This is a brand-new Lidl Supermarket, very similar to other Lidls in MD. It opened last Wed July 30th,2025. The locations is one block from the Bethesda Metro Station, in the space that a previous Safeway occupied, but that closed years ago. If you are not familiar with Lidl, it is a German-owned international supermarket chain. Their US base is in Montgomery County, MD. In some aspects, it follows the Aldi service model (low prices, merchandise is stocked on shelves in the same cartons they were shipped, mostly proprietary brands but they also have US national brands of cereals, soft drinks, etc.), but they are also different in other features (they stock a lot of international products from their own brands, rotating the countries every months: Italy, Greece, Spain, Germany, France, etc; they have a bakery that produces fresh breads, croissants and pastries several times a day, etc). Their meats also are of famously high-quality and low price. I saw a lot of employees running around stocking shelves, and they had three cash registers open, which nowadays is close to a miracle. The ambiance is utilitarian; basic but everything is well organized and stocked (I would say better than Aldi). This new Lidl is convenient in downtown Bethesda, and I hope its fate is better than the previous tenant of that space (Safeway closed for lack of traffic). Now I will not have to trek to the one in Randolph Road, whose upkeep is not exactly stellar. read more