Showroom, Frederick MD

As soon as I looked up where this place was, I got a familiar feeling and my gut sense was on-point – Showroom took over the space of the sadly closed, and VERY good old Family Meal that used to be a car dealership space completely revamped into an upscale fried chicken spot. So, what is Showroom? “A modern American casual restaurant,” according to their own website and that much definitely checks out looking at the interior –

Now the shoot itself was pulled halfway out my rear, which was surprising to me considering a classy spot like this. To no one’s honest fault, the original date had to be pushed back due to kitchen equipment delivery getting delayed, and I can understand, but hilarity ensued the day of when I was informed that only a third of my shot list would be presented solely due to the owner basing the shoot budget on the week’s sales, while himself vacationing overseas….. Sensible thing to hear, like many other restaurants who don’t want to spend money on photo shoot items, but still stings since that puts me in a bind before my corpo client. Had to get really creative here and leverage the restaurant to make as many cheap and small things like drinks as they could spare, and they obliged that much. Then the magic of grouping took care of the numbers as I often have to do, which is kind of ridiculous in the first place, but welcome to the corporate world.

So, the how were the food and drinks at Showroom then? Take a look for yourself –

Definitely elevated take on the mid-Atlantic comfort foods to say the least, especially with the pricing. Frederick is my no means an area that ought to have the prices of Showroom, so it ironically beacons back to the space’s car dealership origins. Food itself is solidly good, but there are other spots around that offer the same or very similar fare at the comfortable pricing. Showroom is about that dining experience rather than a greasy spoon kind of joint.