If you were looking for Arsh Mirmiran during the early 1990s around lunchtime, chances are he was at The Village Food Market at The Village of Cross Keys, eating a Reuben or fried chicken and western fries. Known as the Cross Keys Deli, it was a popular (and nearby) destination for Friends School of Baltimore students like him who were permitted to leave campus for lunch.

In fact, not just the deli but all of Cross Keys was a familiar spot for Mirmiran, today a partner with Caves Valley Partners, the Baltimore-based commercial development firm that has recently revitalized the iconic Baltimore location.

Growing up, he accompanied his parents to Cross Keys for shopping trips and more meals at the deli. His mother had her hair done by Howard at Carl Intercoiffurie, one of the original tenants. Later, after he and his wife, Lauren, moved to Homeland, Donna’s Cafe at Cross Keys was a frequent family meal spot with their young daughters.

“When I was younger, I didn’t have the big picture to understand that it felt like community,” says Mirmiran. “There was good stuff there, and we went. For me it was all about the deli.”

“Community” was the vision that Jim Rouse and The Rouse Company had when Rouse purchased the former 68-acre Baltimore Country Club golf course in 1961 to embark on a new concept: a multi-use complex with high-end retail, gathering spots, offices, and luxury condominiums. It was Rouse’s first, pre-Columbia planned community.

Rouse took the name “Cross Keys” from the 18th-century tavern that once welcomed travelers on the Falls Turnpike Road (now Falls Road). Located where the current CVS Pharmacy is on Falls Road, the inn burnt to the ground in 1909, but the two crossed keys of the original inn’s logo informed the new development’s own logo featuring three crossed keys.

The name was also inspired by Cross Keys Village, the free Black enclave on Falls Road, just north of Cold Spring Lane that dated to the mid-1800s. Most of the robust community had been razed around the time Rouse Co. was negotiating to buy the land for the Village of Cross Keys.

In his comprehensive history, Baltimore’s Two Cross Keys Villages, Jim Holechek writes, “To make room for the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute-Western High School complex and a highway entrance ramp, all Cross Keys homes on the west side of Falls were condemned and demolished in the fall of 1961.”

Then a resident of Roland Park, Rouse worked with the Roland Park community to gather buy-in for his low-density concept, hosting numerous in-home gatherings. When construction began on the residential section in September 1963, Rouse took his inspiration from Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.’s Roland Park plan, writes Holechek. “The directive from Rouse was to follow the land contours and not to remove trees except for a few in the footprints of the section of the development.”

When The Village of Cross Keys opened in 1965, it quickly became the place to be. And remained so for decades. Oprah Winfrey lived there during her WJZ TV days, and Gov. Harry Hughes and poet Ogden Nash called it home. (The latter wrote handwritten letters to Rouse complaining about his condo’s TV reception and the parking.)

Legendary jewelry designer Betty Cooke relocated her Mt. Vernon studio to Cross Keys, establishing the iconic The Store Ltd. alongside retailers like The Village Set sportswear store, Hess Shoes, and Octavia, the destination for elegant dresses. Stores shared walkways with Silber’s Bakery, Equitable Trust Co., Cross Keys Pharmacy, and Chappell Brothers food market. Professional offices, doctors, lawyers, RTK&L architects, the Phyllis Mollett Travel Agency, and the Rouse Co. headquarters rounded out the neighborhood hub Rouse envisioned.

The hotel on the property (not owned by Rouse) attracted athletes, celebrities, and high-end clientele. During the 1980s and early 1990s, The Village Roost, first owned by the Rouse Co. before becoming the coffee shop for the hotel at Cross Keys, attracted Baltimore’s movers and shakers for power breakfasts.

At the turn of the 21st century, though, Cross Keys’ shine began to wane. Mirmiran’s beloved Cross Keys Deli had already closed in 1994 when owners Irv Falk and Morris Tossman retired. In 2004, the Rouse Co. was acquired by Chicago-based General Growth Properties (GGP) in a $7.2-billion deal that included the assets of Cross Keys and high-profile Rouse properties like Harborplace and Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

“Those were the Rouse assets they wanted,” Mirmiran says. GGP didn’t pay attention to the smaller, less flashy retail complex—and it showed. During the 2008 Great Recession, GGP went bankrupt and, in 2012, sold Cross Keys to another non-local owner, New York’s Ashkenazy Acquisitions Corporation. Mirmiran, coincidentally, had become a Cross Keys “regular” again, driving back and forth from his mother-in-law’s condo there.

