Columbia Restaurant

It's an undisputed fact: Americans love a buffet.And what's not to love? Restaurants that offer buffet-style meals are doing at least three major things right: They give you lots and lots of food, charge one set price, and give the diner an opportunity to taste many different menu items at once.But all buffets are not created equal. Some places charge exorbitant prices for mediocre fare. Throw in a long, slow-as-molasses line at the buffet table and mealtime can turn grim.Columbia's Bombay Peacock Grill has worked hard to change that.

After more than a decade, Plata Grande and Margarita Maggie's, a Mexican restaurant and bar on Route 175 in Columbia, has closed its doors.Carrollton Enterprises of Beltsville, the owners of the restaurant, said yesterday that they are in negotiations with a steak and seafood restaurant to lease the 17,000-square-foot building off Dobbin Center Way.Officials say the interior of the building will undergo some renovations before reopening. They are unsure when it will reopen.Over the last year, the chain has closed its other locations in Richmond, Va., Ocean City, Annapolis and Calverton, as the management company has focused more on the shopping centers it runs in Prince George's County.

The smoke in an Ellicott City lunch spot is not from a fire, but it will prompt a phone call to authorities.Two cigarette smokers are puffing away at a table next to Howard County's unofficial cigarette police. The three members of the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Howard County are fervent volunteers at the front lines of enforcement of the county's anti-smoking law, one of the toughest on the East Coast.Peg Browning, chairwoman of the coalition, shakes her head as the two women behind her light cigarette after cigarette at the Phoenix Emporium.

A robber pointed a handgun at employees of a Columbia restaurant before it opened yesterday morning and stole an undetermined amount of cash.About 9 a.m., a gunman entered the Ruby Tuesday restaurant in the 9000 block of Snowden River Parkway through a back door and ordered several employees into an office, police said.The robber then took out a gun, demanded money and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.Anyone with information is urged to call 410-313-3700.Pub Date: 8/13/98

A 20-year-old Elkridge woman was held up at gunpoint and forced to withdraw cash from an ATM machine early yesterday, police said.In another incident, two robbers stole more than $3,000 from a Columbia restaurant Wednesday, police said.About 12: 35 a.m. yesterday, the Elkridge woman was washing (( her car at the Water Works Car Wash in the 6300 block of Old Washington Blvd. in Elkridge, said Sgt. Morris Carroll, spokesman for the Howard County police.Two men approached her and asked for directions to Interstate 95. Suddenly, one man brandished a handgun and demanded money, Carroll said.

The Thai Restaurant on Greenmount, Baltimore's first Thai restaurant, was so successful that owner and chef Tussnee Singparu opened a second one, the Mai Thai, in Federal Hill. It never did as well because, says Singparu, she didn't hire the right chef. It closed quietly about six months ago.Now Singparu plans to reopen the restaurant at 1032 Light St. with a new staff. After some renovation, look for the Thai Harbor to open by the end of November.Columbia steakhouse"It's more upscale than an Outback, but the prices will be less than a Morton's or a Ruth's Chris," is how Philip Constantine describes his new steakhouse, Alexander's.

Piccolo's in Columbia is an Italian restaurant that has the panache of a New York-style supper club.As we entered, jazz musicians were playing softly and soulfully in the sunken central bar of the restaurant, and the lights were turned down low. Candles flickered behind frosted shades. It just took a little imagination to turn the traffic on nearby Snowden River Parkway into a street scene on New York's stylish Central Park West, especially with the trees outside wrapped in little white lights.

A 19-year-old Laurel man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his part in the robbery and shooting of a Pizz-A-Boli deliveryman outside the east Columbia restaurant in July.Tyron Andre Holmes of the first block of Woodland Court in Laurel was sentenced Thursday by Howard Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure.Holmes -- who was arrested in Prince George's County in August on a separate robbery charge -- pleaded guilty to two counts each of armed robbery and unlawful use of a handgun in the commission of a robbery.

Eight suspected illegal immigrants who washed dishes and made dough at an east Columbia pizza restaurant were arrested by federal agents yesterday -- another sign of the influx of immigrant labor, legal and illegal, into Howard County.The agents raided Bertucci's Brick Oven Pizzeria in the Snowden Square shopping center about 9 a.m. yesterday. They arrested a Peruvian, a Honduran and six Mexican citizens who were working the morning shift at the chain restaurant.All were living in Columbia, federal officials said, while working at the $7-an-hour restaurant jobs.

It didn't take long for the implications of a 1990 consumer survey showing that Columbia residents and workers heading out of town in droves for dining out, to sink in with Edward A. Ely."We definitely had a restaurant vacuum on our hands," said the senior land sales and marketing director with the Rouse Co., Columbia's developer.For a solution, Mr. Ely and other land development experts at the national company turned to a successful concept used at their shopping malls across the nation -- the food court.

