You know that large vacancy next to Tapas Teatro and across from the Metro Gallery in Station North? After 25 years of dormancy, the location will reopen as the Chesapeake Restaurant in March.
But it won’t be quite the same. The new Chesapeake will be a farm-to-table affair and will share the space with a brewpub and a market cafe.
With the combined presence of Depot, Yellow Sign Theatre, Club Charles, Metro Gallery, and the Charles Theater, the 1700 block of N Charles St is a full-on cultural hotspot. And it could use another dining option — no offense to Sofi’s Crepes or Club Charles or Tapas Teatro (or the concessions at the Charles Theater) — but I wonder if this is it. “Farm-to-table” sounds rather expensive to me. And despite the Chesapeake’s co-owner assuring the Baltimore Business Journal that the new restaurant would be “accessible,” I have my doubts.
Let’s hope they at least keep the nostalgic “Chessie” decor.
Farm to table does sound pricey. That’s the problem with this union of neighborhoods, everything is changing very fast, but it doesn’t appear as though certain populations are also being invited to sit at the table. We need more affordable family style, sit down restaurants — less exclusive, more inclusive.
I couldn’t agree more. That’s exactly what the neighborhood is missing: a sit-down family restaurant that isn’t going out of its way to be chic.
It seems the big problem with making it a destination neighborhood is that it takes the pressure of local establishments to serve the people who actually live there.
Wasn’t this supposed to be a Belgian brewpub or something? They got their liquor license and everything.
Yeah — the plan is for the restaurant to share the space with the brewpub.
I prefer factory to mouth.
I have a painting of the outside of the Chesapeake restaurant given to me by Mr. Evans in 1964