Walk into Ministry of Brewing in Upper Fells Point and you’ll pass by an old wooden confessional, situated just under the towering pipes of an ecclesiastical organ, and into a vaulted, light-driven space where Corinthian columns rise above worn wooden pews. This is no longer a Catholic church, but a desanctified historical building—and a brewery.

So instead of communion, there are flights of craft beers. Specifically, house brews pulled from 32 taps located directly beneath the stations of the cross—the 14-step Christian prayer devotion. And in the risen space where the altar once was, and where generations of priests celebrated Mass, there are now nine massive steel vats for brewing beer, a metal-and-hose-and pipe configuration where, well, another kind of transfiguration once took place.

Ministry is not just a brewery, but a community space. They host book clubs and fairs, Ted Lasso trivia nights, Pilates, tarot clubs, open-mic nights, “Beer & Ballet,” flea markets, and book signings. They also provide a welcoming location for food trucks in the lot behind the building.

It’s one of the leading examples of what Baltimore’s historic churches, many of which have increasingly become vacant or outright abandoned, can transform into, as part of what’s called “adaptive reuse”—with a little creativity, some dedicated people, and, in this case, a lot of hops.

Until 2020, the Ministry of Brewing was St. Michael the Archangel, a Catholic church built in 1857 to serve Baltimore’s German immigrants, that had closed its doors in 2011. After years of declining attendance and the increasing need for expensive repairs, its parishioners were redirected to a church in Highlandtown while St. Michael, then owned by the Redemptorist religious order, looked for a buyer.

Once one of the largest Catholic churches in the country’s oldest diocese, St. Michael had been closed for six years before a group of partners—Jeff Hunt, Mike Powell, Ernst Valery, and David Wendell—bought it in 2017. Wendell and Vallery, friends since college together at Cornell, are now Ministry’s two managing partners. Valery is now a New York property developer, while Wendell is a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Cincinnati. The pair had been looking to buy a church for a few years before St. Michael became available.

“It was sort of like a neighborhood nuisance,” says Valery, who lived down the street from St. Michael when it was vacant. “Your car would absolutely be broken into next to the church.”

Because the Ministry group bought not only the church but the adjacent rectory and school, they were able to divide that space up into apartments (now called the Ministry Lofts) to help make the project more viable. It’s also particularly handy for their head brewer, Dave Macala—his proper title is Minister of Malt and Hops—who now lives conveniently next-door to his tanks.

By the time the brewery came to be, the church had been abandoned for years “and getting worse every day; it was bad,” says Macala, who heard tales of people squatting inside. Fortunately, the barrel ceilings and plasterwork on the central columns were still fairly intact, although most everything below that, including the exterior walls, was badly damaged.

When the Ministry folks bought the building, though, it had been desanctified as a condition of selling. “We’re very careful not to tread on anyone’s religion,” says Macala “We don’t make Jesus puns in the beer names.”

Instead, the pints are called things like Mind the Gap, an English ESB; Old Maude, a brown ale; and 7:54, a West Coast-style IPA named for the time permanently shown on the clock in the clocktower above the building. But, as the brewmaster concedes, pointing above the vats, “At the end of the day, there is a giant picture of Jesus up there.”

“Church is where people come together,” says Valery. “And a brewery is where people come together. It’s not heavy alcohol, so no one’s ever walking out piss-drunk from the place. I think it’s sort of like what church was meant to do. You could just sit there and be in awe of it,” he continues, referencing the vaulted ceilings and restored art. “And then just hang out and have a couple of beers.”

“One thing that we did with the space was preserve something that was nationally historic,” says Wendell, noting that the project took well over a year to accomplish, using state and federal historic tax credits. Having the building listed on the historic register dictated what they could do to repair and rebuild the space.

They had to keep the crosses above the stations of the cross, for example, which they had considered removing to make the place more welcoming for non-Christians. And then there was the relic. “They came from Rome to take the relic back,” says Wendell of the bone that was retrieved from St. Michael. (Relics are actual physical remains or effects of saints, martyrs, or venerated persons that are housed in churches, historically under altars.)

“The building was abandoned and there were people stealing marble out of it. The roof was caving in,” continues Wendell. “One of the things that’s really important to recognize is that we saved this building.”

“We’re all preservationists,” adds Valery, noting that the religious items that they didn’t have to keep were given to a church recycling business. They repurposed as much as they were able: The wood used for the brewpub’s tables, for example, came from both the rectory flooring and the former altar, which had to be removed to make room for the brew system. “We really did try and save everything we could.”

“We could have gone in a ton of different directions…like a bunch of fermenters along the wall,” says Macala. “But ultimately we decided to center everything: It’s impressive to walk in the front door.”

Though none of the three men are particularly religious, Wendell says his parents are, and they have no issues with their son’s project. “I was explaining this to my mom, who invested in this. I just said, ‘Well, you know Jesus turned water into wine; we’re just turning water into beer.’”

It’s also worth noting that not only have churches been closing at a steady rate, but breweries have, too. The Brewer’s Art, the beloved Mt. Vernon brewpub, closed its doors in February after more than three decades in business. And two miles east from Ministry, the Brewer’s Hill neighborhood—once home to so many breweries that it was named for them—is down to only Mobtown Brewing Company.

“‘…JESUS TURNED WATER INTO WINE; WE’RE JUST TURNING WATER INTO BEER.’”

Baltimore has long been home to a remarkable number of churches, many historic, many gorgeous, and many now in poor repair and often vacant. Maryland was founded in part as a place for Catholics to worship freely, but church attendance has declined over the years, so much so that in 2024, the Archdiocese of Baltimore notified area Catholics of its intention to shutter 31 parishes effective that year, with the 61 remaining parishes to be merged into 30 area sites.

“It certainly is not what the church was built for,” Father T. Austin Murphy, pastor of Christ the King Church in Glen Burnie, told the Catholic Review in 2020, on the brewpub’s opening. “And certainly, it’s not what the church had served over the hundred-some-odd years that it was operational. But also, what were they going to do with the building?”

It’s a question many others have tried to answer over the years, often coming up with creative solutions. St. Stanislaus Church in Fells Point became Sanctuary Body, a fitness and bodywork facility, in 2012, twelve years after the Catholic parish permanently closed. St. Elizabeth of Hungary church in Patterson Park, which closed in 2024, merging its congregation with Canton’s St. Casimir church, was recently bought by Patterson Park Public School, which is next door and needing to expand.

Many other churches have been converted into condos or lofts, but those kinds of rebuilds tend to keep the exterior of the buildings intact, but completely modernize and rebuild the interiors, removing most of the ecclesiastical structure, identifying features, and art.

And then there is Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church, the sublimely beautiful church across the street from the Washington Monument and the Peabody, which, after a long time in limbo, was finally bought by the neighborhood-based nonprofit UNITE Mt. Vernon.

Built in 1872 with locally-sourced green serpentine stone and designed by Thomas Dixon in the Norman Gothic style of Paris’ Notre-Dame cathedral, the church—unlike most others being sold and reconfigured—is still being used by its parishioners. But it’s also now being used for something more than basement AA meetings and food banks—functions that are essential but don’t tend to keep the lights on.

The Ivy Bookshop has held popular holiday pop-ups in the church, with bookshelves in the pews and lines of books stacked like velvet museum ropes across off-limit staircases.

“I really admire the Ministry of Brewing project,” says Emma Snyder, owner of The Ivy, and also a UNITE board member, “because it’s like a historical preservation project. It preserved the space, but it also retained it as an accessible place that invites in all sorts of community uses.”

“I REALLY ADMIRE MINISTRY OF BREWING…IT’S LIKE A HISTORICAL PRESERVATION PROJECT.”

This is one of the central tenants of what Ministry, Mt. Vernon, and others are trying to do with their versions of adaptive reuse: recreate, albeit in a secular fashion, the community spaces that churches have historically been.

“It speaks to the lineage and the history of what churches were,” says Snyder, “which is like infrastructure for the human spirit, and to the degree congregations have dwindled, it’s meant that we’ve lost these civic spaces at the heart of our neighborhoods that weren’t one thing; they were everything.”

There are still some stained-glass windows at Ministry, in the back, behind the organ pipes, but there are also Ministry and state of Maryland and Orioles flags where there were once liturgical banners. If this all can seem a bit heretical, it’s perhaps worth noting that brewing beer has been a timeworn vocation for monks, the craft often helping to sustain monasteries and produce revenue. And there is still a palpable kind of reverence, if you look for it, in the care of the building, the attention paid to its history, even the lock on the confessional doors.

“People had some strong feelings about it,” says Megan Elcrat, of Present Company, the Baltimore-based architecture firm that did Ministry’s renovation. “Some people were like, you shouldn’t put something in a church.”

Like a brewery. “Think about when beer was basically how people hydrated, and that families would brew their own beer to drink,” says Elcrat, whose firm first learned about the Ministry property when it was deconsecrated. One of the challenges of transitioning St. Michael into a brewery was architectural. But it turns out, a lot of churches get turned into breweries, says Elcrat, and the firm went on road trips to look at them.

“All beautiful, all different, like a real range. But what became evident immediately was that they were all brewing it in a different physical part of the building,” says Elcrat. “Every other brewery was using the basement, parish hall, offsite facility, shed. We had to not only fit the actual brewing into the sanctuary building, but we also had to do it in a way that was historically appropriate.”

