Bethesda vs Kensington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're going to have to move to Maryland (from Northern Va) in the coming year, so I'm reading this with interest. Most posters have referenced proximity to places like Costco/Target as the benefits (which they are!), but what about local restaurants? What I love about where we are now is how easy it is to get anything from pupusas to Yemeni food to biryani, Taco Bamba, Korean chicken, etc. What's the local (not "fancy") restaurant and grocery situation in Kensington? Thanks.

Wheaton, which is a 3-5 minute drive, has all the international options you could want. Silver Spring is close by as well and has a lot of good options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're going to have to move to Maryland (from Northern Va) in the coming year, so I'm reading this with interest. Most posters have referenced proximity to places like Costco/Target as the benefits (which they are!), but what about local restaurants? What I love about where we are now is how easy it is to get anything from pupusas to Yemeni food to biryani, Taco Bamba, Korean chicken, etc. What's the local (not "fancy") restaurant and grocery situation in Kensington? Thanks.

Wheaton, which is a 3-5 minute drive, has all the international options you could want. Silver Spring is close by as well and has a lot of good options.

Also re: groceries, there's a Safeway in Kensington, a Giant in Wheaton, a Korean Korner off Viers Mill and Randolph, Aldi on Georgia Ave in Silver Spring, Whole Foods in Rockville, and Wegmans coming to Rockville next year.

Kensington is centrally located to Wheaton, Downtown Silver Spring, Downtown Bethesda, and Rockville Pike, so anything you want you can find within a 15 min drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're going to have to move to Maryland (from Northern Va) in the coming year, so I'm reading this with interest. Most posters have referenced proximity to places like Costco/Target as the benefits (which they are!), but what about local restaurants? What I love about where we are now is how easy it is to get anything from pupusas to Yemeni food to biryani, Taco Bamba, Korean chicken, etc. What's the local (not "fancy") restaurant and grocery situation in Kensington? Thanks.

Wheaton, which is a 3-5 minute drive, has all the international options you could want. Silver Spring is close by as well and has a lot of good options.

I'm one of the PPs who lives a stone's throw from Kensington. I find the non-American options far better here than in Bethesda. Ruan Thai (and Nava Thai, and Thai Taste) are all amazing, Moby Dick Sushi is great, Ren's Ramen, Samantha's, all the Ethiopian restaurants in DTSS, Bombay Gaylord, etc. We don't have the upscale restaurants of Bethesda, but there are decent options for those in DTSS, and honestly, Bethesda is so close from Kensington if you really want them. But I feel spoiled by the great food options here.

I'm not a huge fan of Safeways in general, so usually go to the Giant at Wheaton mall if I need something I can't get at Costco or through our regular produce delivery. But those are both close, easy options. Oh, and there's also JennyCakes, which is a terrific local bakery. Amazing cakes and other baked goods. Frankly Pizza is good. Pacci's... I could go on

[Anonymous]

^^and also Snider's, which is a great local grocery store maybe 5' from Kensington in Silver Spring. They have beer and wine, and there's also a MoCo liquor store in Kensington near the CVS on University Blvd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^and also Snider's, which is a great local grocery store maybe 5' from Kensington in Silver Spring. They have beer and wine, and there's also a MoCo liquor store in Kensington near the CVS on University Blvd.

Yup. There's also a liquor store in the mall next to Costco, and a liquor store in the same shopping plaza as Aldi, next to Sniders by Forest Glen metro. The liquor store on University next to CVS is ridiculously overpriced!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^and also Snider's, which is a great local grocery store maybe 5' from Kensington in Silver Spring. They have beer and wine, and there's also a MoCo liquor store in Kensington near the CVS on University Blvd.

Yup. There's also a liquor store in the mall next to Costco, and a liquor store in the same shopping plaza as Aldi, next to Sniders by Forest Glen metro. The liquor store on University next to CVS is ridiculously overpriced!

