Muffin Man Caribbean Cafe Will Likely Open by November

The owner of a popular Lanham eatery was set to open a second location in Bowie last year, but one year later the doors in Hilltop Plaza remain closed.

Because of the delay, the owner says he is out thousands of dollars in rent.

“I’m not worried,” said Roderick O’Savio, owner of the Muffin Man Caribbean Café in Lanham. “I’ll make it back.”

The reason for the delays? O’Savio said the planning and construction process took longer than anticipated. Bruce I. Levine, director of commercial real estate for landlord M. Leo Storch Management Corporation, said the project has been “bogged down in bureaucracy.”

While O’Savio hopes to have the restaurant open its door in time for Hilltop Plaza’s grand reopening in late October, Levine said it will likely open in November.

O’Savio opened the Muffin Man on Lanham-Severn Road in 1996. He set his sights on opening a second location in Bowie after his restaurant featuring Jamaican favorites and freshly baked muffins took off.

O’Savio offers more than two dozen varieties of softball-sized muffins in his Lanham restaurant, along with Caribbean standards like oxtail and curry goat.

The 3,700 square foot Bowie location will seat 50 and will include an eight-person bar.

“It will be a sit-down restaurant, a step up. But it won’t be a white tablecloth type of place,” O’Savio said.

Eventually, O’Savio says, he would like to see live music there—Caribbean and reggae music, he said. But, he added, it would not be like some other live music establishments in the county.

“There won’t be no riff-raff coming in,” said O’Savio.

With his second restaurant still in the works, O’Savio is already thinking about a third location elsewhere in the county.

“I have so much up my sleeve. This will only be a little taste of it,” said O’Savio.

O’Savio said he was reluctant initially to open in Hilltop Plaza, but was impressed with the improvements and new tenants at the mall which include two bank branches and two grocery stores. A Walgreen's Pharmacy is set to open.

The Outback Steakhouse will reopen in a more visible spot along Annapolis Road in November, according to Levine.

The location of the store, just feet away from heavily traveled Annapolis Road, has raised concerns from some residents.

But Levine said the new configuration was “all within the code.” A retaining wall will be erected along the road, according to Levine.

“This is no different than when the Bank of America drive-thru was there. It was the same situation,” Levine said. “In all those years we’ve been there, no one has jumped the wall.”