And not only historically appropriate, but aesthetically on point—or on tap, if you will. Ministry hosts its neighborhood events (crab food trucks, live music, art classes) nearly every day. And this year, they’ve brought a stall to the Baltimore Farmers Market and Bazaar, the largest farmers market in Maryland, selling beer and offering tastings and conversation.

“We really did want to make a statement about Baltimore, you know, being a nice place,” says Valery. “We wanted to say something positive about the city.”

In other words, he wanted a space that represented the city he sees—which is strikingly different from Baltimore’s national reputation—that has a vibrant arts scene, great neighbors, and an appreciation for beauty. Because there are few things as glorious as lifting a pint of ale made only a few feet away from a carved wooden pew, with St. Paul looking down from above, a long wooden table peopled with neighbors playing cards, folks bringing bags of Trinidadian food down the stairs from a new food truck.

If only the organ worked again.

Baltimore has long been a beer town, thanks to generations of German and other northern European immigrants who brought their brewing traditions with them when they settled here. Brewers moved into Canton and Highlandtown, establishing so many facilities that the neighborhood became known as Brewers Hill.

Baltimore’s first commercial brewery was established in 1748 and the bottle cap was invented here, revolutionizing how beer was sealed and carbonated. The American Can Company was instrumental in establishing the commercial canning of beer in the 1930s. And the National Brewing Company, founded in Highlandtown and known locally as Natty Boh, became a Baltimore symbol—its one-eyed sign, recently restored, still shining over Brewers Hill even though the brewery itself has closed. (More on that legacy, here.)

The region’s breweries have risen, fallen, and risen again, brewing impressive varieties of the sudsy sips and providing welcome third spaces for Baltimoreans to drink, eat, and gather with friends—and more often than not, dogs.

Here’s an updated list of more than a dozen places to grab a pint and some neighborly conversation in and around Baltimore City, just in time for Oktoberfest. For even more taprooms to explore throughout the state, check out our feature, “Ain’t the Beer Cold.”  

Checkerspot Brewing Company
South Baltimore 
A few convenient blocks away from Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium, Checkerspot is a neighborhood hangout started by a husband-and-wife team eight years ago. Judy Neff—a certified cicerone who holds a PhD in microbiology from Johns Hopkins—is the head brewer, and her husband, Rob, handles sales and distribution. Judy also helped found Baltimore Beer Babes, a craft beer association formed to bring more women into the industry.

Those serious credentials are evident in the beer, from the Juniperus IPA made with juniper berries and the Hillbilly Gold German pilsner—also used in the house Spaghett—to the Locally Delicious sour made with strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries. Checkerspot also often works with an actual beer historian, Catonsville-based Maureen O’Prey, who advises the brewery on historic beers that they reproduce on-site.

Dogs are welcome, as evidenced by the water bowls strategically placed around the huge industrial space, and there is a kitchen offering loaded hot dogs, pizzas, quesadillas, and sandwiches. Given its proximity to the stadiums, the taproom is a go-to for pre- and post-gaming, or watching from one of the many flat screens. And occasionally in the back room? Special evens like Baltimore’s revered Stoop Storytelling Series. 

Diamondback Brewing Co. 
Locust Point
When it joined the local beer scene near McHenry Row in 2016, Diamondback quickly became a favorite for city dwellers looking to down pints of the Green Machine house IPA and Locust Point lager, either in the sleek taproom or on the massive (dog-friendly) patio.

Throughout the years, the facility—which was started by three University of Maryland grads who experimented with home-brewing in their dorm—has grown to include its own Neapolitan pizza program and host countless community events. In 2024, the founders debuted a Baltimore County outpost in Timonium, which serves Aveley Farms coffee and pastries in addition to the pies and brews.

Guilford Hall Brewery
Station North
Because Guilford’s elaborate brewing system is from the Czech Republic, they brew two Czech-style beers, a lager and a pilsner, among myriad others. Beers rotate frequently, but there are always 10 on tap. The location is remarkable, originally constructed in 1898 to house the Crown Cork & Seal Company, which manufactured metal bottle caps. (We told you they were invented in Baltimore!)

These days, Guilford Hall, which opened in 2021, upholds the property’s legacy with a bar, taproom, and outdoor beer hall, in addition to the huge brewery operation. Nearly a city block long, with 20 stainless steel tanks, Guilford’s facility is a terrific addition to Baltimore’s modern brewery culture. There’s also an on-site restaurant (fish and chips, pierogies, German-style flatbreads) that offers plenty of food to soak up all the suds. And dogs are welcome, albeit only in the outside beer garden. Not to be missed are the occasional “Profs & Pints” nights, in which academics and experts give ad hoc talks about scholarly subjects as you drink.

Guinness Open Gate Brewery 
Halethorpe
Large-scale production of Baltimore Blonde may have moved out of state, but the first modern Guinness brewery on U.S. soil is still churning out small-batch beer in its huge Halethorpe facility. Though the exterior presents more like an Amazon warehouse, inside the gates is a beer lover’s paradise—complete with an outdoor beer garden (dogs allowed) and a spacious interior that includes a gift shop, dining room, and what they call an “experimental brewery.” In other words, it’s kind of like a Guinness museum, documenting the Dublin fixture’s history dating back to 1759.

So you can brush up on Irish drinking lore while you down a pint or two of milk stout, extra stout, amber ale, IPAs, or salt-and-lime ale. To get the full experience, order from an impressive menu that includes Guinness brown bread and stout butter, London sausage rolls, bangers and mash, and, of course fish and chips.  

Heavy Seas Beer
Halethorpe
Just up the road from the Guinness (take note if you’re doing a crawl), local trailblazer Heavy Seas—founded as Clipper City Brewing by Maryland craft beer champion Hugh Sisson in 1995—is the home of some of the region’s powerhouse beers, and a seemingly endless party. The taproom hosts trivia nights, yoga, open-mic nights, book fairs, even sourdough bread workshops, all happily accompanied by the famed Loose Cannon IPAs, plus pale ales, pumpkin beers, imperial stouts, witbiers, porters, lagers, and seasonal specials.

Can’t decide? Try a flight or pick up a six pack to-go. There’s a rotating schedule of food trucks parked outside and even a house dog, named Toothless, whose duties, according to the brewery’s well-followed Instagram feed, include “crumb cleanup, vibe regulation, and the occasional emotional support shift.” 

M8 Beer
South Baltimore
Yet another brewpub in the South Baltimore Brewery District adjacent to the stadiums—with a handy parking lot across the street under Cal Ripken Way—M8 bills itself as an Australian brewpub, as the brewers use Australian hops and the original owners and staff were Australian. It has an excellent food menu, featuring fried pickle chips, salads, fish and chips, smashburgers, grilled haloumi sandwiches, and falafel burgers. The beer’s pretty good too, with witbiers, hefeweizens, blonde ales, IPAs, and various lagers. There are also seltzers, ciders, and NA options, plus a cocktail menu.

Open since 2023, the place has pool tables upstairs, plus some impressive events including rugby watch parties, plenty of Ravens football, and Murder Mystery Co. nights where diners solve crimes with dinner theater actors. An added bonus: On Fridays, teachers get 15 percent off with a valid school ID. The space is both kid- and dog-friendly, even offering a jar of biscuits to treat your furry friends. 

Ministry of Brewing
Upper Fells Point
Open since 2020 in the former St. Michael the Archangel Catholic church in Upper Fells, Ministry of Brewing is not only one of Baltimore’s best examples of “adaptive reuse,” but a bonafide community hub. When preparing to open, partners and architects preserved much of the beautiful space, as well as much of the art. Now, it hosts almost daily events, including flea markets, trivia nights, life drawing, Tarot clubs, “Beer and Ballet,” and more, as well as food trucks in the back lot.

Meanwhile, nine vats stationed where the altar once was produce stellar beer—like the Berliner Weisse, oatmeal stout, hazy IPAs, Czech-style pilsner, American porter, Bavarian hefeweizen, German kolsch, and more. There are a dozen taps under the old stations of the cross, plus recycled wooden pews, the occasional pigeon in the rafters, and the historic organ still upstairs, albeit now silent. (No dogs, sadly.) 

Mobtown Brewing Company 
Brewers Hill
While Brewers Hill was once home to so many breweries—including the National and Gunther Brewing Companies—that the neighborhood was named for them, the only one left now is Mobtown. Named after Baltimore’s 18th-century moniker, Mobtown opened in 2019 in a former Westinghouse Electric Co. factory building. The industrial space still has open ceilings, a loading dock, and, near the taps, a massive crane hook. The brick walls now boast a huge octopus mural near all the steel tanks in the back, which brew an impressive list of beers.

Mobtown highlights everything from IPAs and lagers to sour ales, porters, and stouts. They also have cider, hard seltzer, and NA drinks to tip back while enjoying trivia nights, live music, Ping Pong, and local food trucks. Plus, look out for the cushy bed that’s home to Ernie, co-owner and brewer David Carpenter’s cat, who has been in residence at Mobtown since its opening. (Ernie is very tolerant, so dogs are welcome inside the taproom.) 

