As part of her morning routine, Old Goucher resident Rebekah Horowitz starts most days with an eight-block walk to Sophomore Coffee.

“It’s such a nice community place to be,” she says. “The coffee is great and I love that [owner] Kris [Fulton] roasts his own coffee, but part of the reason I go is that my dog, Jacques, walks me there. He is also a very big fan of Sophomore.” (This may have something to do with the Milk-Bones they keep in a jar on the counter.) “If they’re closed for some reason, I have to fight him not to walk me there,” she says.

While Sophomore gets plenty of traffic, Horowitz—and her pit bull/dachshund mix—hold the honor of being the cafe’s top customers (this is a measurable metric thanks to a dining app that tracks customer frequency). Horowitz, who works remotely for a public health organization in D.C., sees Sophomore as not only part of her regular ritual but an extension of her wider world.

“The people who work there are lovely and a lot of them live in the neighborhood or close by, so you see people not just at the coffee shop, but at the pool or walking on the street,” she says. “One of the people who used to work there is even my dog sitter now.”

While Jacques always gets a dog treat, Horowitz has small seasonal fluctuations in her order: drip coffee with a splash of milk in the colder months, iced coffee in the warmer ones, and an ice cube in her hot coffee during transitional periods. Sometimes she gets her drinks to go, other times she sits and stays. Her canine GPS leads her there before 8 a.m. most weekdays and a bit later on weekends.

“They know what I’m going to order, and it’s ready for me right away,” say Horowitz. “And the staff knows about my work, they know when I’m out of town for a few days. If I go on vacation, they ask me how it was. Going to Sophomore just feels like I’m not only going and buying something but having a quick little catch-up with my friends—it’s a touchstone.”

In a city that’s fiercely dedicated to its sports teams, quirky traditions, and all things crab, Baltimore’s loyalty extends just as ardently to its coffeehouses, cafes, bars, and other eating and drinking establishments. And at a time when life feels increasingly isolated and automated, being a regular somewhere can offer something essential: a sense of belonging.

With repeated visits, a restaurant staff gets to know patrons’ predilections, drink orders, names of their children and grandchildren, anniversaries and birthdays, and details about their personal and professional lives.

Sophomore owner Kris Fulton first fell in love with hospitality because he liked the relational aspect of the business. In his first hospitality job at 19, he worked at the now-closed City Dock Coffee in Annapolis. The staff there was encouraged to adopt what they called “the Cheers mentality,” where, as the lyrics to the hit TV ’80s sitcom theme song say, “Everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.”

“The idea was that you should know 70 percent of your customers by name or drink order when they walked in,” says Fulton. “Sometimes you’d see people walking down the street coming toward you and present them with their drink before they even got to the register—it made their day.”

Being a regular also offers the opportunity for patrons to connect not only with staff but with one another.

“The fact that we are a small space works in our favor,” says Fulton. “When people take the time to sit and have a coffee here, they’re right next to each other. And if they start a conversation with me behind the counter, they’re basically having a conversation with the room. It’s exciting to see some of those connections happen.”

“GOING TO SOPHOMORE JUST FEELS LIKE I’M HAVING A QUICK LITTLE CATCH-UP WITH MY FRIENDS—IT’S A TOUCHSTONE.”

Coffeehouses as gathering spots is nothing new—the concept dates back as far back as the Ottoman Empire, where people of different social classes could gather for intellectual and often political debate. Taverns as meeting spots dates to ancient Greece and Rome, white-tablecloth restaurants first became hot spots in Paris in the 1700s, dive bars became hangouts in the late 1800s, and diners turned into social hubs after World War II.

Pretty much anywhere food or drink are served have long been places to gather. But wherever people flock, the reason is much the same: Being a regular gives patrons a sense of camaraderie, community, and connection.

Local coffee shop owner Dave Sherman, of Catalog Coffee in Hampden, has witnessed the bonds that form over freddo cappuccinos and sage lattes.

“We have a ton of people that use us as that third space,” he says, explaining how the coffee shop fills the need to congregate outside home or work (in this remote landscape, it sometimes is the office). “And they’re great customers. They come in and they’ll work on their laptop on our two-tops, and then as soon as we start to get busy, they’ll migrate over to our community table, often networking and just building more community. I’ve definitely seen some friendships form between staff and guests and then between the guests themselves—we’ve seen a couple of romantic connections happening, too.”

Gino Cardinale, co-owner of Tark’s Grill & Bar in Lutherville, says that creating connections is part and parcel of owning an eating establishment.

“Restaurants are not just a place to feed yourself and spend money,” he says. “When they’re working, they’re about connecting with people.”

As much as regulars love their roles in restaurants, restaurants need them, too. Regulars are, if you will, the bread and butter of every restaurant—the patrons who a place can reliably count on to fill seats (or barstools). Through thick and thin (to wit: the pandemic), regulars stay loyal to the brand.

