Entrepreneurship : Development News

A juice bar and yoga studio are coming to Hampden in March, setting up shop next to the newly opened Belgian brasserie De Kleine Duivel.
 
Jukai Juice Co. and SOULshine Wellness Studio share an entrance, and once inside customers can go from one to the other without leaving the building. The 750-square-foot space is about equally divided between Jukai and SOULshine.

Jukai Juice Co. Owner Kerri Namvary expects to open her all-natural juice store at 3602 Hickory Ave. in about seven weeks in the former Redman Lodge social club. SOULshine Wellness Studio Owner Sarah Hatton is eying a similar timetable for the yoga studio.

Namvary estimates she’ll invest $40,000 for a kitchen and small seating area. Eventually, she hopes to offer vegetarian and vegan options along with her all-natural juices. The storefront will allow her to consolidate her juicing operations in one place. Currently, the juice is produced in two separate commercial kitchens in Baltimore County and York County, Pa.
 
Jukai is named in honor of Namvary’s two kids, Julie and Kyle. Currently, she’s a one-woman business, though she may take on a part-timer. She started the business three years ago with stalls at local farmers’ markets and fridge space at the Green Onion in Hamilton. With the planned move to Hampden she plans to cut back on most of the markets, however, she plans to continue selling at Highlandtown and Fells Point. Jukai’s bestseller is the ‘Hulk,’ a blend of kale, pineapple, green apple, lemon, and ginger.

“My bigger picture is to offer nutrition on the go to everybody. I just feel like we would live in a better world if everybody was nourished,” she says.
 
Hatton estimates she’ll spend a bit less than $15,000 to open her yoga studio. The 2000 Towson University graduate moved back to the area from Dallas about a year ago and says she has found a niche in Hampden.
 
“You have some people who maybe are not from the city, like myself with a vision about bringing community together, whether it’s through art or yoga,” Hatton says.
 
Art studio Gallery 788 is another tenant in the building. It will be joined by a photography studio.
 
Reporter: Amy Landsman
Source: Kerri Namvary, owner Jukai Juice; Sarah Hatton, owner SOULshine Wellness.

Fazzini’s Italian Kitchen is moving to a bigger spot in Cockeysville that will give the BYOB restaurant a liquor license and more than five times the seating capacity.
 
The Italian restaurant will open within three months in the shuttered Piv’s Restaurant space at 9811 York Road, Owner Ari Brownstein says.
 
The new spot will give them 225 seats, including a patio, versus 40 in the current location. Fazzini’s will take over Piv’s liquor license.
 
The new location is about a block north of Padonia Road, where Ryleigh’s Oyster House of Federal Hill opened a Timonium outpost in November, and a couple blocks south of Cranbrook Road, where La Tolteca Mexican Restaurant of Belair opened a second location.
 
“The possibilities of that space are limitless,” Brownstein says, saying they’ll do some minor renovations, including moving tables and rearranging some booths. He declined to discuss the cost of the renovation.
 
Brownstein says they will hire 25 additional workers to their existing 15-person staff.  The restaurant will retain much of its menu.
 
“We’ll continue to make all our pastas, breads, meatballs from scratch as we’ve been doing for the past 20 years.”
 
Although currently in a cramped, strip mall location, Fazzini’s draws customers from beyond the immediate neighborhood.
 
 
Reporter: Amy Landsman
Source: Ari Brownstein, Fazzini’s owner 

The owners of Canton’s Myth & Moonshine are expanding, with plans to open a second bar in Fells Point and an upstairs dive bar at its current location.
 
Owners Shanna Cooper and fiancé Jake Millisock are negotiating their lease in Fells and expect it to open by May, Cooper says. Called Myth II Moonshine, Cooper describes the new business as a “corner satellite dive bar.”
 
The year-old Canton bar specializes in Cajun food and, of course, various types of moonshine. Cooper couldn’t divulge the Fells location yet as the owners are still in negotiations.
 
“We think it’s going to be great for people who want some late food that’s not pizza.”
 
The Fells Point bar will serve many of the same appetizers, sandwiches and desserts as the existing restaurant. It will also serve loaded baked potatoes and hotdogs, similar to what it has in store for Canton.
 
By Valentine’s Day, the second floor of Myth and Moonshine will house a dive bar featuring a hot dog and baked potato station with 30 toppings. It will offer the usual condiments, plus more unusual ones like gumbo or ham and cheese. Toppings will cost 50 cents each and a loaded hot dog or baked potato will run between $4 and $8. Cooper says she hopes the hot dog and baked potato bar will help it attract a lunch crowd.
 