Monument City Brewing Company
Highlandtown
At the intersection of East Baltimore and North Haven streets in Highlandtown, Monument City was founded by two brothers in 2013 after they initially brewed out of Peabody Heights. Four years later, Ken and Matt Praay opened their own taproom in a circa-1901 building that was once the Williamson Veneer Company. A huge brick and exposed beam space, Monument City brews not only its own beer, but, as of two years ago, it’s also a homebase for Dundalk’s Key Brewing Company. The joint collective is now known as Brewers’ Haven. 

There’s a small stage for live music; a shelf loaded with board games; two dart boards in the back; and two flatscreens showing football, baseball and Premier League games. There are almost two dozen beers on offer, both on tap and in a cooler to take home. Among them are the flagship 51 Rye IPA made with rye grain, the fan-favorite Dundalk Calling West Coast IPA, and the Mexican Hot Chocolate barrel-aged stout, and a brown ale named after the owner’s German shepherd, Abbey. (Yes, dogs are welcome.) It’s also a great spot to curate flight with pilsners, sours, hazy IPAs, a Belgian-style blonde ale, a hefeweizen, and more. There’s no food made in-house, but food trucks routinely park outside, and, even better, the excellent Korean-American restaurant, Motte, is conveniently next door, with menus on Monument’s wooden tables.  

Mystique Barrel Brewing and Lager House
Pigtown
When owner Tom Pagano took over this Washington Boulevard brewhouse in 2023, he already knew his way around. It was formerly the longtime home of Suspended Brewing, where he cut his teeth before he took the leap to open a spot of his own. As someone who is fascinated with the science behind the brewing process, Pagano specializes in mixed-fermentation options like the Quartet Saison—an aged sour made with four different yeasts and microbes.

For purists, there are three or four lagers always on tap, as well as house hard seltzers and NA sips. Eats on deck in the spacious taproom range from pierogies and pulled pork sandos to jumbo wings and a house Ruben. If you can’t decide which day to visit, consider a Sunday, when the recurring live jazz shows are a neighborhood favorite.

Nepenthe Brewing Co.
Hampden
Since early 2019, Nepenthe has occupied an inviting space with exposed brick, soaring ceilings, and dark woods off of Falls Road—just a block north of The Avenue. It’s a suitable aesthetic, especially, as in this case, the building was once a sports bar and meatpacking operation. Husband-and-wife co-owners Brian Arnold and Jill Antos have been leaders in the local beer scene since the days of Nepenthe Homebrew—their beer-making supply store that used to operate in nearby Woodberry—so they have plenty of expertise.

Utilizing a 10-barrel brew house with four fermenters and a taproom with 16 draft lines, the beers run the gamut from an American lager and a vanilla-coffee porter to three double IPAs, two sour ales, and a witbier, among others. As there’s a restaurant on-site (offering some of the best Korean cheesesteaks, tofu clubs, cheeseburgers, and frites with dipping sauces you’ll find anywhere around town), dogs are only allowed outside, but there’s plenty of sidewalk seating. Inside are three flatscreens showing sports and a full cocktail bar, as well as a rack of T-shirt merch.  

Peabody Heights Brewery
Abell
This place is worth going to not only for the excellent beer and close-knit sense of community, but for the site’s history. The location was once the site of Old Oriole Park—previously home to the Federal League Baltimore Terrapins, the International League Orioles, and the Negro National League Baltimore Elite Giants. Peabody’s taproom now stands in the former left field, which somehow seems apt for a place devoted to brewing hazy IPAs, thermal oak-aged stout, Mr. Trash Wheel’s Lost Python Ale, and the namesake Old Oriole Park Bohemian Lager.

With a revolving schedule of visiting vendors and its own Korean-fusion food truck helmed by chef Anthony Lanasa (offering burgers, kimchi quesadillas, shrimp tempura, and bibimbap), there are a lot of options to help you wash down your suds. And given its reputation for hosting non-stop get-togethers (think: trivia nights, competitive karaoke, LGBTQ+ art markets, Baltimore Record Bazaars, and Baltimore Plant Swaps) it’s no wonder we recently gave Peabody a Best of Baltimore award for Best Community Events Space.  

Pickett Brewing Company
South Baltimore
A proud member of the South Baltimore Brewery District since 2022, Pickett’s taproom features a dozen taps, as well as an open industrial space with pretty rugs, long wooden tables, comfy chairs, and a huge leather sofa. There’s also kombucha and NA beer available for the non-drinkers or those under 21. Among the beers might be a raspberry sour, a few high-ABV IPAs, a double oat brown ale, a lager, and a few pilsners, many of which are available to-go.  

Dogs are welcome, if the resident BARCS working cat, Tuna, approves, as there’s no on-site restaurant, though there are snacks and the occasional food truck. If there’s no food truck, folks are welcome to bring their own eats. On Sunday afternoons, Pickett hosts local and regional bands in its famed Big Little Bluegrass Room, “for those of us who like our IPAs with live music.”  

Union Craft Brewing
Medfield
Founded in Hampden in 2011—and now the anchor for Union Collective’s makerspace hub visible from I-83 in Medfield—Union is known for its Duckpin pale ale, Divine IPA, Zadie’s lager (an ode to co-owner Adam Benesch’s late grandfather Henry “Zadie” Benesch, who worked at the brewery until he passed away at the age of 101), and Steady Eddie IPA (named after Orioles legend Eddie Murray). As evidenced by the beer names, Union takes its Baltimore roots very seriously, so it’s no surprise they have pretty great merch, too.

Dog-friendly and frequently hosting SPCA events, sports watch parties, and big concerts, Union is a true neighborhood watering hole. While hanging out in the taproom, be sure to stop into the photobooth and grab some grub from the on-site restaurant, Carroll & Son Fine Foods, which serves items like blue catfish tacos, cheesesteaks, crab dip, and cheeseburgers that go great with beer.  

Waverly Brewing Company
Woodberry
Open since 2015 in a former commercial equipment rental facility just off the JFX, Waverly Brewing Company is the opposite of most of the brewpubs on this list. It’s a deeply idiosyncratic spot that looks like something between your granny’s house and your dad’s garage—in the best way possible. Everywhere you look, you’ll find something like a life-sized cut-out of Cal Ripken, over-stuffed chairs, taxidermy heads on the wall, or Christmas lights. There’s a list of current beers scrawled on a chalkboard, a shelf full of big ceramic mugs belonging to regulars, and a jar of dog treats behind the bar.

Started by local musicians and artists, it’s now owned by brewer Roy Fisher, who began home-brewing when he was 13, and Melissa Yukna, a mother of four who is often behind the bar. There is no trivia, no karaoke, no live music, no booze, wine, or food—though Blue Pit BBQ & Whiskey Bar is conveniently around the corner. But they do host the Baltimore Honky Tonk country-western dance parties, as well as occasional weddings, neighborhood potlucks, even a funeral once. “The only way this makes sense is for us is to play small-ball,” says Yukna one evening, as a small group of folks—including a woman knitting a hat—order pints.

Wet City
Mt. Vernon
The name of this Mt. Vernon microbrewery is a nod to Maryland’s resistance to Prohibition—it was the only state in the union that refused to pass laws to reinforce it—which seems particularly fitting when you pull up a seat at the blonde-wood bar and take in the long row of taps and shelves of booze.

The welcoming neighborhood joint just celebrated a decade in business, brewing hazy IPAs, amber lagers, American stouts, fruited sours, and bourbon-barrel-aged marzens. They also brew signature beers for local businesses like Fadensonnen, Royal Blue, Snake Hill, and Mera Kitchen Collective. It’s all perfectly paired with the food menu, featuring items like fried pickles, kimchi tots, pimento-cheese chicken sandwiches, and ancho double smashburgers. Add all-night happy hours and food specials (wing nights, Taco Tuesdays, Whiskey Wednesdays)—plus a vinyl station in the back with two turntables and shelves of records—and you’ll forgive them for not allowing dogs.

Others worth the drive: BC Brewery, Big Truck Farm Brewery, Farmacy Brewing, Inverness Brewing, and more here. 

On a hot, sunny morning in late June, the Pride of Baltimore II docked at Fells Point’s Broadway Pier. There would be no voyages out on the Chesapeake Bay today—amidst dozens of other historic vessels, the tall ship was now back in her home port for Sail250, part of the United States’ 250th birthday celebrations.

At the edge of this waterfront neighborhood, her 11 sails were furled, and her many ropes were coiled into circles along the wooden deck. Visitors walked aboard and were greeted by Senior Captain Jan Miles. A tall man with a thatch of foam-white hair, the 75-year-old sailor joined the first Pride of Baltimore as captain in the spring of 1981. He’s well-versed on sailing history and full of great stories about this lineage of ships—like the fact that the first Pride was almost called The Blaze Starr, after the city’s beloved burlesque star, proposed by the original builder, Melbourne Smith, “who was a
bit of a raconteur.”

Instead, it became the Pride of Baltimore as a more direct way of communicating her mission. Because in Baltimore’s beginnings, says Miles, this harbor was “sail, pure sail.” And while the shipyards that once lined the local shorelines are now mostly gone, replaced by condominiums, hotels, and restaurants, that maritime history is still alive and well in Baltimore, thanks in part to the Pride, both I and II.