“When you open a restaurant, you have to think past the sizzle of a grand opening and [attention] that you’re bound to get in the beginning,” says Cardinale. “If a restaurant doesn’t find a way to connect with its core community in the location that it’s in, they’re not going to make it long term—the flip side of that is that if you do, you can thrive for decades.”

WHEREVER PEOPLE FLOCK, THE REASON IS THE SAME: BEING A REGULAR GIVES PATRONS A SENSE OF CAMARADERIE, COMMUNITY, AND CONNECTION.

If there’s a formula for how to keep them coming, Cardinale seems to have figured it out.

“Running a restaurant is not always about reaching people who’ve never heard of you before, it’s really about connecting with those who already have,” he says. “There’s no better indicator that you’re doing something right in the restaurant business than when people come back time and again. At Tark’s, we have people who come for lunch, and then hours later, they come for dinner all on the same day—and that’s several days a week.”

For dedicated regulars like that, their favorite haunt isn’t just a place where everybody knows their name—it’s a place that feels like home.

About six months or so per year, some two to three nights a week whenever Hampden/Woodberry residents Melanie and Shawn McMahon are in town, they can be found standing—yes, standing—near the window at the zinc bar at Petit Louis Bistro.

The fact that the bar doesn’t have any seating doesn’t stop them from ordering food and drinks. Given that the McMahons both have desk jobs, they prefer to stand while they eat.

“We used to eat at a table but sometime after the pandemic, we planted ourselves in the corner of the bar and never left,” says Melanie with a laugh. “Now, we’re wearing a hole in that corner.”

The McMahons are diehard supporters of the Roland Park restaurant. They dine at Louis so frequently, they know the menu by heart, have befriended (and socialize with) certain staffers, and can cite chapter and verse of every  aspect of the place, including the daily specials and the names of nearly every person on staff.

“We’ve really developed relationships with the staff,” says Shawn. “The staff is the first thing that draws us here—everyone has been lovely to us from the first time we walked in the door and eating here always feels like coming home.”

In fact, when Shawn and Melanie are away for any extended time, or driving back from a long road trip, it’s often their first stop.

“The biggest testament to the place is that we don’t even drive home first when we’ve been away,” says Shawn. “We drive straight to Louis—that’s our welcome back.”

Even when they’re away, in fact, Louis is never far from their thoughts. “When we were in Paris, [maître d’hôtel] Patrick Del Valle arranged for us to have a meal at Chez l’ Ami Louis,” says Melanie. “That’s the restaurant that Petit Louis was based on.”

Fourteen years ago, when the McMahons started patronizing Louis, they first were lured by the wide-ranging French bistro fare.

“It started because we both work full-time and going out to dinner is often an easy solution after a long day of work,” says Melanie. “We have very different taste in food, so we agreed that whenever we couldn’t agree on what to have at home, we’d go to Petit Louis.”

In the early years that meant having dinner there once a week. These days, the legal marketing partner says it’s closer to three times a week and she and Shawn each have their favorite orders.

Shawn likes the salad verte and the Saturday night beef short rib special; Melanie gravitates to the steak tartare, a Monday night special, and the gravlax appetizer.  He drinks Tito’s with muddled lime, followed by a glass of Beaujolais or Côtes du Rhône; she gets a glass of Champagne or Pinot Noir. If friends join them, they’ll make an exception, grab a table, and order the whole roasted chicken.

“We’ve been eating there for so long, and know the menu so well, that Patrick has joked he’s going to give me the test he gives to new servers to see if I could pass,” says Melanie.

What motivates them to go there now has become something deeper. “For us, Petit Louis is not a just a place eat dinner,” says Melanie. “We’ve really developed relationships with the staff. Going there feels more like visiting family.”

Like the McMahons, John Groopman and his wife, Hilary, have formed deep friendships as dining devotees of La Cuchara in Hampden-Woodberry.*

“We have a standing Sunday night reservation there,” says Groopman, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We can’t think of a better way to start the week.”

The married couple has been eating at the Basque-inspired restaurant ever since it opened in a historic mill in 2015.

“We’ve known [co-owners] Jake, Ben, and Amy for quite a while,” says Groopman. “We were there in the first or second week after they opened. In the early years, we’d sit at the bar and have pinxtos and we’d go not because we knew a lot about Basque Country cooking but because it was just a wonderful setting and we got to know a lot of people who work there—and we still do.”

Sunday also happens to be half-price wine night—never a bad thing—and they always sit at table 40 toward the back of the restaurant, near the heart of the flaming asador that’s loaded with grilled meat and seafood. The restaurant has also been woven into the fabric of their post-Thanksgiving tradition—they now dine with their whole extended family there.

Though they’ve eaten their way through most of the menu, John and Hilary have their favorite dishes, of course. “If Ben is making tuna-stuffed piquillo peppers, that’s an essential, the shrimp a la planxta and the mussels are always a winner, and the dayboat scallops are pretty good,” he says. “And we always order the chorizo Manchego pintxos.”

Being an insider has its advantages, too. “When the kitchen is experimenting, we get to taste stuff, too,” he says.  “And going to La Cuchara inspired us to visit San Sebastian and learn much about enjoying the wines of Spain.”