Don’t all the County liquor stores have the same prices?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^and also Snider's, which is a great local grocery store maybe 5' from Kensington in Silver Spring. They have beer and wine, and there's also a MoCo liquor store in Kensington near the CVS on University Blvd.

Yup. There's also a liquor store in the mall next to Costco, and a liquor store in the same shopping plaza as Aldi, next to Sniders by Forest Glen metro. The liquor store on University next to CVS is ridiculously overpriced!

Do you mean the little one in the pizza store? Yes, that one is expensive, but they have a great cold beer selection. I meant the MoCo liquor store, which I find very reasonably priced. The one near Costco is way expensive. Snider's is sort of mid-range, but pricier than the County liquor store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kP neighborhood abuts the Wyngate neighborhood in Bethesda and I think the feel is very similar in terms of community, people, etc. Each has very similar commutes with slightly different pros and cons as far as getting one place or another (Bethesda closer to Westfield mall; kp closer to Wheaton mall; Bethesda has slightly more bus routes to metro, but KP is closer to grosvenor station and Connecticut ave., etc,)

Agree. In general, many of the posts on this thread don't seem to realize that both Bethesda and Kensington are made up of several very different neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kP neighborhood abuts the Wyngate neighborhood in Bethesda and I think the feel is very similar in terms of community, people, etc. Each has very similar commutes with slightly different pros and cons as far as getting one place or another (Bethesda closer to Westfield mall; kp closer to Wheaton mall; Bethesda has slightly more bus routes to metro, but KP is closer to grosvenor station and Connecticut ave., etc,)

Agree. In general, many of the posts on this thread don't seem to realize that both Bethesda and Kensington are made up of several very different neighborhoods.

+1; just pick the house you like, especially if you're looking in Bethesda in the neighborhoods that are not walkable to the Bethesda metro.

This question wasn't asked, but if you're looking between Silver Spring and Kensington, I'd recommend the Kensington area.

[Anonymous]

Here is a retrospect view - I lived in Bethesda and raised my kids there, but my mom moved to an assisted living in Kensington and I visit her often, I have really come to appreciate the area, the homes are nice with good sized yards, 30 years ago I never even considered living there but looking back Kensington would have been a nice place to raise a family. Of course the shopping is much better now too,but if you are commuting from DC the traffic is a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Unless you're living in downtown Bethesda, and the $1.5M+ price tag that comes with owning a SFH there, Kensington is more walkable than anywhere else in Bethesda. DH and I chose Kensington over an area zoned for Whitman specifically because of of the walkability. If you live in the Town of Kensington you can walk to a grocery store, several restaurants, the post office, the bank, a lot of charming antique and speciality stores, a MARC station and several gorgeous parks. The good thing about Kensington is that it has room to grow and there is already momentum to change a lot of these charming - but underused - storefronts to businesses that cater to a younger crowd. PPs mentioned Jenny Cakes and Frankly Pizza, which are examples of this, and there is currently a wine bar / beer garden opening across Connecticut next to the new hardware store. I don't see any reason why development would slow down, especially because all the high-end development that's coming in close by along the Purple Line in Chevy Chase, Bethesda and in Rosemary Hills is inevitably going to increase prices even more in these locations and push people who can't afford $1.5M+ homes a little further up to places like Kensington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kP neighborhood abuts the Wyngate neighborhood in Bethesda and I think the feel is very similar in terms of community, people, etc. Each has very similar commutes with slightly different pros and cons as far as getting one place or another (Bethesda closer to Westfield mall; kp closer to Wheaton mall; Bethesda has slightly more bus routes to metro, but KP is closer to grosvenor station and Connecticut ave., etc,)

Agree. In general, many of the posts on this thread don't seem to realize that both Bethesda and Kensington are made up of several very different neighborhoods.

+1; just pick the house you like, especially if you're looking in Bethesda in the neighborhoods that are not walkable to the Bethesda metro.

This question wasn't asked, but if you're looking between Silver Spring and Kensington, I'd recommend the Kensington area.

