Where do you wait out the hours before a 10 a.m. parade when the curb on Georgia Avenue is the only spot open?
That question has a new answer for Saturday, Nov. 21. The Montgomery County Thanksgiving Parade steps off at 10 a.m. from Ellsworth Drive and Fenton Street, the same corner where the grandstand performances happen. A few steps away, Commas Food Hall at Ellsworth Place has started serving breakfast, with a coffee counter that opens at 8 a.m. every day. Parade morning now begins two hours before the floats, with a warm room at the start line.
The parade is nine days away. Here is how the morning fits together, starting well before sunrise.
The parade starts at 10, but downtown starts closing at 2 a.m.
The official Downtown Silver Spring parade page and the county's Nov. 2 announcement lay out a schedule that runs much longer than the three hours of marching:
- 2 a.m. The Ellsworth Town Center public garage closes.
- 6 a.m. Both directions of Georgia Avenue close between East-West Highway and Colesville Road, and traffic detours to East-West Highway. Side streets close at the same hour, including Cedar Avenue from Colesville Road to Wayne Avenue, Fenton Street from Cameron Street to Wayne Avenue, and Wayne, Bonifant, Thayer and Silver Spring avenues between Georgia and Fenton. Ellsworth Drive closes from Georgia to Cedar, along with Pershing Drive, Veterans Place and Roeder Road.
- 7:30 a.m. Volunteers check in at the Silver Spring Civic Building, One Veterans Place, for a shift that runs until 1:30 p.m.
- 8 a.m. The Wayne Avenue garage closes. Kellem Coffee opens inside Commas.
- 10 a.m. County Executive Marc Elrich and the County Council cut the ribbon, and the parade heads south on Georgia Avenue toward Silver Spring Avenue.
- About 1 p.m. Roads reopen.
- By 2 p.m. The two closed garages reopen.
One detail matters if you plan from the downtown page. Its FAQ section still lists the closures for "Saturday, November 22," which is last year's date. The county release and the top of that same page both say Saturday, Nov. 21.
Laid out this way, you can see where the gap sits. The streets are closed by 6, the volunteers arrive at 7:30, and nothing marches until 10. If you want a curb spot near the grandstand, those early hours are part of your day.
The new tenant for the early hours
Commas Food Hall marked its first anniversary with a grand reopening on Sept. 26 that brought back Tokoa Cheesesteaks and Tato's. Bethesda Magazine covered the reopening at the time. The bigger shift came later. The MoCo Show reported on Nov. 3 that the new vendors are the food hall's "first step into the breakfast space," taking Commas past its lunch, dinner and event hours.
Kellem Coffee is an Ethiopian cafe. It brews its coffee in a jebena, a traditional clay pot, using beans from Ethiopia's highlands, and the morning menu includes chechebsa, a spiced flatbread dish, plus ful, the seasoned fava bean breakfast staple, and samosas. Tea, hot chocolate and pastries round it out. On Saturdays Kellem is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hot chocolate at 8 is a good fit for a family about to spend two hours outside in late November.
Nips Juice House is next in line for a morning counter. Chris and Chiara Donovan ran it for five years in The Cameron apartment building and closed that shop in August. In its Nov. 3 piece, The MoCo Show said the Commas location was set to follow Kellem "in the next few weeks," bringing the cold-pressed juices, smoothies, acai and pitaya bowls with an 8 a.m. opening every day.
The parade's main corner and the food hall's new breakfast hours now line up. Before this fall, an 8 a.m. arrival near Ellsworth and Fenton meant standing on the sidewalk with whatever you brought from home. This year one adult can hold the curb while another goes for coffee and chechebsa, and the swap can repeat until the bands arrive.
What fills Georgia Avenue after 10
The lineup runs in seasonal order. It opens with autumn harvest and Thanksgiving units, then moves into winter holiday displays with giant inflatable turkeys, floats, Hanukkah characters, reindeer, elves, and Santa Claus at the end. ABC7's Brian van de Graaff and Roxanne Strouk are the emcees. Van de Graaff has hosted for more than a decade.
The marching bands bring the strongest local connection. The county lists five, each with its own show:
- James Hubert Blake High School Roaring Bengals, playing Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" from their Kings of Pop halftime show
- Springbrook High School Blue Flames, with selections from Love Is More Powerful Than Hate, including "Off the Wall," "Beat It," "I'm Still Standing" and Bad Bunny's "Baile Inolvidable"
- Northwood High School Gladiators, performing their Lost in the 80s show with music by Michael Jackson, Kate Bush and The Clash
- The Spirit of Clarksburg Marching Band, fresh from a trip to Beijing
- John F. Kennedy High School Marching Cavaliers, joined by the school's pom squad and color guard
In the county's announcement, Elrich focused on the students:
"These students work hard all year, putting in countless hours of practice to perfect their music and routines."
Akhmedova Ballet and Maryland Youth Ballet will perform Nutcracker pieces, and cultural dance groups appear throughout. Featured performances happen near the grandstand at Ellsworth and Fenton, which is one more reason the start-line corner fills first.
The parade goes on rain or shine. If weather turns dangerous, an announcement from the stage will direct people into the nearby parking garages. Restrooms are portable units on Veterans Place, behind the Civic Building.
Getting there with two garages closed
The two closed garages are the ones nearest the start line, so a breakfast plan at Commas also shapes how you arrive. Free parking is available in the Sligo Avenue, Cameron Street and Bonifant Street garages, the last one next to Metro. The county and the downtown page both point people to the Red Line's Silver Spring station.
If you live within walking distance, the closure map is mostly an issue for your car. Remember that Fenton Street is closed from Cameron Street to Wayne Avenue and Georgia Avenue is closed from East-West Highway to Colesville Road. Anything you'd usually drive across downtown on a Saturday morning should wait until after 1 p.m. or take the East-West Highway detour.
The afternoon, after the streets reopen
Once Santa passes and Georgia Avenue clears, lunch is the next stop. Commas' afternoon counters, including Tokoa Cheesesteaks and Tato's loaded baked potatoes and fries, are right where the morning began.
For a sit-down meal, Momiji Sushi & Izakaya began its soft opening in late October at 1201 Fidler Lane, the former Cubano's space, according to Source of the Spring. The Japanese restaurant serves sushi, ramen and donburi, and its reported Saturday hours run 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. A warm bowl of ramen sounds about right after a morning on the curb. If you'd rather head south, our guide to Bottleworks Lane Park covers downtown's newer open space, and our summer dining map tracks the restaurant corridor the parade passes.
The next date on the downtown holiday calendar comes 15 days later at the same spot. The Silver Spring Christmas Market & Holiday Craft Show is set for Sunday, Dec. 6, from noon to 4 p.m. at Veterans Plaza, 1 Veterans Place, and Visit Montgomery lists it as free. It's a good excuse to try the Commas breakfast counters again on a day when Ellsworth Drive is open to traffic.
At The Foley Group of Go Brent Realty, we watch how mornings like this one reshape downtown Silver Spring, from which garages close first to which corners get a new coffee counter. If parade Saturday is one of the reasons your address matters to you and you're curious what that's worth now, start with a free home valuation, and we'll walk you through your street the way only neighbors can. You can learn more about the area on our Silver Spring neighborhood page.
