Vince’s Bar was owned by Vincent Staico. His wife, Matilda, “Ms. Til,” often ran the bar. Former patrons describe it as a quiet neighborhood bar, where there was seldom, if ever, fighting. Vince’s had pool tables and American Indian community members made frequent use of them. Staico sold the building to the City in 1972.
]]>Sid’s Ranch House Tavern occupied a building that had been converted into a movie theater during the first part of the twentieth century. It had been the Teddy Bear Parlor ca. 1908 – 1919, and the Mickey until 1920 or ‘21. Sidney Silverman, a retired boxer turned bartender, opened his tavern in the late 1950s. It became a popular neighborhood hangout for people of different races, and it had a reputation for racial trouble. According to one Lumbee patron, Mr. Silverman “had a habit of every time the Indians would get in fights there, he would bar ‘em from the bar for a while. Wouldn’t let no Indians come in his bar… He’d do it for a while and then he’d open up. I guess he missed our business, and he’d open up and let ‘em back.” Mr. Silverman likely sold the property at 1741 E. Baltimore Street to the City during Urban Renewal and it was razed.
]]>1727 E. Baltimore Street housed a series of ethnic food establishments from the turn of the century through the early 1960s, reflecting greater migration patterns in the neighborhood. In 1917, it was the Shub Bros. Bakery; in 1947, it was the Warsaw Bakery, and around 1959, Hartman Hammonds (Lumbee) rented the storefront and opened Hartman’s BBQ Shop. Mr. Hammonds sold Lumbee-style BBQ with traditional sides like coleslaw, as well as hotdogs and hamburgers. The shop was frequented by construction workers who lived in East Baltimore. Mr. Hammonds made lunches at night and the workers would come pick them up in the morning, then they would come back on Fridays to pay for their lunches for the week. 1725 and 1727 E. Baltimore were eventually merged and converted into a church.
]]>The Moonlight Restaurant was Greek-owned. It was one of the first restaurants in which many Lumbee Indians arriving from the Jim Crow South could sit down and eat. Much of the planning for what would become South Broadway Baptist Church and the Baltimore American Indian Center took place in The Moonlight. However, the establishment was also known for fights and general discord, sometimes also attributed to the presence of Indians. The building was sold to Baltimore City in 1972. It is a house today.
]]>The Baltimore American Indian Center opened the Inter-Tribal Restaurant at 17 S. Broadway, during the tenure of Director Barry Richardson (Haliwa Saponi), ca. 1989. Board members of the Indian Center wanted to try another restaurant venture as part of their economic development activities. They felt that the Center had a fair amount of experience selling food due to its work with the concession stands at Orioles baseball games. One could “eat in” or “carry out” at the restaurant, which sold foods like sandwiches, shrimp, chicken, and french fries, and also cigarettes and beer. The Center closed the restaurant after only a couple of years because it was not profitable.
]]>Martick’s Restaurant Francais on Mulberry Street is a place of fond memories where Baltimore enjoyed fine food, lively music, and art for nearly a century. The once-famous restaurant started in 1917 as a small grocery store established by Harry and Florence Martick, both Jewish Polish immigrants. The Federal style corner building is even older—dating back to at least 1852—and the Martick family continued to live above the shop raising a family of five children. Following the end of Prohibition, the store (which may have already been operating as an illegal speakeasy) turned into a bar later known as Martick’s Tyson Street Tavern. After Harry’s death in the the 1940s, Florence’s five children pitched in to keep the business going. Morris Martick turned the family bar into a unique institution reportedly attracting what journalist Alan Feiler called “a mix of artists, musicians, journalists, working Joes and assorted self-styled bohemians, beats and hipsters” in the 1940s. But, by the 1960s, Morris Martrick was ready for a change. After a failed run for state legislature, Morris traveled to France where he studied French cooking and attracted a chef. Returning to Baltimore, he renovated and re-opened the bar as Martick’s Restaurant Francais in 1970. The restaurant’s reputation grew eventually attracting celebrity guests that include Baltimore-born filmmaker John Waters, actor Nicolas Cage and actress Barbara Hershey. The restaurant closed in 2008 and Morris Martrick passed away in 2011 at eighty-eight years old.
]]>In 1936, Sidney Friedman was riding a train to Baltimore and carrying a charcoal grill. Earlier that week, Friedman had dined at Ray's Steak House in Chicago and ate his very first charcoal-grilled steak. He'd never had anything like it. He asked the chefs how they made the steaks and immediately set out to get a grill of his own. When Sidney got back, he fired up the grill and started running the restaurants most iconic advertisement: "Cut your steak with a fork, else tear up the check and walk out."
The Chesapeake Restaurant had its beginnings in a deli established by Sidney's father, Morris Friedman, who immigrated to Baltimore in 1898. In 1913, he opened a gourmet deli under his name, and in 1933, after the end of Prohibition, he remodeled the deli and turned it into the Chesapeake Restaurant. The restaurant was in a prime location, only a couple blocks from Penn Station. It quickly became the go-to place for upscale Maryland seafood.
When Sidney took over and introduced the charcoal-grilled steaks a few years later, the popularity of the Chesapeake Restaurant continued to grow. According to him, the Chesapeake Restaurant was the first restaurant in Baltimore to serve a Caesar salad. In the 1950's, Sidney's younger brother Phillip took over after graduating from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration. In 1961, Phillip bought the Hasslinger's seafood restaurant next door, and the Chesapeake expanded from 29 seats to 300.
The Chesapeake Restaurant became one of the most expensive and exclusive restaurants in the city. It attracted all sorts of Baltimore celebrities, from newscasters to athletes. The massive restaurant featured a number of special lounges, including a room built as a shrine to Babe Ruth packed with memorabilia. The restaurant suffered a devastating fire in 1974 and continued operations until it went bankrupt in 1983. The family managed to purchase the restaurant back later that year, but could only stay afloat for another two years. The restaurant was sold at a foreclosure auction to Robert Sapero, and for the first time in 50 years, was no longer in the Friedman family's name.
Sapero's attempts to reboot the Chesapeake Restaurant failed and the building remained abandoned after 1989. Ultimately, Station North Development Partners LLC bought the building and a new restaurant opened there in 2013. The building is now occupied by the Pen & Quill Restaurant.
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