The Groopmans have gotten so close with the owners, they’ve even invited them to dinner in their own home, where they were the ones doing the cooking.

Like the Groopmans, Horowitz has found a sense of kindship thanks to her routine rounds.

“Kris and I do a lot of chatting inside and outside Sophomore,” she says. “We run in a lot of the same spaces and same circles.”

In November, Fulton was invited to celebrate Jacques’ “barkmitzvah.” Because Jacques is such a fixture, for a long time, he was even the Wi-Fi password for the cafe.

“People would stop me on the street and say hi to him because they recognized him from his picture on the sign with the coffee shop’s password,” says Horowitz, laughing.

Horowitz considers being a regular a vital part—and perk—of urban living.

“Having that routine is a special part of living in the city,” she says. “People talk a lot about how a city is anonymous, because so many people live there places like Sophomore remind us how much of a community we are living in. Baltimore’s a very livable city, so it’s a real opportunity to be in the big city, but not at all be anonymous.”

*Editor’s Note: As of online publication in early January, La Cuchara was closed indefinitely in the wake of a fire that originated in the building’s ventilation system. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Mimi Cooper and her friend Steve Stegner had never eaten at Birroteca, the popular pizza and pasta restaurant in Hampden, so they decided to drop in on a cold night in January. Although their stomachs were growling after seeing Macbeth at The Charles Theatre, they didn’t feel like fussing with the formality of being seated then served at a table in the dining room, which was sparsely occupied. So, to glean the true flavor of the place, they grabbed two stools and bellied up to the bar.

“When we go out, we like to sit at the bar,” Cooper, 79, says. “It’s fun to be close to each other. I think bartenders are sort of fun. They give you quite a bit of attention. It’s cozy.”

After the bartender offers Cooper a taste of a lager she was considering, a courtesy that comes from sitting at the bar, Sam Frank, 31, joins the conversation. He and his fiancée, Grace Jacoby, are sitting catty-corner at the bar sharing a mushroom pizza—the same variety Cooper and Stegner are splitting. The four begin an impromptu chat.

 

“ALL THE GREAT CULTURES OF HISTORY HAVE HAD A VERY STRONG BAR CULTURE.”

 

“That is a testament to eating at the bar,” Frank says. “Isn’t it wonderful?” replies Cooper, who dives headfirst into a conversation with her fellow patron. “I love it. I just talked with the couple that preceded you. They were going to Seattle, and we were talking about their trip out West. I love talking to people.”

“You’re not going to have this experience if you’re sitting at a table,” Frank says. “This is why we eat at the bar.”

Ask a person chowing down at a bar why they prefer their perch to a seat in a dining room and you’ll hear a surprising array of answers. My first drink arrives faster. So does my second one, for that matter. The food is served a tad bit quicker. I’m closer to the action. Bartenders make fascinating conversation. It’s a more relaxed setting. As for Cooper and Stegner, they say that when they sit side by side rather than across from one another, they hear each other more clearly.

But after these practical advantages are rattled off, almost always another, more primal idea is expressed: Eating at a bar is a communal activity.

“It’s at the very core of what we do as humans, which is be together,” says Enrique Pallares, owner of The Wine Collective in Hampden. “This has political, social, and cultural implications. All the great cultures of history have had a very strong bar culture. They create community.”

Although eating at a bar has been a practice for decades, its popularity has exploded in the last generation, says Gino Cardinale, co-owner of Tark’s Grill & Bar in Lutherville-Timonium and former owner of the late great City Café in Mt. Vernon.

“I think it goes to how dining has evolved…it’s very social now,” he says. “A couple comes in for dinner, they’re not necessarily looking to be by themselves. They like to strike up conversations with other people and interact with the bar staff. I think it has a lot to do with that conviviality of being among other people. I saw this at City Café over the years. The bar was once a place just for drinking, maybe after-work happy hours. It started to segue into [being] more about actual dining. We sell a lot of bottles of our finer wines at the bar. You never used to see that. It’s really taken off.”

Brad Barnes is director of consulting and industry programs at the Culinary Institute of America. The Baltimore native has worked in the business for decades and is bullish on the future of eating at the bar as the pandemic (hopefully) wanes.

“As we come out of COVID, the blending of social and food opportunities will be more and more powerful,” he says. “So I think it’s worthwhile for people to have [the option to] eat in less formal settings.”

From the fanciest of white-tablecloth bistros to a hyper-casual neighborhood joint, walk into almost any restaurant in town around dinnertime and you’re likely to see people with plates, not just glasses, in front of them at the bar. It’s the perfect way to try a dish or two at a new restaurant without committing to multiple courses. The sense of pressure to order, eat, pay, and promptly leave is decidedly lighter at the bar than in the dining room.

They’re different ecosystems coexisting in the same world.

