Dish

COMING UP NEXT: "A Cracker Barrel with good food."

That's how Gillian Clark is referring to the General Store (6 Post Office Rd., Silver Spring; 301-562-8787), the neighborhood restaurant she hopes to open with partner Robin Smith -- this month, if all the inspections are approved. "We're going through the final look-throughs" in the two-level former country store, Clark said last week.

She won't be handling the day-to-day cooking there but instead plans to "make an appearance and refine things." A cook has yet to be named, although Clark said she has somebody she has worked with before in mind.

The chef and owner of the late Colorado Kitchen in Brightwood Park said she has "actually been to a Cracker Barrel"; her General Store will feature a menu of "American road food" to include chicken and dumplings, casseroles and chili. She's considering opening early in the morning, too. "We're testing recipes for breakfast sandwiches and crullers," she said.

But don't expect doughnuts. Those are "a Colorado Kitchen thing. This is a different place."

Then she dangled an intriguing possibility before fans of the shuttered eatery. "I don't want to steal any of Colorado Kitchen's thunder, in case it might reemerge."

Say what?

"We never closed the door on that."

-- Tom Sietsema