Duck Duck Goose Plans New Concept For Downtown Bethesda Location

BETHESDA, MD — Duck Duck Goose Bethesda has decided to switch to a fast-casual burger concept and plans to have the new style of restaurant open in early September.

The new concept will be called Good Ducking Burger and will focus on American classics like burgers, chicken and fries, with a nod to the Indian heritage of its owner, Ashish Alfred, who also owns restaurants in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

The menu will also feature items like chicken sandwiches and Delhi Hot Fried Chicken, a fried chicken sandwich with butter chicken sauce, green chutney and yogurt aioli. Also on the menu will be the Pato Del Sur, a juicy burger, topped with plantains, duck confit and a sunny-side-up egg and Bollywood Fries, double-fried fries, topped with tamarind chutney, cilantro chutney, yogurt sauce, and chaat masala.

Duck Duck Goose’s location in downtown Bethesda, at 7929 Norfolk Ave., opened as a French brasserie in 2016, with 27 seats. Alfred was named Chef of the Year by the Restaurant Association of Maryland, and the restaurant was named Best Brunch by Washingtonian Magazine three years after it opened.

“For Duck Duck Goose Bethesda, it all came down to the numbers. Despite having a packed dining room most nights, the rising costs of doing business caused DDG Bethesda’s profit margin to plummet,” Alfred said in a news release.

While Alfred’s four other restaurants in Baltimore and D.C. are spacious and busy, his Bethesda restaurant was not big enough. At about 1,100 square feet total, including interior and the seasonal outdoor patio, Alfred said it became obvious that the business was just no longer sustainable as is.

“Mix in competition from larger restaurants in Pike and Rose and Friendship Heights, along with Bethesda’s shifting demographics to a younger, more family-oriented town, and the decision was made,” he said.

It was time to pivot and change the space to a fast-casual restaurant, which would make more sense for the square footage, he said.

The Good Ducking Burger concept that will be opening isn’t completely a new concept for Alfred. It has made successful appearances at his restaurants in Baltimore and D.C. as a delivery-only ghost kitchen.

Expanding Good Ducking Burger into a brick and mortar, fast-casual bistro is something Alfred said he has always wanted to do as a reflection on his own heritage as a second-generation Indian.