For years, if you wanted to eat in Kensington on a weekend, you walked Howard Avenue. Antique Row, the Saturday market at the old train station, a slice at Frankly Pizza, dinner at K Town Bistro. That was the map.
Spring 2026 quietly redrew it. Two openings on Connecticut Avenue and one on Kensington Parkway pulled the center of gravity a few blocks west, and the Saturday routine you have been running since the kids were small now has a Tuesday-through-Friday counterpart that did not exist last summer.
The Crossroads is finally acting like an anchor
The Crossroads at Kensington sits at Connecticut Avenue and Plyers Mill Road. For a long stretch it was a grocery-anchored strip with a lot of quiet frontage. That is over.
Marathon Deli held its grand opening on Friday, May 8 at 10619 Connecticut Avenue in the Crossroads at Kensington shopping center, marking a major milestone for the family-run business as it opens its only current location outside of College Park. If you have driven a student to move-in day on Route 1, you know what that means. The Terp crowd drove to College Park for gyros and Marathon-sauce fries. Now Kensington gets them at home.
The pedigree matters here because the concept is not a spin-off. Founded in 1972, Marathon Deli has built a loyal following over more than five decades, becoming a go-to spot for University of Maryland students and locals alike, with a menu of Greek specialties like gyros, souvlaki, spanakopita, and baklava, along with subs, pizzas, and its well-known fries topped with the signature Marathon sauce. Fifty-four years of one restaurant, one location. Then Kensington.
Right next door, a second Mediterranean concept is fitting out. Mezeh Mediterranean Grill has been setting up shop at 10619 Connecticut Avenue, taking a dedicated 2,350 square feet next to a Buffalo Wild Wings Go and across from Marathon Deli. The storefront is listed as opening soon on the company website and appears to be actively hiring, a positive indicator for locals excited to try the eatery's fare; Mezeh has been feeding customers since its inception in 2012 in Annapolis.
Two Mediterranean spots on the same block sounds like a mismatch until you eat at either. Marathon is sit-down Greek with a griddle. Mezeh is build-your-bowl fast casual. They are not fighting for the same lunch.
Why a College Park institution picks Kensington
The move is worth pausing on. A restaurant that has said no to expansion for five decades does not pick a location by throwing a dart. Two things stand out.
The expansion into Kensington has been in the works for some time; the plans were first reported in June 2023, when Marathon Deli initially signed on to join the Crossroads at Kensington at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and Plyers Mill Road. A three-year runway from lease to open tells you the operator was picking real estate, not a market. Connecticut Avenue traffic north of the Beltway is a captive lunch audience.
The second thing is the neighbor list. A Buffalo Wild Wings Go next door, Mezeh across the aisle, and a grocery anchor at the back. This is the mix that stabilizes a strip: one destination, two grab-and-go concepts, one need-based tenant. If you have watched the churn at other Montgomery County centers, you know how rare that is.
If Marathon Deli is willing to leave College Park for the first time in fifty-four years to be here, it is a signal about where the weekday lunch crowd is going, not just where the parking is easy.
Breads Unlimited fills the weekday gap Kensington actually had
The Crossroads news pulled headlines. The more useful opening for people who live here happened on Kensington Parkway.
Breads Unlimited and Pizza opened its new location at 10303 Kensington Parkway on Saturday, April 11, next to Dish & Dram, in the former home of The Growing Years Consignment Shop, combining elements of its Bethesda bakery with an expanded menu that includes breakfast and lunch sandwiches made with fresh bread, along with pizza. If you drove past that space for the last decade, you knew it as the consignment shop. Now it is bread and pies.
The backstory is worth a sentence. Breads Unlimited was originally founded in 1981 by Steven Raab and is now owned by former long-time employee Jose Roberto Molina, with the flagship at 6914 Arlington Road in Bethesda offering rye, sourdough, challah, pumpernickel, bagels, pretzels, kaiser rolls, cookies, scones, brownies, cronuts, danishes, muffins, donuts, coffee cakes, pound cakes, and eclairs.
Here is the "so what." Kensington has had strong weekend food for years. Weekday breakfast that is not a drive-through, and a real bakery counter for a challah on a Friday afternoon, was not on the map. It is now, a block off Connecticut and next door to Dish & Dram, which means you can pick up bread at 8 a.m. and cocktails at 8 p.m. from the same parking spot.
Saturday still belongs to Howard Avenue
None of this dislodges the old center of gravity. It complements it.
The Kensington Farmers' Market runs every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Historic Train Station at 3701 Howard Avenue, with more than 20 vendors offering fresh produce, prepared foods, cheeses, seafood and meats, flowers and more. That is the same market that has anchored the neighborhood's Saturday morning since before any of the Crossroads announcements. Nothing about the spring openings changes it.
What has changed is the second stop. A Saturday used to run: market, coffee, walk Antique Row, home. Now it can run: market, walk Antique Row, cross to the Crossroads for lunch at Marathon, home with bread from Breads Unlimited. Same neighborhood, two hours longer.
Antique Row itself is still doing what it has always done. Kensington Antique Row is a collection of dozens of small, one-of-a-kind, owner-operated shops on Howard Avenue, Armory Avenue, and Fawcett Street, with free parking. If you have out-of-town guests in July, the sequence writes itself.
A Kensington summer Saturday, drawn on the new map
If it helps to sketch the day:
- 8:45 a.m. Park at the Historic Train Station. Farmers' Market opens at 9.
- 10:00 a.m. Coffee, then walk east on Howard through Antique Row. If your guests are the kind who like Frankly Pizza dough or K Town Bistro's Sunday hours, note them for later.
- 11:30 a.m. Drive or walk over to the Crossroads at Kensington. Marathon Deli for a proper sit-down Greek lunch, or Mezeh once it opens for a faster bowl.
- 1:30 p.m. Stop at Breads Unlimited on Kensington Parkway on the way home. A loaf of sourdough and a couple of cronuts for the next morning.
- Evening. Back to Kensington Parkway if you did not get enough of Dish & Dram the last time.
The point is not the itinerary. It is that the itinerary now has three stops in Kensington that did not exist eighteen months ago, and none of them replace anything you already loved.
What to actually watch this summer
Two things worth tracking if you live here.
The first is whether the Marathon Deli location holds the College Park lunch energy. A five-decade operator does not casually open a second store, and the tell will be the weekday 12:30 crowd. If Connecticut Avenue is backed up trying to left-turn into the Crossroads by August, the answer is yes.
The second is Mezeh's opening date. As of this writing, the storefront is behind paper and the company has not published a firm date. If it opens before Labor Day, the Crossroads will have three fast-casual concepts next to a grocery anchor, and the block starts to feel like a real destination rather than a drive-past. If it slips to fall, the summer belongs to Marathon.
Either way, the neighborhood you moved into and the neighborhood you live in this July are different neighborhoods, and the difference is small enough that you can see it in a single Saturday.
If the shifting map has you thinking about what your Kensington block is worth in a market where new anchors are still landing, The Foley Group of Go Brent Realty knows the streets between Howard and Connecticut better than most. Get your free home valuation and we will talk through what the spring openings and the ones still coming mean for your specific address.
