Home Care In Burtonsville, MD

For more than eight decades, a roadside restaurant in Burtonsville, Maryland, has been a popular destination for diners. On Sunday, that tradition will come to an end.

The current owner of Seibel’s Restaurant and UpTown Pub says the establishment was sold to the owners of another restaurant just down Columbia Pike, run by another family with strong ties to Burtonsville. It will reopen - with a new name and a new menu.

“It’s bittersweet, the people you’re definitely gonna miss,” owner Karen Leach said during their last Sunday brunch.

She took over Seibel’s after the death of her father, who took it over from the original owners back in the 70s.

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“[My] sister and I both went to college and said, ‘We’ll never work here and you can’t make us,’” Leach said. She thinks their father would be proud of how things worked out.

Customer Bruce McKay described Seibel’s as “a downhome kinda place” with a friendly environment. Homemade pies and ice cream are reminders of the restaurant’s past as a dairy, and of a time when old Columbia Pike was a one-lane road.

Tom Souder said he hadn’t been to the restaurant in 30 years, but just happened to come with his family on their last day.

“Me and my father, my uncles, everybody in our family was in construction work and we used to come in here every morning for breakfast,” Souder said.

For some, news of the closing was a shock.

“We were like, ‘What! How can you guys do that to us?’” customer Adeigh Bynum said.

Leach said it’s a matter of reflecting on sage words from her father: “Your ultimate challenge will be knowing when to walk away.” Especially in the last couple of years, the establishment has seen challenges including the pandemic, staffing and supply chain shortages.

Leach plans to close the doors for the last time with her employees.

“A lot of them have been with me 20, 25 years so they’ll stick it out with me and we’ll drink up the bar,” she said through laughs.

Cheers to 82 years, Seibel’s.

Early Voting

Early Voting for the Gubernatorial General Election will occur from October 27, 2022 to November 3, 2022 (including Saturday and Sunday) from 7am - 8pm. Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) Ride On bus service has several routes available to transport voters to the early voting centers. Learn more about bus service options (PDF).

To find an early voting location, you can text EV and your ZIP code to 77788.

Early Voting Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

For driving directions and bus routes from your address to the early voting sites, visit the Early Voting Centers Online Map from the Montgomery County's GIS Department.

Activity Center at Bohrer Park 506 South Frederick Ave Gaithersburg MD 20877

Activity Center at Bohrer Park Map and Directions

Bauer Drive Community Recreation Center Map and Directions

Damascus Community Recreation Center 25520 Oak Dr Damascus MD 20872

Damascus Community Recreation Center Map and Directions

Executive Office Building 101 Monroe St Rockville MD 20850

Executive Office Building Map and Drections

Germantown Community Recreation Center 18905 Kingsview Rd Germantown MD 20874

Germantown Community Recreation Center Map and Directions

Jane E. Lawton Community Recreation Center Map and Directions

Marilyn J. Praisner Community Recreation Center 14906 Old Columbia Pike Burtonsville MD 20866

Marilyn J. Praisner Community Recreation Center Map and Directions

Silver Spring Civic Building 1 Veterans Pl Silver Spring MD 20910 ADA entrance is between Ellsworth & Pershing. ​Call 240.777.8683 for more information about ADA issues. Silver Spring Civic Building Map and Directions

BURTONSVILLE, Md. (WJLA) — Residents contacted 7 On Your Side about a "messy" backyard along Golden Eagle Court in Burtonsville. ABC7's Kevin Lewis went to the neighborhood to see if the complaints are merited.

The two-story, red-brick home has at least five air conditioning units sitting in a secondary driveway. In the backyard, miscellaneous debris surrounds a large, manmade pond. The pond requires an extensive maze of white PVC pipes and tanks. Netting hangs over most of the backyard, its exact purpose is unclear.

“Do you feel that what these neighbors are saying is valid or are they off base?" ABC7's Kevin Lewis asked a woman who answered the front door and identified herself as the homeowners' adult daughter.

"Umm, it doesn’t really matter to me, honestly," the woman responded. "I mean, you can honestly go tell them if they have a problem, please come tell us, we’ll do something about it, but I don’t need a third party coming in between us."

“A lot of folks just don’t understand what the laws may be," said Dan McHugh, Montgomery County's Manager of Code Enforcement, a division that falls under the Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

In his role, McHugh oversees 30 residential inspectors, four supervisors, and multiple administrative staffers. His division receives around 9,200 complaints each year. The most common include excessive trash, abandoned vehicles, and overgrown grass. Unshovelved and icy sidewalks spike in the winter months for obvious reasons.

“We typically give a 30-day notice or a period of time to correct. Failure to comply with that would result in civil citations and [if that does not work] we get the legal process started," said McHugh, adding that abatement and contempt of court orders are his last-ditch efforts.

Property owners, however, correct approximately 95 percent of infractions without the county issuing a formal citation. McHugh refers to it as "voluntary compliance," and made clear it is a win-win scenario for all parties involved.

In the matter along Golden Eagle Court, McHugh confirmed his office is preparing to issue one warning letter to the owners of the red-brick home, and a separate warning letter to the homeowners association for miscellaneous trash in wooded, common areas. For example, 7 On Your Side spotted a rubber tire, large piece of foam and dozens of bottles, cans, and cups scattered about.

