Money is very precious and limited for high schoolers, and most students don’t have the big bucks to spend on a fancy meal or an expensive movie ticket. The things that students buy should be worth every penny that they spend. When deciding where to spend that money, it is important to find the best possible option so that every last bit is worth it. Two nearby places that come to mind where students spend their money are Montgomery Mall and Pike and Rose.
Montgomery Mall has an excellent and relatively cheap theatre in Arclight Cinemas and tons of inexpensive food options including crowd favorites like Chipotle and Chick-fil-a. Pike and Rose does not offer as many options as the mall, but it does have iPic’s high end theaters and new places that the mall doesn’t have, like &pizza and Shophouse.
Sophomore Grace Burgett favors going to the mall over Pike and Rose.
“I prefer going to the mall because it has a lot of stores and lots of options for food too,” said Burgett, “I do like iPic because it has comfy seats but it is a little expensive, so Arclight is ideal.”
The most expensive ticket at Arclight Cinemas is just under $15 at peak showtimes. iPic theatres’ trademark are it’s plush leather seats but these can only be purchased for almost double the price of Arclight at $28 a seat. All of the regular seats at iPic are at the very front of the theatre and cost $16 each.
Similar to Burgett, senior Matt Collishaw prefers what the mall has to offer.
“Pike and Rose is dead. There are better places to go in the mall than at Pike and Rose, with better food, better shopping, and a wider variety of places,” senior Matt Collishaw said, “There are always people at the mall, not usually at Pike and Rose.”
There are exactly 46 places to eat at the mall, which is more than all of the stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues at Pike and Rose combined. If you add in the retail shops then there would be a grand total of 254 places to go and things to do at Montgomery Mall compared to 27 stores and shops at Pike and Rose. The mall has about eight times more shops than everything at Pike and Rose combined, and to pile on even more, Montgomery Mall will be opening a Lucky Strike bowling alley next to Macy’s.
If high school students were looking to buy an apartment, Pike and Rose would be the best place to go, but that isn’t the case. Pike and Rose caters to an older audience of people who are looking for a home or a hotel. It doesn’t have very many places to eat or shop because hotels, condominium and apartment buildings take up a majority of the space. There are also more sit down restaurants at Pike and Rose than fast food type places to eat. Pike and Rose has a lot of potential to become a hotspot for students all around Rockville. The fact that only half of the construction is complete for the entire development is a promising sign. Phase two of the construction began in 2015 and the approved plan will add 30 new shops and restaurants. A Nike factory store has just opened and a bowling alley restaurant called Pinstripes is set to open in 2017. Most of these new additions will be built on an extension of Grand Park Avenue, which will be extended all the way to Montrose Parkway on the other side of Pike and Rose opposite Old Georgetown Road.