Ashkenazy initially had plans to revamp the property, but they never materialized. Cross Keys languished as local retail competition ramped up after the 1991 renovation of Towson Town Center—with its flashy anchor, Nordstrom and the growth of other regional malls.

The fashionista destination for the area and Cross Keys staple, Ruth Shaw, left in 2017 for The Shops at Kenilworth. Donna’s shut its doors a year later. Online shopping was ascendent. At the time, Cross Keys retail occupancy was at 62 percent, with a mere 40 percent of the office space leased. With each trip through the Cross Keys’ gatehouse, Mirmiran saw more shuttered store fronts and vacant offices.

“Every time, I would think that what was happening at Cross Keys was a real shame,” he recalls.

Rosemary “Cookie” Schneider, owner and manager of The Pied Piper, has lived through Cross Keys’ ups and downs. Her mother, the late Kitty DeVincentis (“Mrs. D.” to customers), was a former Peck & Peck buyer who saw the need for an upscale children’s clothing shop in Baltimore. DeVincentis opened The Pied Piper in 1965 on Wyndhurst Avenue and was wooed by Rouse to relocate to Cross Keys in 1995.

“When we came to Cross Keys, it was almost like the Rodeo Drive of Baltimore,” Schneider recalls. “Immediately our business doubled.”

She remembers diplomats driving from Washington, D.C., to shop for their children. However, that dried up after the economic downturn in 2008 and the promised—but never delivered—improvements by out-of-state owners. “We languished, but we stayed,” she says. “My mother and I believed in Cross Keys.”

So did Mirmiran, who was exhausting his spouse with complaints about the center’s plight. “Finally my wife said to stop complaining and to do something about it,” says Mirmiran. He and his Caves Valley Partners, Arthur Adler and Steve Sibel, approached Ashkenazy.

“FINALLY MY WIFE SAID TO STOP COMPLAINING AND DO SOMETHING.”

“This was about nostalgia and commerce, but it had to make economic sense,” adds Mirmiran, who sent persistent emails to Ashkenazy. “Local ownership is important. We knew what it could be. It’s still an incredible location, but it was dated and just needed love for it to come back to life.”

By late 2019, Caves Valley and Ashkenazy were talking. Through the pandemic’s lockdown phase, they worked out the details of a sale that was finalized in July 2020. It excluded the on-site hotel, owned by Delta by Marriott, and the nearly 700 condos at Cross Keys. But Mirmiran finally had the keys to Cross Keys. He and his partners began a major overhaul.

First up was improving property access, signage, road configuration, and parking. Working with the The Cross Keys Maintenance Corp. that owns the Falls Road frontage, Caves Valley Partners funded the clean-up of the tree line along the road. The gatehouse got a needed facelift, with Caves Valley Partners officially naming it the “James Rouse Memorial Gatehouse” in 2022 to honor Rouse’s pioneering vision for mixed-use development.

“Originally the way it was designed was to look like a gated community,” Mirmiran explains. “But if you are looking to bring back the retail, you can’t have it look like a private community.”

Honoring the residents’ wishes to keep the gate arm for safety, they refurbished the gatehouse with a new brick façade, metal roof with a cupola, and better signage for non-residents.

Local architect Design Collective reimagined The Village Square retail and office area, replacing the original vertical planking, which had been damaged over the years, with natural cedar siding. Rouse’s red brick got a modern coat of white paint, and the outdoor lights, what Mirmiran called “1980s globes from Harborplace,” were replaced.

Designer Brian Swanson had developed a criteria package for the signage and storefront of the original Cross Keys in the late 1970s. At the time, he was part of a now-defunct global architectural firm that specialized in large shopping center complexes.

“I knew nothing about the Rouse Company,” says Swanson, who was working out of the firm’s South Africa office in Johannesburg. “But it was the ultimate project with its mixed use and courtyard landscaping—almost forcing the customer to walk around the perimeters against the storefronts.”