“If you’re going to go to a decent restaurant, when you have a table, you’re kind of buying that table,” says Jackie Pestka, a chef instructor at Stratford University’s Baltimore campus. “If you’re sitting there and you’ve got three people, and two people order something and one doesn’t, that’s not really a good thing for the restaurant. You can feel self-conscious. You’re almost pushed to get more than you normally would. If you’re sitting at the bar, you can just have an appetizer. I can go to three or four different restaurants in an evening and just grab an app or a small entree and not feel guilty about it.”

Eating at the bar, which has always been a popular option for solo diners, provides a radically different spatial orientation for parties of two or more than sitting around a table. It can create a more casual context for conversation or make periods of silence less awkward. A bartender mixing a colorful cocktail makes for intoxicating theater. A stranger can be invited into a discussion (just don’t talk politics) or you can veg out and watch a game.

T. Cole Newton is vice president of the United States Bartenders’ Guild. The Washington, D.C., native now lives in New Orleans, where he owns two bars. He’s spent countless hours on both sides of bars.

“When you’re at a table, especially if it’s just one or two people, you’re very much alone for the duration of your meal,” he says. “To dine at the bar, not only are you sharing the bartender’s space, but you’re also sharing that space with everyone else at the bar. It’s essentially like being at one really long table. So there’s a lot more opportunity to have a shared experience. If you’re sitting at a table and you talk to somebody at the table next to you, that’s a very strange thing to do culturally. That’s not the expectation, to lean over to the person at the next table and be like, ‘Hey, what are you eating?’ But if you do that to somebody at the bar, that’s part of what the expectation is.”

That’s exactly what happened at Birroteca. A spontaneous interaction between a young couple and strangers at least a generation older left all with a warm, however brief, memory. It never would have happened in a dining room.

“The bar provides an opportunity to connect with people,” Newton says. “Bars are one of the very few places where those types of random human connections are encouraged.”

Baltimore has no shortage of fantastic restaurants where dining at the bar is welcomed, and provides an entirely different experience than eating in the dining room. Here are eight of our many favorites.

→ Birroteca

Hampden

When it opened in 2012, Birroteca became an instant draw for people in Hampden and beyond. Diners flocked there for its terrific pizzas, pastas, and cocktails, but also because of its inviting atmosphere. Full meals are often enjoyed at its large, four-sided bar.

“We have a pretty regular crowd that comes in and doesn’t even entertain the option of sitting at a table,” owner-operator Mike Moran says. “The bartender often forms a connection with the person they are serving.”

Frank and Jacoby always sit at the bar when they eat at Birroteca. “We don’t like sitting across from each other, it feels like an interrogation,” Jacoby says. “I like touching knees and cuddling up, and the conversations you can have with your neighbors and your bartenders are special.”

Birroteca serves pastas, risottos, and inventive appetizers like beet bruschetta, but it is best known for its pizzas. The Duck Duck Goose, with duck confit, fig-onion jam, fontina, Asiago, balsamic, and duck egg is particularly delicious. Eating one at the bar is a breeze.

Pizzas arrive on elevated metal trays with a spatula that makes helping yourself to a slice easy. There are two TVs, one of which usually is tuned to a (muted) movie. Moran is not a sports fan, and when he eats elsewhere at a bar, he appreciates some non-ball-related programming.

On that recent Wednesday night, Frank and Jacoby were sitting with their backs to the screens, engaged in conversation with each other and occasionally their bartender and their neighbors.

“We had our first date at a bar,” Frank said, “and I’m hoping that even when we get old, we will never get away from sitting at the bar.”

→ Charleston

Harbor East

Eating at the bar is not an option that most people consider when they think of a renowned fancy restaurant. This Harbor East legend is certainly that, but dining at its smallish but attractive bar is a popular pick for regulars, says co-owner Tony Foreman.

“It’s a different social engagement for sure,” he says. “You have dedicated staff that’s not out of your eyesight, and that’s comforting to some people. People have strict rules about whether they want to sit in the dining room or not. There are some that never do. There are some that only do with their spouse. Some guys, when they come in with their spouse, they eat at the bar, but when they come in with friends, they sit at a table.”

Regardless of where you sit, Charleston is not cheap. But whereas in the dining room there is a three-course minimum, at the bar dishes are available a la carte. In theory.

 

IN THE DINING ROOM AT CHARLESTON, THERE IS A
THREE- COURSE MINIMUM. AT THE BAR, DISHES ARE AVAILABLE
A LA CARTE.

 

“Most people have the full menu at the bar,” Foreman says. “The reality is once you have one dish, it makes you want another.”

Service is just as polished at the bar as in the dining room. After ordering, folded napkins and tableware are placed on the bar and a complimentary snack—pastry puffs with artichoke and Gruyère soup on a recent night—is served.

Foreman often encourages people who haven’t been to the restaurant to sit at the bar and enjoy a glass of Champagne and a plate of cornmeal-fried oysters during their first visit to acclimate themselves to the kitchen’s style. Although we’ve eaten there often, we took his suggestion on a recent Thursday evening.

His advice—like everything at Charleston—was spot on.

