The 82 streetcar left downtown Washington at 5th and G Street, ran through Eckington, Woodridge, and Mount Rainier, then followed what is now Rhode Island Avenue straight into Hyattsville and College Park. It made its last run on September 7, 1958. Nobody standing at that final stop could have guessed the route would matter again nearly seventy years later, but it does. Ask a Hyattsville or Riverdale Park resident where they are actually spending a fall Saturday and the answer traces almost the same half mile the streetcar used to run.
That is not a coincidence. It is the closest thing this stretch of Prince George's County has to a founding document, and it explains something the county's own economic development conversations keep missing.
The Route That Never Really Closed
Walk Rhode Island Avenue in Hyattsville today and you pass a converted auto repair garage that opened as Streetcar 82 Brewing Co. in 2018, at 4824 Rhode Island Ave. It is the East Coast's first fully Deaf owned and operated brewery, founded by three Gallaudet University graduates who named it for the line that once ran past each of their homes in Eckington, Woodridge, and Hyattsville. A few doors down sits Franklins Restaurant, Brewpub & General Store, the anchor that predates most of what came after it. Around the corner at 4700 Rhode Island Ave, Maryland Meadworks became Prince George's County's first meadery, with Franklins' head brewer helping design the layout and a coffee-flavored batch made in partnership with Vigilante Coffee, which also has a location on the strip. Sangfroid Distilling rounds out the row.
None of this happened because a county agency decided the corridor needed it. It happened because a handful of independent operators picked the same half mile, mostly within walking distance of each other, and built a beverage and dining strip out of a stretch of road that had been an active transit line for seventy years before any of them were born.
What the Council Wants Is Already Two Blocks Long
In April 2026, the Prince George's County Council introduced a package of bills aimed at making it easier to recruit what one member called "nice restaurants," including reduced permitting fees for dining rooms and more money from the county's Economic Development Incentive Fund. Council Chair Krystal Oriadha pointed to the gap directly: "We lose so much revenue to Virginia and to D.C. around restaurants and entertainment," she said, framing National Harbor as the county's dominant hospitality tax base and arguing the county needs to diversify beyond it.
That framing is accurate for the county's large-format hospitality sector. It is also, on this particular stretch of Rhode Island Avenue, several years out of date. The corridor did not wait for a permitting overhaul or an incentive fund. It built a working beverage row out of small, independently owned businesses, one lease at a time, and the county's own bill package is now trying to replicate at scale something a handful of Hyattsville entrepreneurs already did on a single street.
Three Stops on the Fall Circuit
| Stop on the Line | What Anchors It | Fall Signature |
|---|---|---|
| Rhode Island Ave, Hyattsville | Streetcar 82 Brewing, Franklins, Maryland Meadworks, Vigilante Coffee | The same independent taps and pours that built the strip, no seasonal gimmick required |
| Riverdale Park Station Village Green | The Station at Riverdale Park | Fall Block Party, October 26 |
| Riversdale House Museum grounds | Riversdale Historical Society | 2026 Fall Concert Series, Harvest Fest, and a Hispanic Heritage Month Screen on the Green |
The Dates Worth Circling
- October 26: The Fall Block Party at The Station at Riverdale Park, co-hosted with the Town of Riverdale Park, runs all day with local artists including Hilary Katherine Beall Kendra Pascoe Morrison and Henna by Sanna, and vendors like Crawford Creatives, Aster Society, Petite Petals Made with Love, Xolo Books, and Cuttis Plants. There is a 9-hole mini golf course, mat Pilates through Club Pilates, and The Shed leading a drum circle and instrument petting zoo. New this year is a Pup-kin Costume Contest for dogs starting at 2 p.m.
- Throughout the season: Riversdale House Museum's 2026 Fall Concert Series puts bands on the lawn. Bring a chair and a picnic dinner.
- Harvest Fest: Riversdale's Historic Site Gardener leads a seed-saving lesson, followed by story time and a family scavenger hunt with small prizes.
- Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15): Riversdale House Museum and the Town of Riverdale Park co-host Screen on the Green on the museum grounds.
"The idea is that we all hop on the streetcar and get together at the brewery," Streetcar 82 co-founder Mark Burke wrote of the old 82 line, which passed each founder's home before it closed in 1958.
Walking It Instead of Driving It
The Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail is a 3.8-mile path connecting Hyattsville, Riverdale, and College Park, with activity hubs set up along it as recently as this June's Trolley Trail Day. The Station at Riverdale Park's Village Green, where the Fall Block Party happens, sits directly off that trail. That is the part that separates this corridor from a typical commercial strip. The businesses on Rhode Island Avenue and the event lawns in Riverdale Park did not grow up independently of each other. They grew up along the same transit corridor the streetcar once served, which means the fall calendar and the beverage row now share more than a name. They share a walkable geography.
Start a Saturday with coffee at Vigilante, head down to Riverdale Park for the afternoon block party or a Riversdale concert, and circle back to Rhode Island Avenue for dinner at Franklins or a pint at Streetcar 82. None of it requires more than a short walk or bike ride, and it works because the corridor never actually gave up the infrastructure that built it in the first place.
The Corridor's Quiet Argument
The county council is right that Prince George's has room to grow its dining and entertainment base, and the incentive package introduced this year may well help elsewhere. But the case the council is making through permitting reform, this half mile of Hyattsville already made on its own, with a converted auto garage, a meadery, and a brewpub, years before anyone drafted a bill. A transit line that closed in 1958 became a trail, the trail kept the same businesses within walking distance of each other, and the result is a fall calendar dense enough that residents never have to choose between the block party, the concert series, and the taproom. They just walk the line.
Jonathan Rundlett covers corners of the DMV like this one on Capital Living, pairing neighborhood detail with the kind of local read that only comes from spending time on the ground. If you already live along this stretch of Prince George's County and want more of this kind of neighborhood reporting, or you are weighing what a home here is actually worth in today's market, reach out to Jonathan Rundlett for a free home valuation.
