Charcutago is the newest eatery to open at miXt food hall in Brentwood and offers charcuterie to go including fresh meats, cheeses, nuts, fruit and other sides.

The most deluxe board, the Varsity, features your choice of four types of meat, four kinds of cheese, and one of each spread, pickle, bread, crackers, nuts, and dried or fresh fruit. The menu, which includes gluten-free and organic options, also features light sides such as a chicken Caesar wrap, a muffuletta sandwich, and salads.

Chef-owner Valery Charles told the Hyattsville Wire that he got his start working as a temp in restaurants and hotels throughout the D.C. area as a prep cook, porter, line cook, busser and waiter.

“That’s when I really fell in love with not just cooking but the rush of being in restaurants,” he told the Wire. “It felt like a sport, and I wanted to train more.”

After graduating from culinary school, Charles worked at such D.C. restaurants as Bracket Room, Fiola and Casa Luca, eventually becoming sous chef at Barrel D.C., which had an extensive charcuterie and bread production, preparing its own cured meats, pickling and conservas. He was later executive chef at Hen Quarter.

Charles started his own catering company in 2021, but he saw a demand for something accessible at the food hall — just as charcuterie had become a hot national trend.

“Offering snacks and grazing options that would pair well with a glass of wine or a cocktail at the bar was a priority,” he told the Wire. “Charcuterie is the base of this concept, but we certainly have more to offer, from pinsas to sandwiches, salads to side items such as deviled eggs with beef bresaola. There’s something for everyone to enjoy.”

He said he has other restaurant concepts in mind that he would like to develop eventually.

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A Mount Rainier artist who specializes in hand-drawn maps of D.C. neighborhoods has released a new map of Riverdale Park.

Torie Partridge, owner of Terratorie, has already released maps of Brentwood and North Brentwood, College Park, Hyattsville and Mount Rainier and Woodridge as well as Prince George’s County.

She began the Neighborhood Maps Project in 2012, allowing visitors to her website to vote on which one to do next as she made her way through the greater D.C. area. She also does other major U.S. cities, which make great gifts.

The 18-by-24-inch map is available as a print or matted and framed or as 5-by-7-inch greeting cards. If you want to see another neighborhood added to the collection, you can make a request on the Terratorie website.

You can buy the maps on Partridge’s website or at her shop in Brookland’s Arts Walk at 716 Monroe St. NE, Studio 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Readers of the Hyattsville Wire can get 20 percent off the Riverdale Park map through next Friday by using the discount code HYATTSVILLEWIRE.

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Federalist Pig says it’s still looking into opening a sit-down restaurant in Hyattsville.

The Hyattsville Wire reached out to the popular D.C. restaurant after spotting a notice on the planned location at 5504 Baltimore Ave. that it was available for lease.

“The sign is being taken down immediately as it is not for lease,” a spokesperson for Federalist Pig owner Catalogue told the Wire. “We are continuing to explore bringing Federalist Pig to the Hyattsville community. We look forward to making that happen.”

The building, once home to a tire shop, has long been planned to be a second sit-down location for the popular D.C. barbecue restaurant.

During the pandemic, Federalist Pig opened a food truck called the FedMobile in the parking lot between the building and a nearby car wash.

The 2,424-square-foot building was recently advertised as a “rare freestanding building” in downtown Hyattsville with 15 dedicate parking spaces near popular shops and restaurants such as Busboys & Poets.

The location is also just up the street from the upcoming Canvas Apartments, which will have 30,000 square feet of retail space and 285 apartments next to the historic Armory building.

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Hyattsville is using new motion-sensor cameras to monitor free parking spaces.

The city recently installed the cameras to monitor parking spaces on Gallatin Street near Vigilante Coffee and the post office which are free to use for 15 minutes.

Manufactured by Municipal Parking Services, the solar-powered SafetySticks use motion sensors similar to a red-light camera to take a photo when a car has pulled into a free parking space and when it leaves.

If the photos are more than 15 minutes apart, the owner of the car is sent a $35 fine through the mail. The city is sending warnings instead of fines through March 20, however.

The cameras currently monitor six spaces in the 4300 block of Gallatin Street as part of a pilot project, but it could add more later.

The parking spaces are also in the same area that the city recently added a series of colorful murals to help make the road safer for pedestrians.

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College Park is getting a Shake Shack.

The popular New York-based burger chain plans to open a location at the upcoming Union on Knox student apartments at 4350 Knox Rd. later this year.

Ken Ulman, the chief strategy officer for economic development at the University of Maryland, said that landing a Shake Shack was a “real testament to the project.”

When construction is finished, the $140 million building, located at the old site of the 7-Eleven, will also be home to a Chopt salad chain and studio, one-, two- and four-bedroom apartments to house nearly 800 students.

Since its founding in 2004, Shake Shack has grown slowly to over 400 locations and has something of a cult-like following for its premium burgers, crinkle-cut fries, and shakes.

It’s on par with the current strategy to make College Park a top college town, in part by attracting national chains to the area.

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On Monday, Mar. 4, WETA’s “Signature Dish” TV show will feature one of the newest vendors at the miXt Food Hall in Brentwood.

In an episode on “Food Hall Finds,” host Seth Tillman will have a mushroom burger from vegan vendor Mush DC at the popular food hall.

The eatery, which opened in 2022, uses mushrooms as an alternative to meat for vegan meals that are all organic and soy free, including vegan versions of a chicken sandwich, a Vietnamese bánh mì, a jerk barbecue sandwich and a steak-and-cheese version.

Chef Tarik Frazier and business partner Alex Hamilton told the Hyattsville Wire that they started the restaurant to show there were meat alternatives aside from opti0ns such as the lab-created Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers.

Frazier previously ran a private chef service and worked at Kith/Kin and American Son,

Previous episodes of “Signature Dish” have featured Route 1 restaurants: Hyattsville’s Chez Dior, Riverdale Park’s 2Fifty Texas BBQ and Mount Rainier’s Pennyroyal Station.

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A short drive from the Route 1 corridor in Upper Marlboro lies a haunting reminder during Black History Month: a long stone block once used to exhibit enslaved people at auction.

Though there was slavery throughout the county, the heaviest concentration was in the eastern part of the county due to the number of tobacco farms there which depended on their unpaid labor.