This year marks not only the 250th year of the United States, but 40 years since the original Pride went down in a sudden microburst squall near Puerto Rico in May 1986. The first Baltimore Clipper schooner to be built in 150 years, it had been constructed a decade prior, as part of the then Bicentennial of the nation’s founding. But sailing back to her home port that spring, she lost her captain—Armin Elsaesser—and three of her crew—sailors Vincent Lazzaro, Barry Duckworth, and Nina Schack—in the storm. After the ship went down, the eight surviving crew members spent more than four days in a life raft before they were rescued.

Despite that legacy—indeed, because of it—Pride II, which was built from scratch in the wake of that disaster, has spent this summer honoring its past and, on what would be the original ship’s 50th birthday, celebrating its future, along with the country’s Semiquincentennial. The vessel was front and center during Sail250, hosting dock tours, releasing a special batch of rum with Old Line Spirits, and following the rest of the event’s international fleet up the East Coast, including past the Statue of Liberty to New York City on the Fourth of July.

It’s consistent with Pride II’s ongoing mandate: to memorialize its lost crew, to educate, and to continue to sail as an ambassador for the maritime history of both Baltimore and Maryland. During her two-year construction, she was rebuilt bigger and stronger than her predecessor, with a greater cruising range and the ability to carry passengers.

Then in 1988, she finally set sail again, out of Baltimore, bound for Bermuda. In the years since, she’s visited more than 200 ports in 40 countries, covering more than 275,000 nautical miles, but always coming home to Baltimore. When back in this harbor, there are deck tours, day sails, and guest crew programs.

For the last two years, she’s also been hosting an annual festival called Sailabration, held this year on September 26 at Broadway Pier, featuring nautically themed music, food and drink, and even real-deal sailor’s tattoos.

“You don’t have stories unless you leave home, and you [can’t tell] stories unless you bring them home,” says Miles, as another group of visitors boards the ship to hear some for themselves. “That’s been the business of the last 50 years. What’s next? Another 50 years.”

Sixteen years ago, when The New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin wrote his culinary anthropology piece, “Where’s Chang?” it was not so easy to find acclaimed Chinese chef Peter Chang, who at the time moved from restaurant to restaurant, often without notice, resulting in long Chowhound fanboy detective threads.

These days, however, those of us in the DMV can find the acclaimed chef and restaurateur pretty easily. (This piece could be called, “Where Isn’t Chang?”) In fact, he now owns 18 restaurants, which are often named after him and sport his image in their windows, along with evidence of his James Beard accolades—a showy imprimatur if ever there was one.

This is the case with Peter Chang Annapolis, one of the chef’s latest restaurants, which opened in February. PCA is a light-filled, cheerful, pea-green dining room with a huge bar, pastoral murals on the walls, and two rooms with the round tables and lazy Susans that are the best way to experience Chinese banquets. There’s also an open kitchen with a window where you can watch the chefs make dumplings and operate the Italian-made oven that houses Chang’s signature burnished Peking ducks.

This location also offers their all-you-can-eat dim sum brunch menu every day. (Baltimore’s NiHao only offers it on the weekend.) Chang has instituted his dim sum brunches at many of his restaurants—the practice started in Bethesda’s Q by Peter Chang—where diners can draw from his lengthy list of dumplings, bao, shumai, noodles, and small plates, all for a set price.

The new Annapolis location takes that trend one step further, expanding it from a weekend brunch concept to an everyday focus; this is also, happily, a trend in Chang’s other Mid-Atlantic restaurants.

I’m not usually a fan of the all-you-can-eat restaurant concept. Too many traumatic memories of Red Lobster shrimp and Las Vegas buffets, plus the inherent problem of, well, just too much food. That said, the AYCE dim sum brunch at NiHao has been life-changing for many Baltimoreans, offering all the xiaolongbao bamboo baskets and mapo tofu possible at an affordable price. The portions are helpfully small, so it’s not so much an impossible feast as an opportunity to try a bit of everything and then center down on guilt-free dumplings.

Dim sum traces its origins to teahouse snacks served to Silk Road travelers, but it came into its own in 19th-century Hong Kong, where teahouses featured roving carts bearing repeating dumplings and various small dishes. Chang came to the U.S. not from Hong Kong, but from a farming town in Hubei, and then a culinary school in Wuhan. He cooked at luxury hotels and won cooking competitions, and eventually moved to the U.S., where he was chef at the Chinese Embassy in D.C., then moved, enigmatically, through various DMV restaurant kitchens before building his own small empire and winning a slew of awards.

The Annapolis restaurant also recently started featuring to-go-only bento boxes, the terrific Japanese mainstay, here with a Sichuan twist. They’re a marvelous way to get lunch if you don’t have time to spend an hour and a half eating chile-oil wontons.

Of course, Chang’s Annapolis location has more than just dim sum and bento boxes. There are the magnificent set pieces, notably those Peking ducks, a classic Beijing dish that has long been a feature of Chang’s restaurants and which arrive lacquered on a platter, along with crepe-like pancakes and a zesty plum sauce. There are also many of the chef’s other signature dishes, including the whole branzino, thatched with ginger scallions; the dry pot spicy pork belly; the beautifully arranged, intensely colorful dragon eggplant; and Grandma’s noodles—hand-pulled strands doused with house chile sauce, vinegar, garlic, and scallions.

The Annapolis restaurant, executive-cheffed by Chungang Shi (all Chang’s restaurants are overseen by him but have their own executive chefs, who tilt the menus to their own tastes and creativity), specializes in seafood, particularly local catfish. Thus, Chesapeake blue catfish is featured—in bowls with chile sauce, in noodle soups torqued with sprigs of Sichuan peppercorns, in a sour cabbage broth, as well as in a stone pot. Specific to Annapolis is also a gloriously meaty porcini-and-duck rice pot.

All of Chang’s restaurants have excellent bar menus featuring creative cocktails, often highlighting baijiu, the Chinese sorghum-based liquor, as well as Chang’s own labeled beer, a rice lager brewed by Baltimore’s Mobtown Brewing Company.

So there is much to love in this new outpost—let us not forget the seasonal specials, which recently included two dishes featuring bullfrog. But the standouts remain that dim sum spread, loaded with soup dumplings, chile-spiked wontons, shrimp shumai, dan dan noodles, duck-stuffed bao, plus his signature scallion bubble pancakes handball-sized domes of inflated pastry served with sauces.

Sitting at table, with or without the brunch mimosas, pots of hot tea, or the sublime black-sesame egg-yolk bao (please order this, even if you think you can’t eat anymore), is a study in what an excellent brunch can be—in the absence of too many Bloody Marys and orders of eggs Benedict.

Chang’s new Annapolis restaurant may be in a nondescript concrete universe outside of Maryland’s capital city, but inside is the utterly lovely world of Sichuan food, all those teahouse-inspired banquets—and maybe a bento box to take over the Bay Bridge to the beach.

PETER CHANG ANNAPOLIS: 918 Bay Ridge Rd, Annapolis, 410 558-6958. HOURS: Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 4:30 – 9; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. PRICES: AYCE dim sum, $30; bento boxes, $14.95-18; entrees $48-15; Peking duck, $40-78. AMBIANCE: Modern Sichuan and Hong-Kong-style teahouse.

Lori and Jimmy Emmert’s seafood and crab house, sitting by the side of a country road in Dayton, about 25 miles southwest of Baltimore, is a decidedly old-school version of the beloved Maryland genre.

Emmert’s Seafood encompasses a pale butter-yellow clapboard house, an attached covered outdoor patio, and, for good measure (not to mention historical significance and a bit of roadside advertising), the long firehouse-red custom seafood-steaming trailer where the business officially began.

Inside the restaurant, old family photographs (Jimmy culling oysters on the South River; Jimmy on another boat with his grandfather), nautical maps, and newspaper clippings (a Waterman’s Gazette story on the family) line the cornflower-blue paneled walls of the cozy dining room. A boxy bar stands just inside the door, where the bartender can be seen squeezing fresh citrus for crushes.

Past an open door to the steam room, through which you can see huge metal pots cooking two-bushels worth of crabs, a corridor leads to the patio dining room. There, picnic-style tables are arranged in formation, topped with brown paper tablecloths weighted down by baskets of condiments, crab mallets, and rolls of paper towels, as if acknowledging that weather is always coming. Heat lamps stand at attention.

Locals and visitors, tourists and regulars all sit, gathered around plates of hush puppies and crab dip, bowls of crab soup, mandatory mounded trays of spice-dusted steamed crabs, and, eventually, maybe a slice of Smith Island cake. Imagine an Old Line State iteration of some Norman Rockwell painting.

The origins of Emmert’s, as well as the Emmerts themselves, began long before the advent of that seafood trailer. Both Lori and Jimmy grew up on the same road in Shady Side and have known each other since childhood. They married in 1987. Jimmy is the fourth generation of watermen in his family and the pair have spent their lives on Chesapeake Bay boats.

“Jimmy started working on the water when he was 15”—when he got his first work boat—“but he’s been on the water forever,” says Lori, sporting an Emmert’s shirt, a blonde ponytail, and a gold crab necklace.