→ Costas Inn

Dundalk

The term “crab feast” usually conjures images of people seated at picnic tables, booths, or long communal tables cracking Maryland’s favorite crustacean. But at this Dundalk restaurant, many people prefer to take mallet to shell while sitting at the bar.

“It’s very common here,” says general manager Peter Triantafilos, whose father, Costas, has owned the place for more than 50 years. “We’ve got a lot of regulars that prefer to eat crabs at the bar. It’s like second nature. Eating crabs is always a social thing. We lay the paper down, give them a couple mallets and they’re good to go.”

Costas Triantafilos estimates that about 10 percent of his customers eat crabs at the bar. That may not sound like a lot, but when you consider that 40 to 50 people can comfortably sit around the massive 12-foot-wide, 42-foot- long wooden bar, that adds up to a lot of blue crabs. The restaurant serves crabs from Louisiana and Texas virtually year-round (just to be safe, in the winter call to check availability before you go), and in the summer can steam 11,000 crabs in a week.

“You might have somebody eating a filet mignon and the person next to them is cracking crabs,” Peter says. “Everybody is going with the flow.”

→ Maggie’s Farm

Hamilton

Want proof of the popularity of the small bar in the back of this Hamilton favorite? When it’s full, regulars often choose a table within eyeshot of the eight stools.

“[They] have a couple drinks and maybe an appetizer, and they wait until it’s empty and then they move,” says chef Abdul Saeed, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Dana.

Tristan Gilbert and his girlfriend, Erin, took friends from out of town to Maggie’s Farm on a Friday night in January. They sat at the bar, where they all devoured Saeed’s delectable Korean pig wings. The appeal is multifaceted, he says.

“It’s quicker to get seated. We can see the taps. We’re beer lovers, so going into a place and being able to shop with your eyes before you even see the menu, that’s always appealing. If I have a question about something, the bartender is usually much more readily available than a server would be.”

And Gilbert just likes the vibe. “It’s definitely a cozy bar,” he says. “It feels like you’re hanging in somebody’s living room.”

THE PRIME RIB HAS A MENU WITH ITEMS, INCLUDING A PRIME RIB SANDWICH, ONLY AVAILABLE TO THOSE SITTING ON STOOLS.

 

→ The Prime Rib

Mt. Vernon 

Don Ervin and his wife, Lachele, arrived at their favorite downtown steakhouse at precisely 5:01, a minute after it opened. As regulars, they know the popularity of eating at its elegant bar, and they were determined to secure their favorite two stools in the corner.

“You meet some interesting people sitting here,” Lachele says. “People that like to eat at the bar are interested in people. Not that you’re looking to meet them, but you’re a little more open to engaging.”

The Prime Rib serves its full menu at the bar, but also has a special menu with items, including a prime rib sandwich and burgers, that are available only to those sitting on stools. Mark “Chavez” Linzey has been bartending there for 15 years.

“We have some people who come in five nights a week and eat at the bar,” he says. “It’s nice having people eat at the bar. They talk to me or watch a game. They talk to the couple next to them. There’s a camaraderie at the bar.”

On one weekday night in January, roughly half the restaurant’s food orders stemmed from the bar, assistant manager Dan Buceti says. The Ervins enjoyed cocktails while they waited for their butterfly shrimp and oysters casino.

“This is our spot,” Lachele says of the restaurant and their regular perches. “It’s a fine dining experience at the bar.”

→ Rec Pier Chop House 

Fells Point 

Anyone who’s traveled for business knows that the road can be a lonely place. Perhaps that’s one reason why many solo diners choose to eat at hotel bars.

“Because it’s a hotel we do get more individuals that come in and eat at the bar,” says Rec Pier Chop House manager Gabriella Taylor.

The upscale steakhouse is located inside the Sagamore Pendry Baltimore hotel in Fells Point. Some get the tasty, pricey steaks that emerge from new executive chef Colin King’s kitchen, but others order lighter.

“We do get a lot of people that won’t eat a full three-course meal,” Taylor says. “They’ll order a couple [antipasti], or a side and an entree.”

There are two TV screens behind the gorgeous Patrick Sutton-designed bar, but often solo diners are in the mood to chat, says bartender Daniel Summers.

“A lot of times they might be interested in something they can do [in the area], or they’re just blowing off steam because they’re finally getting away,” he says. “It doesn’t bother me at all. Personally, when I go out to drink, I want to be able to eat something. I think they go hand in hand. It’s a better experience overall for the guests.”

→ Tark’s Grill & Bar 

Green Spring Station

As it is almost every night, the bar at this wildly popular restaurant in Green Spring Station is bustling. Every seat at the bar is taken, and almost everyone has both a plate of food and a glass of wine in front of them. Conversations, among other things, are flowing. The crowd skews older, and couples who look like they’re dating sit intertwined with those who seem as if they’ve been married for decades.

“Tark’s is a very approachable restaurant still with an upscale nature, so a lot of people do come there for first dates. We hear that a lot,” co-owner Gino Cardinale says. “It’s a little more relaxed. Bar dining is good for that. You can have a nice dinner and a drink and interact, and you still have other people around you, and it doesn’t seem like you’re too formal.

