when it is safe and feasible, and public use is prohibited until then.
Finishing construction and opening the trail to the public are separate steps, and nobody has set a date for the second. Farther east, the Purple Line NOW newsletter of September 23, 2026 said the trail from the Talbot Street bridge toward the Silver Spring Metro connection was "still very much a construction zone."
The signed detour is still the way through. From Bethesda, it follows these streets:
- Woodmont, Montgomery, Pearl and Maryland avenues out of downtown Bethesda
- Jones Bridge Road to Connecticut Avenue
- Jones Mill Road and Susanna Lane into Rock Creek Park
- Freyman Drive, Terrace and Grubb roads to Rosemary Hills Park
- Stewart Avenue and Second Avenue toward Silver Spring
On the Bethesda end, the old trail tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue is now taken up by the Purple Line terminus. A temporary pedestrian route uses the crossings at Elm Street and Waverly Street and then follows Hampden Lane and Woodmont Avenue back to Elm Street. The county is planning a separate tunnel of about 1,000 feet from 7272 Wisconsin Avenue to the Elm Street Park surface trail, but its project page gives no schedule.
The trains are further off. The Maryland Transit Administration reported on September 3, 2026 that Purple Line construction was 92% complete and that test runs had covered more than half of the 16-mile line. The project lists passenger service for winter 2027. Work continues at the Connecticut Avenue station, including utility installations and retaining walls. In May 2024, the state changed its plan so the trail would open more than a year before rail service, instead of at the same time. If that holds, the trail will reach the Lake well before the trains do.
If you're tracking how the Lake, the trail and the Connecticut Avenue station are changing life in Chevy Chase, The NTB Group follows these openings and timelines closely. We would be glad to share what we're seeing in a private consultation.