Swanson didn’t set foot on the property until 1980, when he moved to Baltimore. “I remember having lunch at The Roost, and it was so crowded,” says Swanson, who founded Swanson Design, a Baltimore-based firm specializing in retail and residential design. “Having worked on it remotely and then seeing it in person was quite an eye-opener.”

In 2020, Swanson saw the banner on Falls Road announcing redevelopment plans and immediately called Caves Valley Partners to share his history with Cross Keys. “Arsh called me back, which led to a meeting on-site with Design Collective architects and Arsh, who asked for my ideas,” says Swanson.

Much of the design work was already complete, but Mirmiran jumped at the chance to connect the old Cross Keys with the new. He hired Swanson to create the new retail signage standards (basically, a set of guidelines retailers adhere to when creating their own signs).

“The opportunity to bring Brian’s career full circle at the property led us to think about how we could incorporate his talents into the project,” Mirmiran says. “We feel like he made a major impact on the design of the retail space, even in his limited role.”

Swanson, who also envisioned the trellises that now surround the shopping perimeter, says that Rouse’s vision of a mixed-use property is as relevant today as it was 60 years ago.

“It’s the intimacy of it,” he explains. “Cross Keys has an esteemed sense of value to it. It’s looking spectacular.”

“IT WAS DATED AND JUST NEEDED LOVE FOR IT TO COME BACK TO LIFE.”

Part of Caves Valley Partners’ due diligence in the early days of the sale was meeting with current tenants as well as Rouse’s sons, Jimmy and Ted, and connecting with former Rouse Co. executives who were involved in Cross Keys.

“I did a whole tour of people who I knew had a history with the property to let them know that we were doing more of a refresh,” Mirmiran says. One of those tenants was Betty Cooke. “Betty was happy that we were keeping the flavor of Cross Keys.”

Before she died in August 2024 at the age of 100, Cooke shared with Mirmiran the original brochure for Cross Keys, displaying illustrations of the original tenants. Today, it’s blown up as wall art for an office hallway.

“The cool factor on the original brochures is through the roof,” Mirmiran says. “She also gave us a stack of old Baltimore Sun ads, which we put on Instagram.”

Under Caves Valley Partners’ stewardship, Cross Keys is nearly fully leased since the completion of close to $175 million in upgrades, renovations, and expansions. That includes a new luxury apartment complex, Sanctuary at Cross Keys, being built by Questar Properties.

“We never thought we would get to 100 percent office leasing, but people want to be here,” says Mirmiran.

It’s not just the offices that are full. Kiddie Calvert was an early arrival, bringing youthful exuberance and a stream of young parents. Foodies flock to new eateries like Nine Tailed Fox, Kneads bakery and coffee shop, and Always Ice Cream Company, located at the new standalone extension near the upper-level parking lot. Mexican restaurant Luna Oaxaca occupies Donna’s former spot overlooking the retail area, and the buzzy Cece’s Roland Park includes seasonal seating in the Village courtyard. Easy Like Sunday and ZaVino, an Italian market, round out the dining options.

When Sanctuary at Cross Keys opens this fall, the six-story complex will house 331 luxury rental apartments, a resort-quality pool, a pet-grooming salon, and 24/7 concierge service.

“It’s going to be a great asset to the community,” says Penny Lane, owner of Pilates House, which moved into Cross Keys last September.

When Lane was looking to expand her Pilates studio, she knew Cross Keys was right for her third location.

“There aren’t that many elevated shopping centers that have done a great job at curating their tenants in the way that Cross Keys has,” Lane says. “With more opportunities for shopping, browsing, and having lunch and coffee, Cross Keys has become more of a destination rather than just a drop-in, drop-out location,” she adds.

Schneider says her mother, “Mrs. D.,” who died in 2023, held hope until the end that Cross Keys would come back—it just needed someone who believed in it.

“Cross Keys needs specialty owners who bring quality merchandise and exemplary service,” Schneider explains. “That’s what Caves Valley is trying to sustain in Baltimore.”

Since the renovation, Schneider has seen an increase in foot traffic and use of the store’s playroom while families wait for lessons at the Baltimore School of Music or for dinner reservations. She knows online shopping isn’t going anywhere, but Schneider learned from the master—her mother.

