Severna Park's Route 2 Is Filling Up Before Noon

The storefront at 489 Ritchie Highway, Suite 101, used to belong to Soccer Post. The store moved its operations to its Annapolis location, and the 1,700-square-foot space sat waiting for a new tenant. On September 19, it opened as Y'ollk Bakery. The bakery serves croissants and custom cakes on French technique with ingredients from the Philippines, and on its first day it kept bakery hours of 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

A day earlier and a short way down the road, Toastique held its grand opening at Park Plaza. Two training studios opened on the same highway between June and late September. Put the four together and you see what Severna Park's stretch of Route 2 has been adding this year: places you go in the first half of the day.

Four openings, one clock

Here are the Ritchie Highway arrivals the Severna Park Voice has covered since early summer, listed by street number.

REPS Performance coaches teams, athletes, adults, partners, and other coaches, and it built its program around assessment and long-term development. Foundation Fitness designs an individual program for each client, covering progress tracking, nutrition guidance, mobility work, functional movement, and strength training. Toastique describes its food as healthy and designed for busy, active lifestyles. All three describe themselves in the same terms, training and fuel. Y'ollk adds pastries and specialty coffee to the same part of the day.

The Greater Severna Park and Arnold Chamber of Commerce held ribbon-cuttings for REPS, Foundation Fitness, Y'ollk, and Toastique. The chamber also cut ribbons for two other June arrivals in Severna Park: Ivory Stone Interiors, a wallcovering and fabric studio at 674 Ritchie Highway, and Zokpia Business Financial Services, at 86 Kennedy Drive.

The bakery that took a year

The Severna Park Voice called Y'ollk's opening "long anticipated," and the timeline shows why. In September 2025, the Voice's chamber update listed the bakery as coming soon and mentioned croissants, brioche doughnuts, petit gâteaux, and quiches. In October 2025, Citybiz's lease announcement said the space was under renovation and the bakery planned to open "in the coming months." The ribbon was cut almost a year after that first notice. The published coverage doesn't say why it took longer than planned.

Business partners Marie Cris Garay and Basaran Mulgan run the bakery. According to the Baltimore Business Journal, Y'ollk combines traditional and French baking with ingredients from the Philippines, Garay's homeland. The menu covers pastries, breads, quiche, sandwiches, custom cakes, and specialty coffee. The room is small, with about 15 seats in 1,700 square feet. If you want a pastry and a table on a Saturday, that seat count matters.

The 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. hours were announced for opening day only. Regular weekly hours hadn't appeared in local coverage by the end of September. The bakery points people to its Facebook and Instagram pages for updates. Check there before you drive over.

The space itself tells you the most. Severna Park Market Center lost a sporting goods store to consolidation, and the landlord replaced it with a bakery and coffee counter. The training studios at 139 and 360 Ritchie Highway are the same kind of business: you show up in person and spend part of your morning there.

Park Plaza's busy fall

Toastique's Severna Park cafe is the second in the area for franchise owners Allyson and Mo Jishi. They opened the Annapolis Toastique in 2024. Their move from downtown Annapolis to Park Plaza puts a breakfast-and-lunch cafe in the shopping center that hosts Severna Park's best-known fall shopping event.

That event is Shoptoberfest, a free shop-local festival hosted by the chamber on Saturday, October 24, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Park Plaza, 550 Ritchie Highway. The chamber's listing includes music, shopping, trick-or-treating, and a kids' costume contest. This year is the first Shoptoberfest with a Toastique storefront in the same center.

Park Plaza may also get another morning-hour tenant. In March, the shopping center announced that Paris Baguette franchisee Pratik Patel had chosen Park Plaza and expected the cafe to open that summer. We haven't found any local coverage confirming that it opened, so treat it as planned until the doors open.

What's still settling on Route 2

A few things on the corridor are still unresolved. Romilo's Restaurant & Bar, a Severna Park restaurant for more than 30 years, closed temporarily in early August for a change in ownership, according to the Capital Gazette. Naptown Scoop reported that then-owner Chris Paradissis, who had owned the restaurant for nine years, planned to share details about the new owners later. As of the end of September, we hadn't seen a public update on a reopening date or the new ownership.

The next announced opening goes the opposite way on hours. Eye On Annapolis reported that Back Nine Golf plans a 2,900-square-foot location at Robinson Crossing in Severna Park, with Full Swing simulators, lessons from PGA professionals, and 24-hour, seven-day access. It's expected to open by the end of the year. Back Nine already has a location in Crofton. If it opens on schedule, the corridor's newest arrivals will range from opening-day bakery hours of 9 to 3 to a simulator bay you can book at any hour.

The fall calendar around these openings

These are the community dates already posted for the next six weeks in and around Severna Park.

• Saturday, October 17, 2 to 6 p.m. Fall Fest at Our Shepherd Lutheran Church, 400 Benfield Road. It's free and includes trunk-or-treating, a bounce house, face painting, and a pumpkin patch.
• Friday, October 23, 5 to 8 p.m. Halloween Spooktacular at the Severna Park Community Center, with trunk-or-treating, games, crafts, and entertainment.
• Friday, October 23, 6:45 to 7:45 p.m. Spooky Splash in the community center pool. Registration is required. The fee is $15 if you register by October 15 and $16 after that.
• Saturday, October 24, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Shoptoberfest at Park Plaza, 550 Ritchie Highway.
• Friday, November 13, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Holiday Pop-Up Shop at the Severna Park Community Center, with local vendors, free gift wrapping, and a raffle.

The Spooky Splash is the only event on this list where timing affects the price, since the $15 rate ends October 15. Shoptoberfest is the one that brings you to Park Plaza, where Toastique now has a storefront.

If you're curious how new tenants like these change the feel of a Route 2 address, or you're weighing how close you want to live to Park Plaza or Severna Park Market Center, The Lucas Knott Laye Team is happy to talk it through. We'll gladly compare notes over a pastry from the corridor's newest bakery. Contact Us.