She narrates the history of the framed photo of Jimmy on Parish Creek alongside his grandfather, Capt. Vernon “Whitey” Wilde, who himself came from a long line of Chesapeake Bay commercial watermen and who taught Jimmy how to fish, clam, oyster, and, of course, crab. Once people found out that he was a local waterman, Jimmy began selling his catch to restaurants and eventually the couple decided to start steaming their own seafood.

The Emmerts formed an LLC in 2003, bought the trailer in 2014, and took over the former Floyd’s Crossroads Pub in 2024. When they first started the trailer business, Lori still had a full-time job with an accounting firm but Jimmy stopped crabbing because, he says, “you can’t be two places at once.” These days, Lori works at Emmert’s too, though she still takes time off during tax season.

It is a decidedly family operation, with Lori baking many of the pies and cooking family-recipe dishes (the cream of crab soup is a recipe “that’s like 200 years old,” says Lori) while Jimmy unloads bushels of crabs outside the steam room.

Brendan Floyd, who is both bartender and manager, has worked at the restaurant for years: The Emmerts bought the place from his parents. “I kinda came with the building,” he says as he juices more citrus.

In the two years since the Emmerts began cooking for their brick-and-mortar spot—the trailer has been retired—the menu has expanded to include all the appetizers, soups, sandwiches, and fish platters you’d expect from a traditional crab house.

There are also frogs legs on the menu, something one usually finds in classical French restaurants. When they were still working out of the trailer, says Lori, “We got them for a customer who wanted them, actually his mother, who lived in West Virginia or something.” They sold them raw, as the trailer didn’t have a fryer, and customers kept asking for them. And so when they moved into the restaurant with its fryer, the frog legs, which are now breaded and fried, came with them.

And then there are the crabs, dredged in a proprietary blend of Halethorpe’s J.O. Spice, and delivered to those brown-papered tables hot from the steamer. Emmert’s serves crabs year-round, so they’re Maryland crabs during the season, then sourced from Texas and Louisiana.

After a lifetime of living and working on the water, the Emmerts source their local catch from friends and neighbors, and their wholesalers are often former colleagues who have gotten off the water.

Behind the restaurant, Jimmy unloads more bushels of the crabs that have defined both his family and his own lifetime.

“It’s a social thing when you eat seafood,” he says, remembering his grandparents’ porch parties. “We really bought this because our customers at the trailer said, ‘Won’t y’all just buy a brick-and-mortar so we can come and eat your crabs and drink beer.’”

Done and done.

EMMERT’S SEAFOOD: 4809 Ten Oaks Road, Dayton, 301-490 4423. HOURS: Wed.-Thurs., 3:30-9 p.m.; Fri., 3:30-10 p.m.; Sat. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. PRICES: Apps, $6.95-$23.95; sandwiches, $13.95-MP; entrees and steamed crabs, $21.95-MP; desserts, $5.99-$7.99 AMBIANCE: Old-timey crab house.

As every soccer fan in the entire world knows, and has known for the last four years, the 2026 FIFA World Cup began Thursday, June 11, with the Mexico v. South Africa match, which Mexico won 2-0. (In our case, it was a terrific excuse to eat tacos and cheer ourselves hoarse alongside other revelers at La Calle in Fells Point, as pictured above.)

For the next 39 days across the USA, Canada, and Mexico, the greatest soccer (sorry, football) tournament of all will play out not only in stadiums across North America, but also in local bars, restaurants, sports hubs, taquerias, and community greenspaces.

Here are the best Baltimore-area hangouts to quench your cravings—for eats and drinks and for what most of the planet considers the best of all sports.

La Calle: If Mexico’s first game was any indication, this Fells Point taqueria—which uses a massive projector to play the action live—is going to be well populated the next few weeks. Snag a seat, tip back a beer, and chow down on bites that showcase the flavors of the chef/owners’ native Puebla. 623 S. Broadway.

Claddagh Pub: Billed as Canton’s original soccer bar, with roots dating back to 1995, Claddagh has long been known for its hyped-up watch parties. Head to the O’Donnell Square pub for static specials during every game, including $4 Michelob Ultras, $5 Stella Artois bottles, $5 Nutrl seltzers, and $18 Michelob Ultra buckets for a crew. 2918 O’Donnell St.

The Duchess: Hampden’s English-inspired pub was born for this. During every match, take advantage of 50 percent-off drafts and a special snack of the day. Games will be on as early as 3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and as late as 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. 1002 W. 36th St. 

Guilford Hall Brewing: Big screens and big beers. What more could you ask for? This community hub near Penn Station offers multiple spaces with indoor/outdoor seating and plenty of screens. Plus, game-day grub and discounts on its house-brewed pints. For the first Team USA game on June 12 🇺🇸, expect $18 Baltimore Pilsner and Guilford Lager pitchers, as well as a roster of food specials. 1611 Guilford Ave. 

Milloh!: As an Argentine-fusion concept, it makes sense that this pop-up purveyor is going all out for the tournament. The first of many local watch parties it plans to host will be at Mobtown Brewing Company in Canton on June 12 🇺🇸. Pair your beer with a signature smash burger, and stay tuned via Instagram for more events to be announced soon. 4015 Foster Ave. 

Monument City and Key Brewing: The breweries’ Highlandtown homebase is transforming from the Baltimore Brewers’ Haven to the Baltimore World Cup Haven for the next few weeks, when regulars can expect an interactive fan zone with live music, activities, and eats and drinks during all USA games and all matches that occur Thursdays through Sundays. In true Brewers’ Haven fashion, the teams will be collaborating on the watch parties with neighbors Motte, Urban Axes, and Old Line Spirits. And a new beer is dropping for the occasion, too. (Duh!) Be sure to sample the World Cup-inspired Extra Time, a 3.5 percent ABV summer ale. 1 N. Haven St.  

R. House: The community gathering spot in the heart of Remington is ready to party. Try to arrive early to snag a seat at R. Bar for drink specials (like $8 Crushes for the first Team USA match on June 12 🇺🇸) and a prime view. 301 W. 29th St. 

Sláinte Irish Pub: Soccer is religion at this Thames Street staple on the water in Fells Point. Here, the staff has dreamed up an entire menu of clever cocktails and “Sideline Snacks” to enjoy while rooting for your team. Among them are the vodka and lemon-infused Strawberry Striker served in a soccer chalice, the Final Whistle Margarita, and a flavored 34-oz. Hat Trick Crush bucket. Snacks are inspired by participating countries, with options like Rio yucca fries, Bavarian beer brats, jàmon and gruyere puffs, and, of course, all-American sliders. 700 Thames St.

Baltimore has always been a seafood town, thanks to our generations-long love affair with crab cakes and coddies, soft-shells and crab boils, oysters, and lake trout. But it’s never had a lot of options for good sushi, which means that the January opening of Hana Sushi in Hampden came as terrific news.

Hana is the second sushi restaurant from owner Tina Chen, who opened Yama Sushi in Ellicott City in 2019 with her husband, Denny. It brings not only excellent sushi to Hampden’s 36th Street restaurant row, but also a menu of superlative ramen and yakitori, as well as an outstanding bar and cocktail program.

A pale-colored, light-filled restaurant in the corner spot that was once the late, lamented Souvlaki, Hana is the kind of one-stop Japanese restaurant this city needs. The dining room is anchored by a big, open sushi bar filled with beautiful fish shipped daily from Tokyo and helmed by veteran sushi chef Jackie Nakazima Eizi.

In addition to nigiri, sashimi, and rolls, the menu includes tonkotsu ramen made by Denny, as well as yakitori (the grilled meat skewers popularized in izakaya restaurants), gyoza, tempura, tofu, and Hana “tacos,” which are flour tortillas filled with raw fish or tofu.

There is also a little market corner, stocked with Japanese items like Pocky, instant ramen, and matcha Kit Kats, which is not only seriously adorable but means we don’t have to trek to Catonsville’s H-Mart for candy runs.

Having helmed her Ellicott City restaurant for seven years before opening Hana, Chen knows what she’s doing. The fish is the most important aspect of a good sushi place, and she gets hers—toro, yellowtail, salmon, eel, Hokkaido scallops and uni, octopus, and mackerel—daily via Jessup seafood supplier True World Foods, which flies it directly from Tokyo.

And then there’s the necessity of a sushi chef who knows what to do with all this lovely stuff. Nakazima Eizi, born, bred, and trained in Tokyo, has 45 years of experience as a sushi chef, and ran Yama Sushi’s sushi bar before moving over to open Hana. With a white chef’s cap and a welcoming smile, he operates his new sushi bar with precision, artistry, and grace.

Hana’s offerings are wide-ranging and include many tricked-out rolls, like the Edgar Allan Roe, composed of shrimp, burdock root, roe, avocado, yuzu, and chile oil, as well as others featuring crab, spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, eel, shiso and even truffled soy sauce.

Though these are fun and gorgeous, it’s the simpler nigiri sushi that allows Nakazima Eizi’s skills to shine. The eel nigiri is a succulent combination of broiled eel atop perfectly articulated rice, wrapped with a ribbon of nori, dusted with sesame seeds and a bit of sauce. And the seared salmon belly nigiri is a masterful rendition, a curl of fatty salmon draped over a nub of rice that Nakajima Eizi fires with a culinary torch so that it partially melts.