“Retail is entertainment,” she reflects. “People want to touch it and see it.”

Ruth Shaw, Baltimore’s one-of-a-kind source for European-style designer brands, opened in Cross Keys in 1973. Ray Mitchener, who bought the boutique from Shaw with Brian Comes in 2008, remembers the early Cross Keys days. “It was the place to go and to be seen,” he says.

But, “In 2017, Cross Keys and our sales were dying,” Mitchener says. He and Comes made the hard decision to move to Kenilworth that year. When Cross Keys returned to local ownership, it didn’t take much to convince them to return to the store’s roots. Fittingly, Ruth Shaw, which reopened in Cross Keys in April 2025, took over the former Store Ltd. spot.

“In the 1970s and ’80s, Cross Keys was unique because it had so many female owners: Betty Cooke, Kitty DeVincentis, Octavia Dugan, and Ruth,” Mitchener notes. (Shaw died in 2024 at age 96.) He and Comes are excited that Cross Keys is, once again, a place where people can spend the whole day.

“There is no place like home,” says Comes. “Our window dressing for our re-opening referenced different quotes [about] home.”

He chuckles that their homecoming was something of a resurrection—literally. “Customers have come in since we returned who I assumed were dead because I hadn’t seen them in seven years!” he says.

Building out the complete community feel, Mirmiran contracted with Misty Valley Farms to have a farm stand in the parking lot opposite The Village Square. Now locals can get produce, fresh-cut seasonal flowers, and pick up CSA boxes there.

It fulfilled a dream co-owner Sally Fleischmann had since she visited Cross Keys post-COVID. “I loved the energy there,” she recalls. “Our Cross Keys customers are very loyal,”

Fleischmann continues. “It’s a unique shopping experience. People bring their pets to meet us and bring iced drinks to us on hot days. It’s a community where we take care of each other.”

For Caves Valley Partners, that community has always been the point.

“Cross Keys was part of Baltimore, and it had gone dark,” Mirmiran says with pride as he strolls past the shops and restaurants. “When I walk around Cross Keys, people thank me for bringing it back.”

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

Step inside Nine Tailed Fox, Atlas Restaurant Group’s two-story, 200-seat black-brick-and-steel monolith at The Village of Cross Keys, and you’ll understand why the Chinese-food restaurant was two years in the making.

Even by Atlas’ outsized standards, the whole space, overseen by Ira Imerlishvili, design director at Patrick Sutton Interior Design, is an ambitious, larger-than-life venture, with its jade accents, sprawling rooftop patio, airy atrium, and splendid second-floor bar. It’s a vast space but also balances spectacle with intimacy, thanks to mood lighting, private nooks, and ethereal artwork inspired by traditional Chinese silk paintings and a sculptural rope suspended from the ceiling of the main dining room to anchor the soaring space.

Behind-the-scenes is plenty splashy, too. The kitchen is a generous 2,700-square-feet with a team of 44, including Hong Kong-born executive chef Jeffrey Mei and Timur Fazilov, chef of Asian cuisine, whose C.V. includes a stint at the famed Morimoto in Qatar.

The restaurant’s namesake is the mythical “nine-tailed fox” drawn from East Asian mythology. The fox is known for its longevity, cosmic wisdom, and ability to shapeshift. This could, in fact, serve as a metaphor for Atlas founder Alex Smith, who has mastered the art of time travel, as his ever-morphing empire covers almost every continent and time period from the Jazz Age (The Ruxton), to the ’70s (Italian Disco), to the Belle Époque (Monarque).

This time, Mr. Smith goes to China with a restaurant that taps into America’s long love affair with Chinese food that began when Chinese immigrants, primarily from the Canton region, came to California for the Gold Rush, soon adapting their cuisine for Western palates. From the looks of the restaurant on any given night, that love affair is still going strong.

The menu at Nine Tailed Fox references both past and present, highlighting Cantonese classics, alongside clever, more modern combinations drawn from a country with countless regional cuisines. That means you can expect a catalogue of the familiar Chinese-American staples that most Americans grew up eating—orange beef, chicken chow mein, General Tso’s chicken—whether you enjoyed them in Chinatown (if your city was lucky enough to have one) or at simple mom-and-pop neighborhood take-out spots.

