Friendship Heights used to mean one thing: the bus ride down to shop. Lord & Taylor, Saks, movies at Mazza Gallerie, a sandwich at Booeymonger after. Most of that mall is gone now — but the neighborhood is in the middle of becoming something new entirely.

The Mall That Defined Friendship Heights — And Disappeared

Mazza Gallerie opened in November 1977 at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue, directly above the Friendship Heights Metro station, anchored by Washington’s first Neiman Marcus store. For decades it was a genuine destination — Krön Chocolatier, Swensen’s, Filene’s Basement, and in 2000, DC’s first stadium-seated movie theater with THX sound. It couldn’t survive the shift to e-commerce and broader retail decline. The AMC theater closed in February 2021. The last store, TJ Maxx, closed on Christmas Eve 2022, and the building came down in March 2023. The site is now being redeveloped into Residences at Mazza — 325 apartments with new retail at street level, part of a much bigger wave of housing now planned across Friendship Heights.

What’s Actually There Now

Booeymonger at 5252 Wisconsin Avenue is still exactly the neighborhood institution it’s always been — a sandwich and deli shop open late, with a crumb cake locals specifically call out as worth ordering. It’s outlasted nearly everything else from the Friendship Heights of decades past.

A full-size Whole Foods now anchors The Shops at Wisconsin Place at 4420 Willard Avenue — right on the Red Line, with a coffee bar and prepared food counter that locals genuinely rely on. Bloomingdale’s is still there at 5300 Western Avenue, one of the few department store survivors from the old shopping-trip days.