I'm the PP you're responding to, and that's not exactly what I meant. I think finding the right neighborhood is really important -- maybe much more important than finding the right house. You can remodel a house, but you can't do much to change your neighborhood. My point was more than you can't just assume that all of Bethesda or all of Kensington is monolithic. Each of these areas has distinct neighborhoods. For example, living within walking distance of Old Kensington would have a very different feel from living in KP. Similarly, living in Wyngate is very different from living in the Burning Tree area of Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kP neighborhood abuts the Wyngate neighborhood in Bethesda and I think the feel is very similar in terms of community, people, etc. Each has very similar commutes with slightly different pros and cons as far as getting one place or another (Bethesda closer to Westfield mall; kp closer to Wheaton mall; Bethesda has slightly more bus routes to metro, but KP is closer to grosvenor station and Connecticut ave., etc,)

Agree. In general, many of the posts on this thread don't seem to realize that both Bethesda and Kensington are made up of several very different neighborhoods.

+1; just pick the house you like, especially if you're looking in Bethesda in the neighborhoods that are not walkable to the Bethesda metro.

This question wasn't asked, but if you're looking between Silver Spring and Kensington, I'd recommend the Kensington area.

I'm the PP you're responding to, and that's not exactly what I meant. I think finding the right neighborhood is really important -- maybe much more important than finding the right house. You can remodel a house, but you can't do much to change your neighborhood. My point was more than you can't just assume that all of Bethesda or all of Kensington is monolithic. Each of these areas has distinct neighborhoods. For example, living within walking distance of Old Kensington would have a very different feel from living in KP. Similarly, living in Wyngate is very different from living in the Burning Tree area of Bethesda.

I'd argue that the thing that's most different about those neighborhoods is the architecture/ type of house you can buy for your budget. The neighborhoods are all quite nice and more or less the same amount of "walkability" (except for the area in TOK on the east side of Connecticut, which is very walkable)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kP neighborhood abuts the Wyngate neighborhood in Bethesda and I think the feel is very similar in terms of community, people, etc. Each has very similar commutes with slightly different pros and cons as far as getting one place or another (Bethesda closer to Westfield mall; kp closer to Wheaton mall; Bethesda has slightly more bus routes to metro, but KP is closer to grosvenor station and Connecticut ave., etc,)

Agree. In general, many of the posts on this thread don't seem to realize that both Bethesda and Kensington are made up of several very different neighborhoods.

+1; just pick the house you like, especially if you're looking in Bethesda in the neighborhoods that are not walkable to the Bethesda metro.

This question wasn't asked, but if you're looking between Silver Spring and Kensington, I'd recommend the Kensington area.

I'm the PP you're responding to, and that's not exactly what I meant. I think finding the right neighborhood is really important -- maybe much more important than finding the right house. You can remodel a house, but you can't do much to change your neighborhood. My point was more than you can't just assume that all of Bethesda or all of Kensington is monolithic. Each of these areas has distinct neighborhoods. For example, living within walking distance of Old Kensington would have a very different feel from living in KP. Similarly, living in Wyngate is very different from living in the Burning Tree area of Bethesda.

I'd argue that the thing that's most different about those neighborhoods is the architecture/ type of house you can buy for your budget. The neighborhoods are all quite nice and more or less the same amount of "walkability" (except for the area in TOK on the east side of Connecticut, which is very walkable)

Well, exactly -- I was contrasting TOK/East Side (Old Kensington) with KP in terms of walkability, though I would agree that architecture and aesthetics are also different.

Wyngate and Burning Tree are similar to KP and also to each other in terms of walkability (pretty much zero), but different in many other ways. Obviously, your buy-in cost will be much greater in BT, but that has an impact on demographics and neighborhood vibe. In Wyngate and KP, houses are much closer together, you get more folks who work for NIH as well as other fed gov employeess and not-for-profits, most kids go to public school K-12 with a smattering attending Catholic schools and even fewer going to secular private schools.