A Celebrity Baker Joins a Decade-Old Restaurant in Silver Spring | Eater DC

"A nautical-themed, 120-seat Silver Spring restaurant is undergoing a facelift ahead of its tenth anniversary (official date April 15) with an anniversary celebration on April 11 from 5 p.m. to close featuring $10 food and drink specials the entire weekend; the owners recently signed a lease for another 10 years and will close the dining room on April 7 to add booths. Co-owners Ed Reavis and Jen Meltzer have used the reboot to upgrade the menu: Reavis makes a seafood pizza using a 24-hour pre-fermented biga yeast starter (the dough uses two kinds of flour) topped with Maine lobster, crab, shrimp, caramelized leeks, seafood mornay, and Old Bay; a Mediterranean branzino entree is kept simple and fresh, prepared with citrus gremolata, olive oil, and garlic; and long-standing crab cakes were enlarged and finished with jumbo lump crab meat on top, moves that helped quadruple the item’s sales. The team also added a generous happy hour that runs Mondays through Saturdays from 3 p.m. until closing to better compete with area restaurants. Pastry consultant Kareem “Mr. Bake” Queeman — a 2023 James Beard Award semifinalist for outstanding pastry chef who has appeared on NBC’s Today show, the Cooking Channel’s Bake It ’Til You Make It, and Cooking with Como on FOX5, and whose 2018 sweet potato spice cake helped him win Bake It Like Buddy on the Discovery Family Channel — is consulting on a revamped pastry menu that ties into the restaurant’s New England–influenced cuisine; desserts already on the menu include Boston cream pie (a vanilla sponge cake with vanilla pastry cream and chocolate ganache), and the whoopie pie (two cake-like cookies with a creamy filling) which was unveiled on Pi Day before being added to the menu. “It fits right into line to the baking style that I do already, so it wasn’t hard for me to insert myself into the thread of the restaurant and what Ed and Jen and the rest of the team have already cultivated over the years,” says Queeman. On competitive pricing and happy hour Reavis notes, “My regulars would tell me, ‘Look, I love you, but I can get the same drink half price. Around the corner. So, what are you going to do about that?’ I just finally gave in,” Reavis says. Looking ahead he adds, “I kind of sense like a renaissance happening with us as far as we’re evolving to make sure we survive and not only survive, but thrive,” says Reavis." - Lenore Adkins