Jerry Hollinger sat at an outdoor table overlooking the patio of The Daily Dish, reminiscing about the years since his neighborhood bistro and bar opened in Rock Creek Shopping Center on Grubb Road in 2009.
“It means a lot,” he said recently. “Fifteen years dates me a little bit.”
The neighborhood bistro, which features locally sourced ingredients from farms in Maryland and Pennsylvania, is celebrating its 15th anniversary throughout June.
“It’s definitely a good feeling to be part of this community,” said Hollinger, 56, the founding chef and owner of The Daily Dish. “When we started, it was right around the time the economy wasn’t doing well–2009, 2008, a challenging time to open a restaurant–-and it took some time to get established in the community.”
The Daily Dish at 8301 Grubb Road, a stone’s throw from the Chevy Chase line, is one of three restaurants that Hollinger owns in the county—and the first that he opened.
Hollinger also owns The Dish & Dram gastropub in Kensington that he opened in 2016, and the more upscale J. Hollinger’s Waterman’s Chophouse in downtown Silver Spring, which launched in 2022.
The Daily Dish “has maybe had a little more stability because we’ve been around longer and had more time to define what we do here,” Hollinger said.
He said he knew he wanted to open a restaurant prior to establishing The Daily Dish, but he didn’t necessarily have a concrete plan. Rather, he was guided by experience.
“I don’t know that I had a super-focused vision,” he said. “I had done a lot of catering and started out as a private chef in the Dupont Circle area with [lobbying firm] the Sheridan Group doing … dinner parties [and] I worked in a French restaurant called Jean-Michel in Bethesda for a while.” Jean-Michel on Old Georgetown Road closed in 2011.
The Daily Dish underwent renovations in mid-May, including new artwork on its walls, the restoration of its bar, new banquettes along the back wall of the eatery, and an innovative reworking of the premises’ long-standing structure, according to Hollinger.
“We have this garage door that was part of the original renovations that [prior tenant] Red Dog Cafe did,” Hollinger said. “The garage door opens up and then it’s a contiguous space that goes into the patio area, so it feels like one large … interactive space.”
The existing garage door was part of a gas station garage that once occupied the current restaurant space years ago, Hollinger added. The Daily Dish’s renovations also included an interior redesign, a new bar top, and new floors and some furnishings. Open seating and an open floor plan also allow for a better flow and customer comfort, according to Hollinger.
The updated space seats 68 indoors, including 12 seats at the full bar and eight at a new floating bar, which is a freestanding bar top in the middle of the dining room that is available for reservation except during happy hour. Another 34 seats are available on the outdoor patio, according to a restaurant press release.
The restaurant kicked off its anniversary celebration June 3, with an all-night happy hour and $1 oysters. A new special is expected to be released each week in the month of June; for the week of June 10, the special includes half-priced mimosa and bloody mary boards, as well as a brunch menu served at lunch all week, and an all-night happy hour available only at the bar, the floating bar, and the outdoor patio.
Hollinger said the inspiration for The Daily Dish dates back to the 1960s, when he was growing up amid his family’s passion for selling fresh, local produce at its farm market in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.
Hollinger still seeks to honor his roots–noting he was well-versed in customer service by the age of 12.
“I always like to say my mom was doing Whole Foods before Whole Foods existed,” he said. “One of the reasons I named the [other] Silver Spring restaurant J. Hollinger’s is my parents had a farm market called Hollinger’s Farm Market in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, that they started as a roadside stand and evolved into a full-service, full-fledged grocery store.”
Hollinger said he is proud of his daughter, Geneviève Fleming-Hollinger, 28, for taking on the role of the restaurant’s general manager at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had significant growth pre-COVID,” he said. “We were able to weather COVID–-we did a lot of pivoting during that period-–family meals, lots of different carryout things … outdoor seating.”
Hollinger’s son, Warren, 25, is named after Hollinger’s father and worked as a server and bartender in the past before landing a job at the U.S. State Department. Hollinger said he enjoyed having both of his children present in and around the restaurant in various capacities.
As The Daily Dish anniversary celebration continues, the restaurant is offering jazz on the second and fourth Sunday of each month through the summer and fall. The next performance on June 23 will feature jazz pianist Dwayne Adell. New menu options are also available.
“We’re a neighborhood spot. We take pride in providing really good service and interesting food–from appetizers to entrées,” Hollinger said.