All this can be washed down with a small cup of green tea, but that would mean that you’d miss out on the excellent, highly creative cocktail program. As one would expect, there’s a large sake section, as well as Japanese beers, but there’s also an impressive whiskey list of both the American and Japanese varieties (spelled without the “e”), including bottles from Nikka and Yamazaki distillers, as well as Suntory (see: Bill Murray’s booze commercials in Lost In Translation).

And then there are those cocktails, an inventive collection that makes use of not only all the available spirits, but also ingredients like shiso, lychee, ginger, and nori. Nothing like A Night in Shinjuku—Nikka whisky, cognac, dry vermouth, amaro, maraschino, and angustura—to help wash down your double toro roll (maybe the best roll on the menu) and pork belly yakitori.

Tina and Denny are both Chinese, not Japanese, but their love of Japanese cuisine is a long and storied one. They met in Japan, where Denny was studying and where Gina lived for seven years and where they both came to love the food of the country.

While Tina runs the front of house at both restaurants, Denny is at home in the kitchen, making all the sauces and the broth for the ramen, a 10-hour-long production for the tonkotsu (there are also miso and shoyu versions).

And the ramen is terrific: milky, luscious soup paired with twisty noodles, thick slabs of pork, small mounds of grilled corn, and crucially, a perfectly cooked jammy egg. Because for lovers of ramen, there is nothing as telling as that egg, seemingly one of the easiest components of a good bowl of ramen, but often bafflingly overlooked. (The bowl of tonkotsu I recently had at one Baltimore ramen-ya came with a hard-boiled egg, something that almost made me cry.)

Discovering Hana’s ramen, as well as its fantastic sushi, has restored both my palate and my faith that if you build great sushi, Baltimore’s seafood lovers will come.

HANA SUSHI: 1103 W. 36th St., Hampden, 443-869-2503. HOURS: Tues.-Sun., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. PRICES: Starters, sides, yakitori: $4-18; ramen: $20; sushi, sashimi, and rolls: $7-32. AMBIANCE: Cozy, light-filled neighborhood spot.

When you first enter À Demain Cafe, which opened on Hampden’s 36th Street restaurant row last July, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d wandered into an antique shop. There’s a gorgeous old Victrola by the door, a flowered settee, old-fashioned light fixtures and wall hangings, and gilded old mirrors with the shop’s menus painted on the glass.

Owner Christian Yoo will likely be stationed behind the counter, offering not curios but croffles and crookies—hybrid waffle-croissants and cookie- croissants—toasts, quiches, and croque monsieurs.

À Demain, which translates to “see you tomorrow” in French, is Yoo’s first business venture, and he runs the shop with his wife, Kelly. He credits the décor, he says one weekday morning in between making matcha lattes and cappuccinos, to Gott Efni, the Ellicott City florist that the couple used for their wedding.

It’s a charming location, though be warned that the only seating is on the front porch, which in the colder months sports a heating lamp and vinyl curtains. As for the menu, Yoo chose to highlight toasts because they were “very brunchy.”

“You can put anything on toast,” says Yoo, noting that they’re also pretty straightforward recipes, which seemed right for his first restaurant venture.

They’re also quite beautiful: open-faced sandwiches similar to Scandinavian smorrebrod that come in iterations of avocado-hummus, roasted tomato burrata, mushroom, honey-ricotta, and a lox version decorated with capers and pickled red onions. For the bread, they use excellent whole-grain slices, which are delivered daily from Lyon Bakery in Hyattsville.

In addition to the toasts, there are single-serving quiches, round pies the size of soup bowls that come in mushroom or bacon and cheese; tidy square croque monsieurs; croffle Benedicts—which is what you get when you press laminated dough in a waffle iron, then top the results with poached eggs and sauce—and, in a nod to Yoo’s Korean heritage, bulgogi melts. Should you want something with more bells and whistles than toasts, you can trick out your croffle with Nutella, strawberries, matcha, bananas, Oreos, or Biscoff.

With its rough-wood counter, plants trailing from shelving, and oversized floral pillows on that settee, À Demain is a very cozy place. And while the front porch can be a bit chilly at times, that giant heat lamp wards off the cold and extends the cozy vibes beyond the front door.

Though the crookies and croffles are cute, it’s the toasts that we’ll be coming back for. With their thick rustic bread and well-executed toppings, they’re an excellent alterna- tive to most breakfast offerings, and, yes, “very brunchy,” indeed.

À DEMAIN CAFE: 830 W. 36th Street, Hampden. HOURS: Tues.-Fri. 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sat. 8 a.m.-4 p.m. PRICES: Drinks: $3-6; toasts: $11 16; brunch items: $11-16. AMBIANCE: Antique shop.

On the south side of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, jigsawed between the Domino Sugar refinery and the Baltimore Museum of Industry, sits The General Ship Repair Corporation. Where once there were convoyed rows of such shipyards along the Inner Harbor, now there is only this one, a family-owned yard that’s been in operation for more than a century. In fact, it’s one of just three ship repair works still in operation in the greater Baltimore area—the other two are in Curtis Bay—one of which only repairs Coast Guard vessels.

General Ship Repair (GSR) is a testament to the city’s maritime roots and the long history of the port of Baltimore, as well as a reminder that this whole stretch of the Inner Harbor was once composed not of hotels and condos, but of those shipyards. Situated on a two-plus-acre stretch between Key Highway and the Patapsco, it’s composed of a pair of old brick buildings; one shop each for fabrication, machinery, and electrical repair; and two 1,000-ton floating dry docks.

GSR’s endurance is also a testament to the Lynch family, who founded the business in 1924 and still owns and operates it. Charles “Buck” Lynch first started GSR as a small marine machine shop on Light Street, in the location that’s now home to the Baltimore Hyatt Regency. He moved the shipyard a mile and a half down the road to its present site in Locust Point in 1929. The business went bankrupt during the Great Depression, but Lynch managed to buy it back at auction and to grow the shipyard, which, during the height of World War II, employed as many as 600 workers. Over the years, the company has repaired and serviced schooners, steamships, paddle-wheelers, tugs, tour boats, and super tankers.

Sitting in his wood-paneled office on the second floor of the original building, photographs and paintings and ship paraphernalia from the last hundred years lining the walls, Ryan Lynch, the company’s current president and Buck’s great-grandson, downplays his family’s legacy.

“We fix ships,” he says of his team, which now numbers 45, conceding that it is kind of a broad description.

As he sits behind his desk, his father’s desk nearby, three generations of his family looking down from their portraits and photographs, Ryan seems remarkably comfortable, a man happy in the setting he quite literally grew up with. While his brother, the company’s vice president—tall, black-bearded—looks like a waterman, Ryan—youthful, clean-shaven, and clean-cut, with a Carhartt jacket taking the place of the mandatory life jackets worn on the pier—presents more like a weekend-dad outdoorsman.

“We’re taking tugboats or dinner-group cruising boats or smaller, 50-to-180-foot vessels and dry-docking them, so lifting them out of the water and being able to do full dry-dock work—blasting paint on the hull, any steel repairs on the hull, any mechanical work that needs to be done underwater,” Ryan says.

GSR also travels to ports to work on big ships like the gray military vessels that anchor nearby, and they’re able to do on-site emergency repairs when and wherever needed (they’ve gone as far afield as Hawaii).

Back in the day, paddle-wheelers—historic steamboats with large, engine-driven, submerged wheels that propelled the vessels—would come into the Inner Harbor and head to the original location of GSR for repair. These days, much of their current work is done at the two massive dry docks at the pier a few hundred feet from where Ryan is sitting. There, at the location that’s been their home for the last century, GSR’s crew can work on two ships at a time, “plus whatever’s in the water.”

Here’s the thing about ship repair: It’s painstaking work, alternating between dangerous jobs and a lot of patience between them. But it’s also highly skilled, time-honored work, and an absolutely critical component of any busy port.

Here’s the thing about ship repair: It’s painstaking labor. But it’s also highly skilled, time-honored work, and an absolutely critical component of any busy port.

Ryan pulls up historical photos of this southern stretch of the Inner Harbor, once a row of dry docks and graving docks—the narrow, excavated basins with reinforced walls used to repair ships too large for dry docks—and machine shops, where now there is only the shipyard his great-grandfather began. Over the years, as each generation took the helm—from Buck to Buck’s son, Jack; to Jack’s sons, Derick, Mike, and Cary; to Derick’s sons, Ryan and Chaz—the business grew.

“The technology of ship repair hasn’t changed too much,” says Ryan. “The machines get nicer and better, but they’re not crazy. It’s not like we’re using robots.”

He gestures over to a second wooden desk in the corner, the one used by his father before he retired in 2023. Derick wanted to keep the desk, though it’s clear it’s mostly honorary—these days, he just comes in for board meetings. But the desk functions like the portraits on the wall, a reminder of a century’s worth of history: of family, of ships, and of Baltimore.

Walk across the bridge—an old metal walkway salvaged from some ship or pier—from Ryan’s office to the newer machine shop, then downstairs and across a parking lot to the pier and its two dry docks, and you can see the Domino’s sign to your right, a neon reminder of the duration and history of Baltimore’s storied Inner Harbor.

