Miller's Ale House has closed at 1471 Rockville Pike. The restaurant and bar operated there for a decade. Miller's had a 4.1 out of 5 rating on Google and Facebook, a 3.5 on TripAdvisor and 3 stars on Yelp, so they weren't exactly run out of town. Its closure really is the end of an era, in a way.
When Miller's Ale House opened in 2012, it looked like a new age of nightlife might be upon us in Rockville. Bar Louie and American Tap Room had also just opened at Rockville Town Square. And there were old standbys like Gordon Biersch and Hooters. Look around in 2022, and every single one of those businesses is gone.
This may simply be Rockville's chapter in the larger book of Montgomery County nightlife being slammed shut over the last decade. The county had a good number of bars and nightclubs around 2010, and certainly was positioned to improve with the right policies at the county level. Just the opposite ended up happening.
It started with a major hike in the County energy tax, one that saw businesses like Target and Magruder's having to dim their lighting, posting apologetic signs explaining it was due to the energy tax. A series of other anti-business votes were taken by the Council in the ensuing years, over the objections of business owners.
Melvin Thompson of the Restaurant Association of Maryland warned councilmembers in 2016 that Montgomery County's restaurant sector had gone flat since 2012. In contrast, Thompson noted, Fairfax County's restaurant sector had grown by 6% in the previous year alone. Frederick County's had jumped 5.4% over the same period. The Council ignored Thompson, and passed more taxes (including a whopping 9% property tax increase), more regulations, and a $15 minimum wage.
At the same time, the Council also lashed out at food trucks. Part of the bubbling up of a potentially vibrant new era of nightlife was the new phenomenon of food trucks, which would park in legal parking spots in busy areas at lunchtime in Bethesda, Rockville and Silver Spring. Some would also park in nightlife areas later, to serve patrons emerging after bars closed for the night.
The Council banned such mobile food operations, limiting food trucks to private property. Trucks - the majority of which were based in Washington, D.C. - retreated over the Maryland border into the District. Office workers in Friendship Heights had a clear view of trucks still working the lunch hour just over the line in D.C. Montgomery County's food truck scene was gone, with the exception of those who were invited to cater private events, or to park on private property like gas stations.
Over the last decade, at least 21 nightspots closed in downtown Bethesda alone. Incredibly, all of those closures followed the Council's 2012 "Nighttime Economy Initiative." Hyped to the max by some local media outlets at the time, the initiative - along with the rest of the misguided Council actions of the last decade - ended up tanking the nighttime economy countywide. The demise of Miller's is only the latest example of that collapse.