“It’s going to be for trash and debris, solid waste types of violations," McHugh remarked.

Although the homeowners' daughter stated her neighbors' complaints to Montgomery County and 7 On Your Side were petty, McHugh recommends residents avoid face-to-face interactions, and instead, call 311.

“[Montgomery County] 311 is the best way to move it forward. We don’t want any neighbor conflicts... So, if you report it to us, you can be kept anonymous, we just need the address where the issue is."

Edens has landed an anchor grocer tenant for a long-awaited revitalization of its Burtonsville Crossing retail center in eastern Montgomery County.

Sprouts Farmers Market plans to open a 23,000-square-foot store in the retail center by Old Columbia Pike and National Drive, filling a void created when Giant Food relocated to the Burtonsville Town Square Shopping Center a dozen years ago.

The lease for Sprouts, its first in suburban Maryland, is part of a growing local footprint for the Phoenix-based chain, which also plans to open in Manassas and has a third store in Herndon. More significantly for Edens, Sprouts should help draw other retailers to the roughly 130,000-square-foot property at 15791 Columbia Pike.

“Today marks a long-awaited phase for the property and an invitation for new retail partners to work with us,” David Germakian, managing director at Edens, said in a statement. “We are thankful for the support we have received so far and look forward to welcoming back the community once our renovations are complete.”

Revitalizing the center has been a major economic development aim for Montgomery County officials, and the county planning department kicked off a placemaking effort last June in collaboration with other partners. The 13-acre Burtonsville Crossing factored heavily into that effort. At the same time, the county rejected earlier pleas from the center's owner for assistance, taking the position it needed a new anchor tenant before it would consider offering financial incentives to aid the property.

Edens was in talks with a number of prospective anchors heading into the Covid-19 pandemic, which threw a big wrench into that effort, Germakian said in an interview. Sprouts emerged as a prospect during the public health crisis, and Edens viewed it as the ideal fit.

"They have a unique and elevated offering that, I think, will resonate with the community," he said. "We're a food-and-grocery-centric owner, operator and developer at our places, so finding the right grocery partner to kick things off was certainly an important milestone for us."

With Sprouts slated to open in the second half of next year, Edens plans a larger renovation of the center, to include improved building facades, expanded sidewalks with outdoor seating and dining, enhanced landscaping and a better traffic flow for pedestrians and vehicles. Those plans also call for a new plaza to be used for community events. Edens has indicated it envisions a Burtonsville remake similar to its Lidl-anchored Pinecrest Plaza in Northern Virginia, per The Moco Show.

“Sprouts provides a springboard for further revitalization and offers residents more diverse food options,” County Executive Marc Elrich said in a statement. Elrich said the county will work with Edens to come up with a plan that integrates adjacent county-owned land with the center.

The Maryland State Board of Education on Wednesday unanimously appointed Carey Wright, a former schools chief in Mississippi who began her career in Maryland, to serve as interim state superintendent while a national search is conducted to replace the departing Mohammed Choudhury.

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Wright is known in the education world as the Mississippi superintendent who raised student reading and math performance in a state that for decades had abysmal results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a standardized test sometimes called the “gold standard” of student assessment because it is seen as the most consistent nationally representative measure of U.S. student achievement since the 1990s. She retired from the post in June 2022 and now lives in Baltimore County, according to an interview she gave to Maryland Matters.

“We’ve got a grand opportunity here to ensure strong, equitable outcomes for all of our students,” Wright said after the state board vote. “And I just want you to know I intend to take advantage of that opportunity.”

The decision comes at a critical time for Maryland as it begins a historic $3.8 billion program to transform the state’s public education system — a job Choudhury was hired to do. But he lost support on the 14-member governing board for a second term as superintendent. Board leaders announced last week that he would leave his post by Oct. 6 but would keep his $325,000-plus salary until next June while serving as a senior policy adviser to the panel. He also will be allowed to consult for outside entities with board permission.

Maryland schools superintendent will keep his salary after leaving post

Choudhury withdrew from consideration for a second term last month after a problem-plagued two-year tenure in which he was accused of creating a toxic work environment, driving away veteran staffers and micromanaging the department. Choudhury had not been a district or a state superintendent before being hired in Maryland, and board members now want to bring in someone with deep leadership experience, one of the people with knowledge of the decision said ahead of the vote. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the decision.

In Maryland, the State Board of Education hires the superintendent, and the governor appoints members to that board. Gov. Wes Moore (D) has appointed six so far. Moore said in a statement Wednesday that he is confident Wright would be “a dedicated leader committed to transparency, accountability, and partnership.”

Maryland schools chief criticized for ‘toxic’ work style, management

Wright started her career as a teacher in Prince George’s County Public Schools, Maryland’s second-largest district. She also spent more than two decades in Howard County Public Schools as a teacher, principal and director of special education and student services, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She later was hired as the associate superintendent for the Office of Special Education and Student Services for Montgomery County Public Schools, but she then left the Maryland school district to work as the chief academic officer and deputy chief for the D.C. Public Schools’ Office of Teaching and Learning. In 2013, she was named as Mississippi’s state superintendent of education.

Wright will earn a salary of $350,000 and is scheduled to start by Oct. 23. Her term will conclude June 30, 2024.