A Columbia restaurant that was vandalized twice in three weeks in late March and mid-April because of foie gras on its menu was the scene of a peaceful protest Friday. About 15 people representing the Humane League of Baltimore stood in front of the Iron Bridge Wine Co. on Route 108 wearing T-shirts that read "Got Compassion?" in reaction to the restaurant's servers being adorned in T-shirts reading "Got Foie Gras?" The six-year-old Howard County restaurant has been at the center of a running debate about serving the popular French delicacy made from the fattened livers of geese and ducks.

Jean Poholsky looks forward to dining at Iron Bridge Wine Co. for the upscale ambience as well as for the food. So when she arrived at the Columbia restaurant for lunch with friends Monday, she was shocked to see glass shards covering a stone walkway that had been spray-painted in red with the words "Get rid of the foie gras." An admitted lover of the French delicacy made from the livers of ducks and geese, Poholsky concurred with the restaurant's owners that whoever was responsible for the overnight vandalism could have expressed their opinion differently.

Bill and Belinda King, of Woodstock, MD, announce the marriage of their daughter, Danielle L. King, to Richard S. Mirabelli, of Las Vegas, NV. They were wed in Tampa, FL on August 7, at the father's family church. The reception followed at Columbia Restaurant, Ybor City. The bride is a graduate of Florida State University and teaches at Mayfield Wood Middle School in Columbia, MD and she is pursuing her Master's. The groom was honorably discharged from the Army as an M.P. and he is currently working in security in Washington, DC. The couple resides in Ellicott City, MD.

Three Brothers Italian Restaurants is taking over the site of a former Piccolos restaurant that closed two years ago, and it has plans to create its own miniature restaurant park there. The restaurant company - owned by brothers Michael, Mario and Peter Repole - purchased the site off Snowden River Parkway. They are renovating the building for a planned opening in January. Part of the $2.4 million business plan involves enclosing the patio to create a cafe that could eventually be leased by small vendors such as ice cream or coffee shops.

Three representing Hunan Manor win HCC service award Robert Foo, Kevin Tong and Tak Wong received Howard Community College's 2002 Gayle C. Heitlinger Award on behalf of Hunan Manor Restaurant on March 17. The Columbia restaurant was honored for its exceptional service to the college and its students. Hunan Manor has donated 100 percent of the proceeds from its annual buffet dinner to scholarships for the college's Silas Craft Collegians Program. Since the restaurant's first fund-raiser for the program in 2000, the event has raised more than $20,000.

For David G. Albert, a good brunch includes eggs Benedict, and a good restaurant is one that can do the saucy egg, muffin and bacon dish well. No wonder three good meals from a Canadian brunch restaurant two years ago prompted Albert to open the restaurant here in Columbia. Eggspectation, off Route 100 at Snowden River Parkway and Waterloo Road, is the first U.S. location for the Canadian chain, but it won't be the last, Albert said. He and his partner, Jon Hinkle, have purchased development rights for the northeast corridor, and are already looking for a second location to expand the chain.

"Shots fired!" The call went out at 9:20 a.m. yesterday, just minutes after reports of an armed robbery at the Ruby Tuesday restaurant on Snowden River Parkway buzzed over police scanners in Howard County. Soon after that information came over the scanner, a panicked officer yelled, "Signal 13!" an emergency call that normally sends officers racing to the scene. But these were not normal police radio transmissions - they were training exercises that county police ran from 9 a.m. through 4 p.m. yesterday.

Z'Tejas Southwestern Grill takes most of its unusual name from the Spanish word for Texas, a nod to the Lone Star State and its neighbor to the south. The "z" got tossed in there because the executive chef of the Texas-based chain digs a certain masked man. "He liked the "Z" from Zoro," said Geoff Alston, general manager and part-owner of the restaurant that opened last week at The Mall in Columbia. It is the company's first location east of Dallas. The curious name says it all: Southwestern cuisine that wants to be cool.

Once a month, a group of opera singers takes talent to a venue not often thought of as a classical music hotspot - a local restaurant. For the performers it's a chance to work their magic in a relaxed setting where diners are as eager for Pavarotti as they are for pasta. "To be able to perform in front of an audience is always a good thing," said Jessica Swink, a coloratura soprano. "If you can do it with people who are eating and clanging silverware, then when there's an orchestra you will be able to do it effortlessly."

Ricciuti's Brick Oven Pizza isn't just for pizza lovers anymore. In the four years since the restaurant opened in Hickory Ridge Village Center, Ricciuti's has expanded its menu to include gazpacho, grilled salmon, spinach lasagna and other Italian dishes. "Pizza is only one-third of our sales," said James Ricciuti, who owns the Columbia restaurant with his wife, Amy, and partner Adam Harman. True, when you come into the cheery restaurant with its warm yellow walls and forest-green trim your eye is drawn to the fiery glow of the pizza oven behind the counter.