Cooper describes the upstairs as a “rustic moonshine shack,” with industrial piping and four fireplaces. “It’s almost like hanging out in a basement of a house.”
 
The restaurant carries 75 types of moonshine and will up that number to about 100 by the end of February. Its menu items include shrimp and grits, jambalaya, ribs and deviled eggs. 

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Shanna Cooper

Canton Crossing’s new farm-to-table restaurant Farmstead Grill and its companion kiosk Farmstead Shack will likely open in May, Executive Chef and Chief Operating Officer Galen Sampson says.
 
Selling takeaway items, Farmstead Shack will open later than the 200-seat restaurant. Sampson says it will be sometime after Mother's Day.
 
The venture is led by Charles Nasbit, the owner of the two-year-old Waterfront Kitchen in Fells Point. The restaurant and shack will rely on local farms for its meat and produce and aims to serve “creative, chef-driven cuisines” at a lower price point, says Sampson, the former chef and owner of the Dogwood in Hampden.
 
Entrees will cost between $16 and $25. Diners wanting to spend less can get small plates, salads and appetizers for under $16, Sampson says.
 
Architect Brown Craig Turner Inc. has designed the casual fine dining restaurant like a barn with exposed wooden beams lots of light and an all-glass front. It looks out over a park, across from Farmstead Shack.
 
The restaurant and kiosk will join Target, Michael’s, Mission BBQ, Samos and a slew of other shops and restaurants at the Canton development. A Harris Teeter will join Canton Crossing later this year. 

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Galen Sampson

Well you can forget your New Year’s diet resolutions if you live or work in downtown Baltimore.

The owner of Jonestown’s Patisserie Poupon is opening a new café about a mile away from his original location at the end of this month. The original Patisserie, specializing in French cakes and pastries, is retail only, with no seating. The new Café Poupon at 225 N. Charles St. will feature a full menu.

Owner Joseph Poupon says the café will feature breakfast pastries, a variety of coffees, and classic French salads and dishes such as quiche.

The 1,300-square-foot space is street level and adjacent to the  Grand Historic Venue property. Poupon has a ten-year lease from the Embassy Suites Baltimore – Inner Harbor, which runs the Grand Historic Venue. In 2006, the 45,000-square-foot event space, a former Masonic Lodge, underwent a $27 million renovation.

Poupon is only making minor upgrades to the kitchen. The space, previously the Grand Café, already features high ceilings, marble floors, and French lithographs on the walls. There is terrace seating in the summer. “I want to have a nice pastry shop. It’s a beautiful space,” he says.

Poupon is in the process of hiring a chef, baristas, and other employees, about a dozen people in all.

Poupon has bakeries in Washington, D.C., and in Baltimore at 820 E. Baltimore St, near the Shot Tower. The Baltimore location opened in 1986.

Poupon says he has no further expansion plans.


Reporter: Amy Landsman
Source: Joseph Poupon, owner, Café Poupon.

A Belgian brasserie opened Friday in a former social club of the Improved Order of Red Men Lodge at 3602 Hickory Ave. in Hampden.

De Kleine Duivel, which means “little devil” in Flemish, is just serving beer, wine, spirits, and small plates, such as paté, charcuterie, and cheese from the Green Onion Market in Hamilton. But the space has a full kitchen, which Owner Paul Kopchinski says he expects to open by late January. He will also offer live music in the coming months.

The 1,500-square-foot room seats about 15 at the bar and close to 50 at tables. The showpiece of the Art Nouveau-style space is the custom 40-foot-long bar made by a cabinetmaker and childhood friend of Kopchinski’s. 

Right now it’s just Kopchinski and one other employee manning the bar. He says he expects to hire about five servers when the kitchen opens.

Kopchinski plans to apply for an entertainment license so bands can play on the restaurant’s stage a few nights a month. “Nothing loud. Eclectic, acoustic music that would fit in with the theme and the atmosphere."

Kopchinski has been planning on opening his Belgian-themed brasserie since 2010. Two previous locations didn’t work out, and he ended up at the former lodge.

Kopchinski’s mom’s side of the family is Flemish and he still has family in Belgium, and he travels there often. De Kleine Duivel, “little devil,” is what his grandmother used to call him when he was a kid.
 
Reporter: Amy Landsman
Source: Paul Kopchinski, owner De Kleine Duivel

A new coffee shop is coming soon to the Mount Vernon neighborhood and plans to serve more than coffee and pastries.
 
NuBohemia, which bills itself as a modern bohemian cafe, will sell jewelry, yoga gear and vinyl records when it opens at 42 W. Biddle St. in about a month.
 
Owner John Johnson says the coffee shop will serve espresso and espresso-based drinks, drip coffee, hot and iced tea, and smoothies.

