Lots of good memories here!
Olga's used to be in Lake Forest Mall, before they added a food court-I always would stop in for the closest thing to a gyro I could find in Maryland, lol.
When I was a kid, either Farrells or Jahn's was THE PLACE to have a birthday party. Had one of each several towns over. From what I gather, there are still Farrells on the west coast, and the plan is that we'll take the kids the next time we get out there. One time, I was at a party and the next table was also having a party-well, the siren goes off, the two servers come up to the table and then pass it-Ice cream went all over the front window. When you're 8, that's really funny, but I'm sure it wasn't to the servers.
A couple of places I love from LI/NYC are gone-Raay Noors, Dalts, El Torito, and O'Neil's Balloon. Here in Florida, we lost our favorite BBQ joint, PotBellies, but we found another one that is better a few months ago.
My mom and sister used to rave about Hops-and it took us until we moved here to finally try it (despite many visits to Florida). We loved it and six months later, all the locations in my area closed-there are only two left!
We also loved Tia's Tex Mex-brought my assistant to lunch there one day, and the next day, they closed all the locations. What's really a bummer is that many of the servers at the location came from the American Cafe that had been in the neighboring mall-but it closed. Not impressed with that one, but I felt bad that in the space of 14 months, they were looking for a new job again.
Psst, if you're in Bowie, there's a Cracker Barrel up by exit 80 along I95. Still not close, but a bit closer than trekking to Frederick or Potomac Mills.

I know the location because they'd put billboards along 95 and for two hours, I was thinking I'd stop there. Got there and it wasn't open yet! I was NOT happy-had been thinking of what I'd have for lunch, and there just wasn't anything as good nearby, lol!
Suzanne