The Fairfax Times reports that Chevy Chase Bank will be closing all 54 of its D.C.-area branches that are located inside Giant Food stores starting this August. The bank said that its customers have expressed a preference for the bank's more traditional neighborhood branches over the ones located inside Giants. That statement would have us believe that Chevy Chase Bank customers prefer branches that aren't open on the weekends -- many of the Giant-based branches......

The Associated Press had a story over the weekend reporting that as part of their restructuring efforts, Giant Food grocery stores are discontinuing many products that don't sell as well to make room for larger quantities of fewer products. Those of us who regularly shop at Giant aren't quite sure how to feel about this. The AP quotes a couple of customers complaining that having an even worse selection of items is exactly the opposite......

A Giant Food opened this morning on Alabama Ave. SE in Ward 8, making it the only full-service grocery store in the Anascostia ward. It's also the first supermarket to operate in the neighborhood in over a decade. On Saturday the Post ran a story highlighting the lengths Ward 8 residents have had to go to up until today to purchase groceries. The "Camp Simms" Giant joins a bank and a hardware in a shopping......

The Examiner reports on a new DMV program that would install SmarTrip chips into every new D.C. driver's license and identification card beginning in October, 2008. The program is a combined effort by the agency and WMATA, the latter of which has made no secret of its intention to make universal conversion to SmarTrip a priority. Recently Metro General Manager John Catoe made SmarTrip cards available for sale at more Giant Food stores and announced......

We all know that Washingtonians love to complain about the lack of enough good grocery store options within the city, so perhaps this bit of news will bring us all some Friday cheer: local Giant Food stores, often considered some of the worst stores in D.C., are going to be getting makeovers. Dubbed "Project Refresh" by the company, the updates will include things like new floors and lighting, and focus on improving product quality in......

Ahh. Fifty-eight degrees, Washington. Fifty-eight! That's what the temperature is right now according to my trusty OS X weather widget, and I couldn't be more pleased: with a broken office A/C office unit and a floor of the building prone to soaking up heat, things have been a little warm around here. A last-minute spring extension sounds great, and that's just what we're in for: temps will barely top 70 until the weekend (although......

Candidates in next Tuesday's special election to fill two open D.C. Council seats have collectively raised over $1 million in the course of the campaign. Voters will chose council members for Wards 4 and 7, after those positions were left empty by Mayor Adrian Fenty and at-large Council Chairman Vincent Gray. Voters in D.C. Public Schools' Second District will also elect a school board representative. In Ward 4, ANC Commissioner Muriel Bowser leads the pack......

We have a problem. An untraditional addiction, really. We ride the snake every Saturday morning at 10 — and we mean every Saturday morning at 10 — with our man Mac McGarry. We turn on NBC4 and crash "It's Academic" — the longest-running pharm party of the mind on television. And this Saturday, Mr. McGarry is hosting two of the year's dopest quiz show bashes with the Washington-area final at 10 a.m. and the regional......

This DCist thinks the National Building Museum is unsung. It is the most amazing space in this fair city (in the gigantic red-brick Montgomery Meigs-built old Pensions Building) and the exhibits are not run of the mill. Who knew concrete could be interesting? The museum’s latest show, "Jewish Washington: Scrapbook of an American Community," is really a classic immigrant story: Jews get persecuted in other countries, come to the U.S. and D.C. for a......

Giant Food and joint-venture developers CHR LLC announced yesterday that a long-awaited 63,000 square-foot Giant supermarket/pharmacy will open in the Camp Simms area of Southeast (near Alabama Avenue and 15th Street SE) in spring 2006. The supermarket, whose planned construction in Ward 8 dates back at least five years, will stand alongside 25 acres worth of commercial development, worth some $37.5 million, in an area notoriously short on retail options. Attracting Giant, to Ward 8......