But, in addition to those commonly known standards, there are more modern takes on traditional fare, such as black-truffle roasted duck, or lamb (a commonly consumed protein in China) spiced with cumin and cilantro and folded into pan-fried potstickers.

Along with the potstickers, you’ll find a slew of more traditional dumplings. Dumplings are thought to have originated 1,800 years ago during the Han Dynasty, and that history is honored here—the dumplings are handmade by a team of five and treated as something of an art form.

You can make an entire meal out of mixing and matching, including perfectly pleated xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) filled with bits of chicken; pillowy shrimp dumplings bursting bundles of sweetness; or a fantastic vegetarian version stuffed with assorted mushrooms. There’s a bottle of black vinegar and jar of house-made chile crisp on every table that’s meant for the dumplings but adds a hit of heatand umami to most everything on the table.

Another favorite appetizer was the Singapore Street Slaw, a technicolor twist on Lo Hei salad made for the Chinese New Year. It’s stacked with shredded seasonal vegetables tossed with cashews, fried taro, and fried vermicelli, then mixed tableside in a raspberry and preserved plum vinaigrette. The whole affair is a textural and visual delight with its riot of crunch and a confetti of color.

As for the entrées—prettily presented on the same ’50s-style plates from the Sunday sojourns to Chinatown of my Philly youth—every visit led me to a new discovery. Over a handful of meals, that included a beef and mango dish, accompanied by iceberg lettuce for a crisp element and a cooling component; the pepper steak: tender, wok-seared beef with green bell peppers and leeks in a dark, peppery sauce that delivered real depth and bold, spicy flavor; and a lovely, aromatic vermicelli noodle dish mixed with shrimp and an assortment of vegetables.

Speaking of vegetables, there are plenty of wonderful vegetarian options, including stir-fried sweet pea shoots scented with garlic and dotted with fried onions; and stir-fried eggplant and okra doused in a spicy-sweet cashew sambal. Interestingly, okra is not commonly found on local menus but is a widely used ingredient in Chinese cooking. Don’t miss the chance to order it here.

My only quibble? The kitchen could use more coordination. Dishes are served seemingly tapas-style, which means that the appetizers and entrees come out rapid fire—and often all at the same time. Also, because servers don’t write dishes down, on my outings something almost invariably went wrong. On more than one occasion, an entire dish was missing. On another visit, a server sheepishly came back to the table and asked us to repeat the entire order all over again. (Note to servers everywhere: Write the dang order down.)

Service missteps aside, Nine Tailed Fox is a great addition to our dining scene. I enjoyed expanding my palate, while revisiting old favorites. It made me nostalgic for those family outings when, even as our feast was revealed beneath those bell-shaped lids, I’d crane my neck to see what other tables had ordered. It’s that kind of fare.

Even if the cuisine is ancient, the thrill never gets old.

NINE TAILED FOX, 3 Village Square, 443-688-9511. HOURS: Sun. Thurs. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-1 a.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $8-16; entrees: $19-76* (whole Peking duck); desserts: $4-14. AMBIANCE: Nouvelle Chinese.

It’s never too early to practice self-care. Located in Roland Park’s Village of Cross Keys, SparTea The Pink Door Day Spa is inspiring young girls in Baltimore to celebrate themselves. From hosting tea parties, mani-pedis, and even yoga classes, SparTea has created a space for girls to feel like a princess. We caught up with owner Sarita Murray to learn about what she does to teach kids the “treat yo’self” mantra.

What did you envision when SparTea was launched in 2008?
I’m a single mom of four and my two younger kids are adopted. So in celebration of adoption and their birthdays, I wanted to have a big party. That’s when we came up with this. What I wanted to do was a fabulous Tea Party, but then I thought, “What about also getting their nails done and then if they get little pedicures, and tea with it?” It started with mani-pedis and a little tea party, then it just kind of grew from there.

How did you get the name for your spa?
It’s a spa tea party so that’s how we came up with SparTea. Then, I thought everything will be pink because I’m a breast cancer survivor. When we started as a brick and mortar, we called it SparTea The Pink Door Spa because our door is pink and we wanted to play on the pink door is for little girls while the red door [at now-closed Cross Keys neighbor The Red Door Spa] was for big girls.