Though many Baltimoreans’ experience of its maritime history tends to be limited to trips on the water taxi or a booze cruise excursion or visits to the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park Museum, it’s worth noting that Baltimore is the 16th busiest port in the country, in 2024 handling 45.9 million tons of international cargo valued at $62.2 billion. It took the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March of 2024 to reify to many of us the importance of Baltimore’s port.

“I think people don’t know too much about the maritime industry and how important it is,” says Ryan, noting that this changed when the bridge fell. “Luckily for us, we had a lot of projects already here, like long-term projects,” when the disaster occurred and blocked the entrance to the harbor for 78 days while crews worked to safely clear the debris.

“This industry is very much a rollercoaster,” he continues, noting the obvious: that a vital aspect of any busy port is not only its access, but keeping the vessels that use it well-maintained. The company has repaired a hundred years-worth of barges, tankers, and tugs, and these days they work on maybe 20 to 30 vessels a year, many of which include boats docked for Coast Guard-mandated maintenance that might take more than a year to complete.

“The technology of ship repair hasn’t changed too much. The machines get nicer and better, but they’re not crazy. It’s not like we’re using robots.”

They’ve also worked on such notable vessels as the Pride of Baltimore II, the historic Baltimore clipper ship reproduction; the WW II restored Liberty ship, the S.S. John W. Brown; a series of Army Corps of Engineers boats; the N/S Savannah, a historic nuclear-powered merchant ship; the icebreaker A.V. Sandusky, which is operated by the Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources and which GSR originally built; and, yes, even Baltimore’s famous trash wheels (while not quite ship-sized, they’re big enough to warrant expert repair).

GSR also has a long-term relationship with the small fleet of the Historic Ships of Baltimore, which includes the USS Constellation and the submarine Torsk, all permanently docked on the northern side of the Inner Harbor. This breadth of skills is reflected in the trajectory of the current generation of the Lynch family. Both Ryan and his brother, Chaz, along with Dave Gross one of two current vice presidents, worked in the shipyard alongside their father and uncles during high school. Ryan graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy as a maritime engineer, then worked on commercial ships; Chaz enlisted in the Coast Guard.

“I joined the Coast Guard to get out away from home, and so I pretty much went as far away as possible,” Chaz says of his stint, which included three years in Alaska. Then, perhaps inevitably, came the pull home. “I wanted to come back to the family business,” Chaz says, now in his office down the hall from his brother’s. “This is what I know.”

Office manager Jessica Morrison, who in 2019 had the daunting task of succeeding a woman who had worked for GSR for 48 years (“hired by my grandfather,” says Ryan), came to the company not from the Coast Guard but from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where she played the French horn (“I went to Peabody for too many degrees to count”). But she is also a longtime sailor and so was attracted to a maritime industry job. And one of the many things she loves about her job is exactly that history.

“It is incredible talking to all these older employees, or people who just worked around the port, and hearing their stories and really thinking about how much of an influence ship-building has had in this area,” she says one morning at her desk down the hallway from Ryan’s office. Her office, too, is decorated like a ship museum, photos and paintings of historic ships on the walls, hard hats and lifejackets strewn across various chairs and tabletops.

“We are the western-most seaport on the East Coast,” Morrison says, underscoring the importance of the port of Baltimore that many don’t realize. “The reason why we get so many of the cars on the railroad ships? It’s the least expensive way to bring them in here, because we are the farthest-west point for them to load them onto rail cars.

“The maritime community is such a transient community,” Morrison continues. “But we have a very high retention rate here. Most of the other yards on the East Coast aren’t like that. If you go down to Virginia Beach, some of the larger yards down there, they’re all contracted, and they move around constantly.”

“I wanted to come back to the family business. This is what I know.”

Her favorite part of the job is seeing the historic ships they work on. (“I always go and nerd out with them whenever they show up.”) And she loves that, until recently, all the records were kept by hand—as in handwritten or typewritten—until Ryan took over and she was tasked with moving the company’s record-keeping process to digital.

But what Morrison is most proud of is GSR’s apprentice program she spearheaded, which is in its third full class. “Maryland public schools have a great youth apprenticeship program. And depending on which school district you’re in, some of them will do more with warehouse or maintenance or automotive—those are the big ones. We were their first maritime program, and it took me years to get all the paperwork through.”

This is at least partly because working in shipyards is one of the most dangerous of professions, only behind working as a stevedore those who unload cargo from ships), and so convincing the state of Maryland that they were going to keep kids safe took some work. The goal is to give students real-world experience that can lead to maritime industry jobs.

“But the other part of this for us is we’re building a pipeline for ourselves,” Morrison says, noting that GSR hired both of their first two apprentices. The experience has been as meaningful for the crew as it has been for the kids. “They take them under their wings,” she says of the longtime GSR employees, “and they’re supportive. It’s been a really great experience, not only for our practices, but for our staff.

“Now I’ve got these high school students, and I have people who are mentors for them, who are peers, who said, ‘I started out here, yeah, and now I’m here, and you can do it too, and I can show you.’ And I think some of our old-timers are really happy to show them the ropes.”

Later that morning, the crew moves a tour boat around the pier, maneuvering the ship into the three-section dry dock. Men in hard hats and lifejackets walk the parapets and shout orders to others moving and securing tow ropes as the huge ship comes around the corner and settles in. The water has already risen, coming in from the Patapsco, flooding over the supports and creating a stable system for the needed repairs. In fact, this is a stable system, of mechanics and history and family, all coming together to continue the long trajectory of this city’s maritime community.

It is a community that is set to continue for this family-run business, as Ryan and Chaz have four kids between them, all under the age of 10. “They’re very young,” says Chaz, “so we’re going to leave that decision up to them.”

But young as they are, they’re all out on the water with their fathers “as much as possible.”

Come what may, the fifth generation of the Lynch family will likely be carrying on their longtime tradition, eventually, on and in service of the water.

This article first appeared in our April 2026 issue. If you connected with it, consider becoming a print subscriber. 

Descend the stairs from Aliceanna Street into the basement shop of Fells Point’s El Suprimo Records and you’ll quickly feel like you’ve entered not so much a record store as an archive, which indeed you have. As many as 7,000 records fill the tiny space, which is 10-by-12 feet at most.

The center is a maze of stacks reaching toward the ceiling, itself decorated by discs like a vinyl version of the tin ceilings that still top many bars in the neighborhood. Bins fill both sides of the shop, divided into genres, with radios and speakers and other sonic paraphernalia jigsawed in between more records. So many records.

In the back, owner Jack Moore spins tunes on a turntable all but hidden by more stacks—John Coltrane, The Talking Heads, P.J. Harvey, Philippe Besombes, Henry Mancini, Chet Baker, Lalo Schifrin, Max Roach. One could go on.

“I’ve always loved music,” says Moore, “ever since I was, like, crawling on my hands and knees, just fascinated by it.”

Moore, 59, a Baltimore native and University of Maryland alum—where he did college radio—is a jack-of-all-trades, so to speak. He’s run the shop for nearly a quarter century—23 years this month—has his own record label, plays in bands, is writing a book, and does DJing gigs across town, notably at the Greyhound Tavern, Idle Hour, and Ottobar.

Recently, he’s been taking his setup across the street to The Wren, the year-old pub run by chef Will Mester, his wife, Millie Powell, and barkeep Adam Estes. That’s because Mester, a vinyl collector who sources records for both himself and the turntable under his bar, asked Moore to come over on Monday nights, when the acclaimed restaurant is otherwise closed, to play music for whomever happened by for a pint.

So Moore makes the yards-long trek once a month to DJ what he calls the Fells Point Troglodyte Ornithological Society Listening Party, where he’ll set up his turntable on the long wooden bar by the front door, or, on winter nights, near the fireplace in the backroom, usually used for darts.

Since this past August, the listening party has drawn neighbors and hospitality-industry folk to pull up a chair and listen to Moore’s playlist, which is mostly folk, acoustic folk, folk pysch (which Moore describes as “electrified European folk music”), and—as the party’s name promises—the occasional bird songs. The bird songs are on LPs, says Moore, and the society’s jokey name is drawn from the pub itself, troglodyte being a reference to the scientific name of wrens, which belong to the troglodytinae family, so named for being “cave dwellers.”

“I do bring records with bird songs, and once or twice during the night, I will mix in a little bird song melody before I play the next song,” says Moore.

“It’s a fun thing to do, to use the bar when it’s closed,” says Estes one night as he expertly pulls a Guinness from the taps at The Wren. “You get a lot of locals in here for it,” he continues, swinging aside a curtain at the corner of the bar—revealing the house turntable and a stack of vinyl underneath.

Back at El Suprimo, Moore points to the 45-disc sleeve he’d made for the Society that he displays to advertise the listening parties. It showcases a Michelangelo-inspired songbird on the front, a list of the tunes he’s prone to spinning—John Fahey, Tawny Owl, Nymphs & Satyrs—on the back.

His shop is a listening party all itself, minus the beer and whiskey. He has, he says, 14,000 more records at home, as well as a self-built record cleaner at the shop. It’s an ultrasonic 40-kilowat water-bath machine that he fashioned with the help of a shish-kabob skewer and a rotisserie motor.