“Bar dining also works for people who have been together for a very long time. They want to come out and have a good time. They’ve been together for 30 years and they’ve already done all the romantic stuff.”

The restaurant is a favorite of WJZ anchor Marty Bass and his wife, Sharon, who live about 10 minutes away and eat at the bar once every week and a half or so.

“It’s a very relaxed way to dine,” he says. “Generally speaking, you meet like-minded people, people who like the casual ambiance of a bar. Bartenders are fascinating people. You always get into great conversations, whether it be about craft cocktails or whatever’s happening that day.”

Although the bar is first come, first served, the restaurant will accept reservations for the high-top tables in the bar area. They’re quite popular, Cardinale says, because they combine elements of both the bar and the dining room.

The restaurant features a large and diverse menu. Among Bass’s favorites are the French dip sandwich and the seafood Cobb salad, which he calls a Cobb salad “on steroids.”

“Back that up with a cold beer and you’re living large,” he says. “Tark’s is beautiful because it’s organic. We don’t really plan [our visits] there. It just happens. And that’s another joy of eating at the bar.”

→ The Wine Collective 

Hampden 

Does any food pair better with wine than a charcuterie board? At The Wine Collective inside Union Collective in Hampden, plates of sliced meats, cheeses, and smoked fish are the top-seller, and many people enjoy eating them at the bar.

“One of our ideas behind the menu is we are inspired by Spanish [restaurants],” says owner Enrique Pallares. “All the food we serve is trying to bring the octopus and the Iberico ham from the white tablecloth to the bar top, to make it a casual activity that doesn’t sacrifice quality.”

The restaurant serves some of the best tinned fish in the city. Many of its foods are imported, while others are hyper-local. The torched bread on the charcuterie plate is made at Cunningham’s Bakery a few miles away.

The actual bar in the cavernous, warehouse-like space is a beauty; it’s copper-topped, and its face is decorated with green tiles imported from Portugal.

“The paradox of the outdoor being a very industrial, somewhat grungy feel, then you come inside and see all this stainless steel and wood and copper, it’s sort of a metaphor for the heart of gold of Baltimore,” Pallares says.

Rules for Eating at the Bar

• Don’t be a space invader: If you’re seated at the bar, the stool next to you isn’t for your purse or jacket. Keep your personal belongings in your dedicated space or look for a handbag hook under the bar.
• Mute your phone: Even if you’re dining by yourself, your phone should always be muted. If you need to make or take a call, step outside.
• Be cordial: You’re in closer quarters with fellow patrons than you are in the dining room, so this is not the time to spout off your political opinions.
• Hands off: Not everything on the bar is yours to touch. If there’s a garnish or fruit bowl, don’t reach into it and help yourself to an olive. If you want something, ask your bartender.
• Gauge your gab: Don’t assume that the person next to you wants to talk. Gauge their desire to gab and go from there.
• Don’t loom: Whenever possible, if someone is eating at the bar, don’t stand behind them and try to order a drink. Respect a diner’s personal space.
• Make room: If you’re in the middle of a row and two people are looking for stools together, slide down one if you can.
• Tip big: Tip your bar staff as generously as you would a server in the dining room.

With their crispy, deep-fried exterior, that gives way to a filling stuffed with pork and mushrooms, egg rolls have long been the stars of every American-Chinese meal.

So, it was only a matter of time before this nostalgic finger food got co-opted. Lately, we’ve seen variations on the egg roll theme including the Philly-inspired cheesesteak egg roll at Tark’s Grill & Bar in Green Spring Station, Cheezy Mike’s Food Emporium in Mount Vernon Marketplace, and Stoney River Steakhouse and Grill in Towson.

Another idea whose time has come is the crab roll—this is Maryland, after all. You can find them at The Admiral’s Cup, pictured above, in Fells Point, at Papi Cuisine, also in Fells Point and Federal Hill, and at Jimmy’s Famous Seafood in Dundalk.

“Our rolls are 95 percent crab, and I use shrimp as a binder,” says Atlas Restaurant corporate executive chef Aaron Taylor of the crave-worthy crab roll at The Admiral’s Cup. “It’s our nod to Maryland seafood.”

Although City Café was a casualty of the COVID crisis, Gino Cardinale, who co-owned the cafe along with his husband, Bruce Bodie, says that Tark’s Grill, which they also own, will suffer no such fate. Thanks to a spacious deck, a stunning new interior, and a new menu of carryout options featuring family meals, the restaurant in Lutherville-Timonium’s Green Spring Station is well on the road to recovery.

“Having curbside takeaway has kept us financially solvent at Tark’s,” says Cardinale of his Lutherville-Timonium restaurant set inside Greenspring Station, “but more importantly, we have stayed connected with our guests and made a lot of new connections, as well.”

We spoke with Cardinale about his days at City Café, how Tark’s is surviving, and why restaurant work has become his life’s calling.