What do you enjoy most about hosting spa parties?
Preparing for the party—the design, the decor, and opening the door for the little girls to see a spa for the first time. I love hearing them say, “wow” and the “aww” and “ooh’s” from seeing their cake. I’ve had a little girl come in and was wearing almost the exact black and white print that I had on the table like, “Wow how did Ms. Murray know that I like this?” I think it’s my passion, but it’s also a gift.

Why is it important for young girls to treat themselves?
I think it’s important for them early in age. It’s about self-esteem. I’m really surprised at the number of calls I get about makeup. I think it’s important to let these girls know that they’re beautiful, they’re phenomenal—makeup doesn’t make you. It’s so important that they feel good about themselves and they can go somewhere to be treated like a princess.

What’s the inspiration behind the SparTea “Mommy and Me” package?
When I started thinking of packages, I thought of ways that moms would like to spend quality time with their kids. It’s definitely geared toward the younger girls. We don’t cut cuticles or do acrylic or gel nails, but mom is there to spend time with them.

I’m a 16-year breast cancer survivor, and in October we have a “mommy and me” spa day. We pamper breast cancer patients and their daughters for free. It’s so amazing to see a group of women and their kids having a good time. Some of the moms there are bald from having chemotherapy, and hearing the reassurance from the kids like, “Wow you mean my mommy has the same thing your mom has and she’s still around,” it’s that reassurance—the camaraderie, and the tears that are shed between the moms. If they participated in it the year before and come back it’s like, “Wow I get to sit here with you and tell you my story and show you that yes I’m a cancer survivor, too.”

What are some of your favorite moments hosting spa tea parties?
Over the years there have been little girls who have cried at the end of the day when they don’t want to leave. We have a mat at the front door, and the kids say back it all the time, “This is the best day ever.” There are so many stories that I can tell, but to hear a kid say that they are having a great time means the world to me. I do these parties as if they were for my own kids, so every detail has to be just perfect.

What do you hope to inspire in young girls from Baltimore
I hope that I inspire kindness and love. I hope that it’s always the best day ever when they come here.

After a 19-year run in The Village of Cross Keys, Donna’s Cafe is closing its doors at the end of this week.

“In dog years, it’s almost like we’re 104-years-old,” says co-owner Alan Hirsch in an exclusive interview. “It’s been a great ride. The hardest part is separating from the employees and customers. Some of our customers eat here three, four, five times a week, and we’ve had so many life events here, from engagement parties, to christenings, to shivas.”

When Hirsch and his business partner Donna Crivello opened the first Donna’s in Mt. Vernon in 1991, Crivello once admitted that at the time, “We had no idea what we were doing. We hired some people to put stenciling on the windows, and that same day we opened for business. We didn’t even know we were doing dinner until 5 o’clock on our first night when a customer asked, ‘Do you do dinner?’” Donna’s mother said, “‘Sure, we do dinner,’” recalls Hirsch.

But despite the seat-of-the-pants approach, Donna’s thrived and other locations followed in Towson and Charles Village, as well as inside The Baltimore Museum of Art, the University of Maryland Medical Center, and four locations inside Bibelot bookstores.

The closing of the European-style cafe, which is known for its salads, sandwiches, and upscale coffees, comes as the space struggled for business. “Emotionally, this is very difficult,” says Hirsch, “but from a business decision, it was pretty clear.”

While Hirsch can’t say for certain why business slowed down, he has his theories.

“Restaurants get old,” he says, “Customers get old, and it can be hard to transition to the next generation. I think that’s part of what happened here.”

The explosion of new restaurants on the scene hasn’t helped, says Hirsch.

“With the way that retail is, brick-and-mortar stores are really struggling,” says Hirsch. “That means that developers turn to restaurants as tenants, and sometimes anchor tenants, when they open a space. That’s, in part, what’s fueling the increase in restaurants. They can’t get a clothing store or a shore store in, so you see more restaurants.”

For now, Crivello will continue to focus on her other restaurant Cosima along the banks of the Jones Falls, while Hirsch, a founder of City Paper, says he plans on helping other area restaurants. “It’s been a great ride,” he says.