“A big part of the business is restoring,” he says, playing a rare Coltrane LP that he recently fixed.

His nights at The Wren are not about the restoration of records, necessarily, but of the restoration of community, of listening, of attention. And, yes, of a few pints and a few birds.

Pavlina Ilieva remembers when she first became aware of the old Enoch Pratt Free Library Branch No. 19 on South Ann Street, a few blocks north of the Fells Point waterfront. For a decade or so, Ilieva, who runs the Baltimore architecture studio PI.KL with her husband Kuo Pao Lian, would walk their dogs past the circa-1922 building on her way to get coffee at the Daily Grind.

She watched as the historic brick structure, which closed as a library in 2001 and then housed the nonprofit Education Based Latino Outreach center, struggled with maintenance and funding, ultimately being abandoned in 2018. Weeds overran the alleys and back lot; roof leaks degraded the ceilings, leaving cratered holes and paint peeling like laundry.

“It got to a point where the building was dangerous—it was full of black mold,” says Lian, recalling that one time the basement was three feet underwater. “And there was this morning when I just had this moment of like, how long has this been this way; why is it still sitting here?” says Ilieva.

She and Lian contacted the city to ask about the property and learned that they were taking proposals. So they submitted one, won the bid, and, in 2023, bought both the former library and the empty lot behind it.

The pair—who met in architecture school, settled in Fells Point, taught at Morgan State University (Ilieva) and MICA (Lian), and founded PI.KL (their initials) in 2010—have a lot of experience with restoring and developing old Baltimore spaces. They restored the circa-1786 Broadway Market. They converted an old auto body shop into R. House, Remington’s bustling food hall. And they recently completed Cedar House, the new events space connected to Patterson Park’s historic White House.

For the couple, and their three-member team, it’s about more than just fixing old buildings or erecting new ones.

“It’s about creating community through structures,” says Lian, who describes the “adaptive reuse” process as transforming introverted spaces into extroverted ones.

“IT’S ABOUT CREATING COMMUNITY THROUGH STRUCTURES.”

He envisions a warehouse or an old building as an enclosed box; the idea is to open it. “Let people come in and find creative ways to use it.”

“We did not build this building,” says Lian of what is now Library 19. “We’re the architects that were used to help bring it back to life.”

“The vision was always to grow the project with the neighborhood,” says Ilieva, and that now includes not only PI.KL’s new light-filled offices on the second floor, but an adjoining room that has been transformed into an archive called the Reference Collection, an open space lined with shelving that serves as a museum of sorts, housing artifacts from Good Neighbor and art-house books, and also hosts the occasional salon with creative agency partners, Cohere.

The cozy third floor is rented out to the wellness studio Casa de Luz. And the basement—once flooded and now filled with long tables, upholstered chairs, wooden benches, and high-window light—is an events space that recently hosted an Equitea pop-up and a winter market featuring Local Stitch, Cocina Luchadoras, Greedy Reads, and more.

“The neighborhood needs things that are not restaurants and bars and stores, where you don’t have to feel like you have to buy something,” says Ilieva.

Next comes further development, maybe some permanent businesses or an incubator, then a garden behind the library that will connect to another structure behind it and then to Register Street, effectively joining both ends of the block into a thoroughfare composed of public-facing spaces.

“What does a library do?” asks Lian, sitting downstairs at one of the long basement tables next to a woman on a laptop sipping Mexican cocoa. “Could we bring people together, create a new sort of collective that starts to support what Fells Point is? We would love to be a little village here.”

Because libraries have always housed villages, either at tables or on shelves.

Just in time to buoy the January blues comes Baltimore Restaurant Week, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1. Organized by Downtown Partnership of Baltimore and Visit Baltimore, it’s a week devoted to prix-fixe specials from some 100 of the city’s restaurants. Here are a few things to remember as the dining promotion kicks off:

Exploring is encouraged.
It’s a great time to explore places you haven’t been before, or hit up those you haven’t frequented for a while. It’s also a good way for restaurants to bring folks in during what is traditionally a lean time and appeal to newcomers—think of it as gateway dining.

Newcomers are going to invade your favorite spots.
This also means that regulars may want to take a break from their usual spots, as there may be more crowds than usual, and either stay home and cook for a change—or get on the bandwagon and do some exploring themselves. (I have never been a fan of Restaurant Weeks, preferring to dine out on Tuesdays just after doors open, as I don’t like crowds or prix-fixe menus, but I know I’m an anomaly.)

Research is key. 
If you do decide to go, a bit of legwork is recommended. Scan websites and check out the special menus before you go, as you want to be sure that what’s on the Restaurant Week menu syncs with your dietary preferences. Not a carnivore or a soup fan? You may not want what’s on offer at one place, but might find exactly what you do want at another.

Look at pics.
You can also check Instagram and TikTok, as many restaurants showcase their recent or classic dishes and give frequent updates. It’s also fun to have visual aids before you shell out for dinner. That said, note that some dishes the restaurants are best known for may not be on the Restaurant Week menu.

Know your budget.
Financially, Restaurant Week is a great time to finally splurge on a place that’s always seemed a bit out of reach, or gives you a nudge if you need that bit of bargain-hunting to appeal to your dinner (or brunch or lunch) mates. Some spots even have wine pairings as part of the set menus. Either way, do some research first—it’ll likely pay off as much as any discount on dinner.

The first time you walk into Steak N’ Bone, the well-appointed Korean barbecue restaurant housed in a Canton rowhouse, of all places, it might be because you’re desperate for a bubbling cauldron of kimchi-jjigae stew without having to drive to Station North or Catonsville or even Virginia.

The second time, you might do it right with an all-you-can-eat party, or perhaps a friends-and-family dinner, with all the grilled meats and banchan, chased down with some Korean beer and shots of soju.

The third time, maybe you’ll walk in again and order some to-go dishes or sit in the back dining room during the day, before the late-night folks arrive, just to have the outstanding crunchy seafood pancakes.

This isn’t the first restaurant to be operated out of this location, on the corner of Streeper and O’Donnell, just a block or so south of Café Dear Leon (and its permanent crab-bagel line), but it’s certainly the first Korean BBQ spot.

Open since September of 2024, the space has been beautifully updated, with wooden paneling and lots of windows that make it seem more like a lofty cabin than a barbecue joint. Don’t miss the huge kelly-green soju frog sitting on the bar guarding the impressive collection of liquor bottles, not just because it’s impressive, but because it reminds you to order soju—a distilled spirit made from rice, wheat, or barley and the national drink of Korea. (More on that later.)

Steak N’ Bone is owned and operated by Young Lee—who’s also involved with the hugely popular Bonchon Korean Fried Chicken and who is Korean-Argentine, which means he understands steak better than you do—with the considerable help of his nephew Kevin Lee, who’s also the manager and often your server.

“My parents are into it as well,” says Kevin of his uncle’s restaurant one evening, as he expertly scissors sizzling pork belly, brisket, and bone-in short ribs under one of the vertically moveable vents that make the restaurant look less like a KBBQ joint than a Quentin Tarantino set.

“It’s a small family business,” he says, while he migrates the meat off the fire and adds whole garlic cloves and jalapeños to the grill. Meanwhile, the small dishes of banchan are replenished and joined by bowls of rice, some pretty wonderful cheesy corn, more bubbling kimchi-jjigae, a bowl of lettuce leaves like a farmer’s bouquet with which to make ad hoc wraps, and that seafood pancake, a crispy, crunchy, blissful disk of seafood and greenery that comes topped with a bowl of dipping sauce.

If you ask nicely, Kevin will swing by and cut up your bits of sizzled steak and maybe work more magic—squeezing lemon on them and dusting them with Maldon salt.

When not busy doing other owner-related things, Young can often be found upstairs pretending to be Sweeney Todd—thinly slicing cuts of meat on a massive machine, or sourcing the steaks themselves, which come from local farms and are dry-aged for 28 or more days. It is those steaks, of course, that determined both the restaurant’s name and the fact that you will, if you get the bone-in option, end up with an actual bone smoking on your table’s hubcap-sized grill.

That smoke is pretty fun itself, and creates its own weather systems in the dining rooms—there are a few of them, both in the main street-level and upstairs. (There is also, amazingly, an actual dumbwaiter in the kitchen.)

There are more things on the menu that should be eaten, including yukhoe, which is the Korean iteration of steak tartare, an egg soufflé, and a terrific rendition of bulgogi. And there are things to order from the bar, which is well-stocked, as Young was once, conveniently, a liquor distributor. Which brings us back to soju.

We highly suggest ordering a bottle, even if you don’t drink much, because maybe either Young or Kevin or someone else might do this marvelous trick, in which they swirl the bottle around until an actual funnel forms inside, like a tiny tornado.

It’s a fitting conclusion to a marvelous meal—a bit of showmanship not unlike having your server bestow a martini sidecar or a perfectly pulled espresso—and yet another reason to rejoice in the fact that you don’t have to drive home from Ellicott City for your KBBQ fix.

STEAK N’ BONE: 2821 O’Donnell St., 443-401-2288. HOURS: Sun. Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $10; mains: $13-25; a la carte: $15-42; AYCE: varies. AMBIANCE: Woodsy Canton corner rowhouse and serious bar.