How are you doing with in-person dining?
We opened at 50 percent as soon as Baltimore County gave the green light, which coincided with the state, but the biggest thing for us at Tark’s is that we had just completed an extensive top-to-bottom interior renovation at the end of 2019. We did that in late August through the end of October. We put seating outside late last summer and fall for about 100 people and it worked out great. While we were renovating, our sales stayed really strong, which was fantastic and much needed. The goal for the renovation was to make the inside as charming as the courtyard, and we knew that the test of that was the winter to see how business was. We had a really busy holiday season but most impressively in January and February and the first couple of weeks in March, we were booming—we had the best first quarter in the restaurant’s history. And then COVID hit.

So where did you go from there? Your carryout menu is getting rave reviews.
We built out a takeaway menu based on our concept and kitchen’s strengths and put together great family meal options knowing that a lot of folks in the area would have their kids back from college. We weren’t sure how that was going to do, but we brought in a very small crew of people willing to work during that time and it really took off. We were doing well over 100 orders a night. Most people were placing large orders to feed households. That helped the business. At one point, it was strong enough that it kept us afloat and we weren’t racking up a bunch of bills that were going for 90 days. We got a lot of rave reviews on the takeaway. When Gov. Hogan announced that outdoor dining was going to be permitted, he was still talking when our phone started ringing for reservations.

The public has been very amenable to working through these changes with restaurants, and that’s why being in a restaurant that might not conceive of itself as a carryout place or outdoor dining place needs to take a shot, because people do want to come out. Dining out is a major part of our lifestyle. People don’t want to surrender that completely, so they will work with you. This situation has taught us that you can work collaboratively with your guests. When our phone was ringing for reservations, it was also ringing with people calling to say, “Please don’t stop the takeaway—we are dependent upon it and not ready to come back yet.”

“When Gov. Hogan announced that outdoor dining was going to be permitted, he was still talking when our phone started ringing for reservations.” —Gino Cardinale, co-owner Tark’s Grill

How is indoor dining going?
Indoor dining is slow to come back. Maybe it’s the time of year we are in, but when indoor dining opened up, people were not breaking down the door down to sit inside. They still want to be outside or do carryout. We lowered our prices to fit a takeout model and people appreciated that. Full-service restaurants that dabbled in carryout early on in the crisis with their regular price point may not have gotten the business they wanted. It’s hard to put something in a carryout box and charge $38.

I was so sad to hear about the closing of City Café. Can you tell me what happened?
When COVID-19 started, we were very worried very quickly about what it would mean. We operated City Café for 25 and a half years, so we knew the business model inside and out. In the industry, we call it a flat-seat restaurant. City Café was a large restaurant that seated 125 people at one time. Typically, it filled up every day at noon with that number of people and cleared out at 1:30. On Saturday and Sunday for brunch, we’d routinely do 300 to 400 people, and people would wait 30 to 40 minutes for a table at nighttime. It was known as a pre-theater Meyerhoff restaurant and packed out by 6:30 p.m—that was the City Café business model and it was large enough to handle those crowds and skilled enough to do it well. We really got nervous as we started hearing about the phase re-openings and diminished capacity, and thought about what that was going to mean for City Café.

City Café couldn’t break even at 50 percent capacity. That was a deal breaker. Mt. Vernon is also very quiet in the summer when school is out and the cultural season is over, but it’s also very busy in the spring and we got wiped out in May for rehearsal dinners and graduations. The group dining got wiped out, the cultural season got wiped out, the spring got wiped out, and large capacity got wiped out. That’s what did it. The red ink was the worry—an entire year couldn’t be wiped out and have us survive.

“The public has been very amenable to working through these changes with restaurants, and that’s why being in a restaurant that might not conceive of itself as a carryout place or outdoor dining place needs to take a shot, because people do want to come out. Dining out is a major part of our lifestyle.”

Can you share a favorite memory of your time at City Café?
City Café was Baltimore’s most well-known restaurant for diversity, before diversity was the buzz word that it is today. The fact that Bruce and I opened it at 26 in 1994 as two out-of-the-closet gay men, it was always a welcoming space for people of every walk of life. City Café was a very special place for a diverse group of people, but my favorite memory was watching civil rights barriers come down over the years and celebrating them, so when the [same-sex marriage referendum], for example, was approved by voters of Maryland, we had a huge party in 2012. And then when the Supreme Court ruling came later, we had a huge party and threw open the doors and invited the whole community. They were watershed moments in our country. On a personal level, Bruce and I have been together for 29 years, but we always said we’d get legally married when Maryland legalized it. We got married at 2013 and had our wedding celebration at City Café on the actual night of our 22nd anniversary as a couple. Governor O’ Malley deserves a lot of credit for for breaking the gay marriage barrier in Maryland. We got to know Governor O’Malley when he was mayor, and his wife, Katie O’Malley, married us.

Would you do it again?
I would absolutely do it again. This crisis has been so devastating to the restaurant business that it’s going to scare people off who may have been aspiring to one day own their own restaurant or become a chef. They’ve seen how cataclysmic this is. But owning a restaurant is uniquely rewarding because, while you’re getting to work for yourself and experiencing life as a business person, you’re connecting with people and making a difference in their lives—even when you don’t know you’re doing it.

