Colleen Grablick
A new restaurant saluting an old favorite opens this week in Takoma Park.
Enter: Motorkat, a new restaurant from the team behind Silver Spring’s Zinnia and Takoma Beverage Company. The eatery, centered around a seafood raw bar and wood-fired dishes, will celebrate Takoma Park history in more ways than one — by reviving the space that housed local haunt Republic for nearly a decade, and by paying homage to one of the quirkiest Takoma Park stories to have ever Takoma Park-ed.
“We wanted to bring back that old school Takoma vibe,” says Motorkat co-owner Chris Brown, who also owns Takoma Bev Co, Soko and Zinnia. He’ll be leading the spot with chef and partner Danny Wells, formerly of Republic. The restaurant opens to the public Tuesday.
The story of Motorkat begins as all good stories do: with a cat. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Motor Cat, a thrill-seeking tabby, and her co-pilot J. Catman rose to stardom for cruising around the area on Catman’s Suzuki 500 motorcycle — him behind the wheel, and her perched on his shoulder or the gas tank, ears tucked inside a custom-made helmet. For years, the duo rode around the region, causing double-takes and U-turns but never an accident of their own.
Motor Cat loved Jimi Hendrix, hated church, ran away once for three weeks, and could understand more than 100 words (allegedly). Simply put, she was a very Takoma Park cat. While she passed away in 2002 at age 17 (and J. Catman has since moved out of the area) the spirit of Motorkat is meant to honor her “old school Takoma Park” spunk, while refreshing Republic’s former space and menu.
“It’s going to be just different enough, I think,” says Wells, who opened Republic in 2013 with Black Restaurant Group. “We wanted to maintain enough of the Republic vibe so that the neighborhood when they walked in still felt super comfortable … we hope people walk in and just breathe a sigh of relief and say ‘okay, good, I know where I am.’”
After a brief break from hands-on restaurant work during the pandemic, the chef returned to the restaurant scene to helm the kitchen at Zinnia, the part-cafe, part-garden, part-tavern Silver Spring spot. During his hiatus, working remote jobs in restaurant consulting, Wells felt like a fish out of water, he says. Returning to Zinnia, and now even more so returning to the kitchen at Motorkat, is a natural fit.
“Coming back here is even more comfortable … sort of like riding a bike,” he says.
Rather than a traditional, appetizer-followed-by-entree format, Motorkat’s menu will be geared around shareable medium and small plates, including items from the grill like a cauliflower skewer with dill, tamarind, and turmeric-coconut yogurt ($14) or head-on tiger prawn ($8 each). Larger items from the grill include pork belly with grits ($19), Maryland bluefish with escovitch peppers, carrots, and cilantro ($19), and a citrus-brined napa cabbage ($17).
Similar to Republic, the main attraction will be the locally produced raw oysters, but the menu will expand to include other chilled seafood plates, like a blue- crab salad. By experimenting beyond oysters with more composed dishes on the raw menu, Wells aims set Motorkat apart from the Clyde’s of the world, and even the Republics.
“Adding on some of the other chilled seafood preparations will just make it a little more enticing, a little more fun for people to order as a group and share things,” he says. “It’s going to be primarily local – maybe 50 to 70% local … ours are just going to be the freshest, period.”
The bar has received a bit of a facelift under the leadership of bar director Mike Rothman. The beer selection will be more extensive than Republic’s, he says, mostly featuring local craft breweries, while Seth Cook, Brown’s cousin and level-two sommelier, will run the wine program. A cocktail menu will have changing seasonal beverages, in addition some signature takes on staples – like the Localist, reminiscent of a Bee’s Knees with local gin, Mr. Brown’s honey, and lemon; and the Motortini made with Harahon gin, house brine blend, pickled fresno pepper, and Capitoline dry vermouth.
As far as pricing, the Motorkat crew described the menu as “two to three dollar signs if you Google it” – a flexible menu where you can choose your own adventure. Small plates and shareables range between $9 and $20 dollars, while the wood-grilled dishes fall somewhere between $12 (asparagus) to $28 (roseda farms bavette steak.) Expect to pay the average $14-16 dollars for cocktails, and around $8 for a 16 ounce pour of beer. The happy hour menu – described by Wells as “aggressive” will start around 3-4 p.m. (and potentially even earlier on Friday.) There will also be a late-night happy hour starting after dinner, offering the same menu.
Just as with the menu, the aesthetics of Motorkat will maintain the feel of Republic, but give it refresh. An emerald-green wall and minimalist-mounted lamps will replace the golden-white detailing of the previous interior, and a new drink rail has been installed near the bar. The patio will be open daily, lit up by the old neon sign for Video American, the video store that occupied the space before Republic.
“I think decor and vibe wise, it’s a little more updated. I wouldn’t necessarily say more modern, but maybe cleaner and in some of the aesthetics we’re doing a little less of the kind of Takoma Park funk that Republic had, but still [keeping] a lot of the key elements from Republic we left in place,” Wells says.
Motorkat is located at 6939 Laurel Ave. Takoma Park, MD 20912, and will be open for dinner Tuesday-Thursday 4 p.m. – 12 .m., Friday-Saturday 3 p.m.-1 a.m., Sunday 3 p.m. – 11 .m.