“City Café was Baltimore’s most well-known restaurant for diversity, before diversity was the buzz word that it is today. The fact that Bruce and I opened it at 26 in 1994 as two out-of-the-closet gay men, it was always a welcoming space for people of every walk of life.”

Can you elaborate?
We had a tragedy at City Café in 2001. My older brother and business partner, John, was murdered outside of the restaurant. It was a robbery set up by an employee who worked there. He was walking up to Mercantile bank at Charles and Chase. At that time, we were six years into the business and I was pretty adamant that we were not reopening after that occurred. And then, as things played out—my brother was an ordinary guy—1,000 people came to his funeral. And there was a vigil outside of City Café and 1,000 people attended. I never realized the difference this little coffee shop, which is what it was at that time, was making in people’s lives in the community and the difference he made. He was a front-of-the-house guy and everyone loved him. It changed my perspective on the restaurant business. I knew from that point on that, yes, we have to cook the food, mop the floor, and pay the bills—it was all that stuff and it’s hard work—but I can’t think of too many things that an average person can get into that can make such a difference in a community’s life. That sealed the deal for me.

Why do restaurants matter?
They matter because people are social creatures and we are not meant to just be isolated in our own little world all the time. People want to come out and interact with others and they want to break bread together. That’s become very much ingrained in our culture. It was a golden time to come in 26 years ago. There’s been a rapid expansion and constant evolution in creating spaces and a culture. We see the value in it, especially around Baltimore where you see thriving small restaurants. Young people are able to come in and create these awesome cultural experiences with foods from other places.

“Owning a restaurant is uniquely rewarding because you’re connecting with people and making a difference in their lives—even when you don’t know you’re doing it.”

Was this your original dream—to go into hospitality?
Somewhere in my upbringing it was pushed on me to work for myself. I always knew one way or another I’d be an entrepreneur. We were inspired to open a coffee shop in an amazing piece of architecture, in a cool, gay-friendly neighborhood in 1994. At that time, I didn’t think it would become a lifelong career, but that goes back to why restaurants matter. People wanted to get out of their house and come to a cool place and be around other people. My brother was little bit older than me, and he had an incredible sense of that before I did. He taught me why it matters—and why it matters is important. If you don’t think it matters, you’re not going to endure. It is a hard business.

After the beloved Harvey’s closed in 2000, nothing succeeded in Green Spring Station’s corner restaurant spot until Tark’s Grill in 2008. Owner Terry “Tark” Arenson cannily understood that what makes for a successful restaurant in the county might not necessarily entail glamour and challenging cuisine. Rather, Tark’s, like Harvey’s, specialized in comforting surrounds and reliable food that pleased without surprising. No wonder that new owners Gino Cardinale and Bruce Bodie have opted for only the subtlest changes, and that includes not messing with the name. Cardinale and Bodie know something about success—they’re the team behind City Cafe—and are treading lightly, introducing touches of urban hip to the menu without scaring away the clientele. So far, it’s working pretty well.     

Although some interior renovations will take place in 2017, it’s doubtful that the new owners will do anything drastic to the muted, neocasual dining room—maybe a brighter palette and a seafood bar. The friendly service that Tark’s was known for is still  firmly in place, and the cocktails are as big as ever. 

Many menu updates have been imported from City Cafe by executive chef and CC alum James Jennings, and they’re mostly about nudging old favorites into New American territory. A classic cobb salad boasts a seven-minute egg and avocado ranch dressing; Thai dipping sauce accompanies the fried calamari. Along with crab dip, you’ll find trendy burrata with wild mushrooms and rosemary oil, and crispy lobster nuggets with chutney. We loved the latter, but were less impressed with another starter, a limp and flavorless bowl of Brussels sprouts with bacon aioli. 

Among the entrees, you’ll find favorites like crab cakes and rack of lamb—perfectly grilled and gussied up with white asparagus and polenta. While you can choose between a filet or New York strip steak, there’s a bistro-ish flat-iron cut as well. The flat iron is full of flavor and texture. But another beef entree, the barbecued short rib, lacked the unctuousness you want in a cut like this, and it didn’t have much flavor, either. A more difficult dish to pull off was the best of the evening. Chicken medallions, enrobed in Marsala cream studded with pancetta, were a tender rebuke to anyone who thinks chicken is boring. 

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but the diners at Tark’s aren’t looking for that. This is the kind of place where neighborly feeling and the aura of stability count for more than kitchen theatrics. And as we eagerly dug into our chocolate bread pudding—rendered slightly au courant with both dark and white varieties—we reckoned that such reassuring qualities are a mighty good thing these days.

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TARK’S GRILL 2360 W. Joppa Road, 410-583-8275.
HOURS Mon.-Thu. 3-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 3–11 p.m., Sun. 3–9 p.m.  
PRICES Appetizers: $5-16; entrees: $13-32; desserts: $7-8.
AMBIANCE Suburban chic.