“We want to be a destination for folks, a place people will want to come and enjoy each other’s company,” Johnson says.
 
The shop has partnered with a local Maryland record store to sell vinyl in the shop. NuBohemia hopes to appeal to the young artists and college students who live in the area.
 
The 1000-square-foot space is located just a block and a half from the 1200 block of Charles Street, an area that Johnson says believes is the “hottest area of the city.” The block is home to a growing cluster of shops and restaurants, including Potbelly Sandwich Shop, Starbucks, Tutti Frutti, TriBeCa Coffee Roasters, Oooh So Sweet bakery and Pet Valu. The area has attracted more businesses as its student population has grown with the expansion of the University of Baltimore. 
 
“We wanted to open as close to this block as possible,” Johnson says.
 
Johnson came across this location while working in the events promotion field.
 
“We started doing events for 10 years and actually got away from wanting to open the coffee shop,” he says. “But now that things have settled down, we’re back to wanting to open the brick and mortar of the coffee shop.”
 
Johnson says the shop will be open Thursday through Sunday for the first year, and will then expand its hours to seven days a week thereafter.

Writer: Daryl Hale
Source: John Johnson

A new salon specializing in professional blow dries opened its second location in Harbor East Nov. 22 and is eyeing Howard County for its third.

The Haute Blow Dry Bar doesn’t do haircuts. Instead, clients come in for a 45-minute wash, scalp massage, and professional blow out. Owner Abi Frederick, a California native, says the concept is big on the West Coast and is now reaching Baltimore.

The 650-square-foot blow dry bar at 644 S. Exeter St., across from Whole Foods, has  seven styling chairs, blue walls, and white marble countertops. Frederick is investing about $115,000 in the renovation with money from a private investor group. Haute Harbor East employs seven.

Frederick opened her first Haute at 720 Dulaney Valley Road in the Dulaney Valley Plaza in Towson in July. Frederick hopes to expand to Columbia by summer 2014.

Frederick says Harbor East has the cachet she was looking for in a location. The tony area is home to the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore and J. Crew, Anthropologie, Lululemon and other shops.

“I think that with the development of Harbor East and the new retail stores going in, I just think it’s a concept that will do really well here. Harbor East, with all the professional women and all the restaurants right there, and the hotels, I think that there’s a real need.”

Clients come in for a professional styling, for special events, or a girls’ night out. Haute offers clients a glass of wine, champagne or a soft drink to enjoy with their blow out.

“I’ve already had women coming to weddings in Baltimore and asking us if we’re open.” 

Writer: Amy Landsman
Source: Abi Frederick, Haute Blow Dry Bar

A new coworking space in Charles Village is offering entrepreneurs and freelancers the chance to work in a shared office.
 
The Charles Village Exchange, which began operating Oct. 1, has dedicated about 900 square feet for coworking. The practice involves sharing office space in an environment that is more professional than a home or coffee shop, but that is less expensive and less contractually binding than renting an executive suite. The Exchange joins several other coworking spots in Greater Baltimore. 
 
The space is located at 2526 St. Paul Street on the third floor of the building, where co-owners Doug Austin and Eve Austin’s businesses are housed on other floors.
 
The Charles Village Exchange includes an enclosed meeting room, a kitchenette, a lounge, a bathroom, soundproof phone booth and seven workspaces that make up the main area.
 
The cost varies based on how many desks are licensed and the duration of the license but range from $260 a month per desk to the entire floor for $1,600 a month for a year.
 
Doug Austin says that he and Eve Austin chose the building about a year ago, when his business, UPD Consulting, outgrew its previous location in Ridgely’s Delight and moved to its current Charles Village location.
 
“This building in particular is a really beautiful building,” Doug Austin says. “It’s in the heart of Baltimore. It’s close to the train station, which was convenient for us. And we just really liked the neighborhood.”
 
But after realizing that they had extra space on the third floor, he says that coworking was the perfect way to put the space to use.
 
“It’s actually kind of exciting to have that kind of energy and different types of people and businesses in the same building with us,” Austin says. “There are a lot of budding entrepreneurs in this neighborhood. We don’t want them to move down to D.C. or Philadelphia or something because they don’t have something like this that is enticing to them.”
 
Charles Village Exchange will hold an open house on Nov. 20. For the first 25 guests at the event, the business will donate a turkey in each visitor’s name to the Margaret Brent School in Charles Village.

Writer: Daryl Hale
Sources: Doug Austin, Holly Burke, Charles Village Exchange

A Persian restaurant is taking the place of the former Stoneleigh Bakery Cafe in Towson.

Villagio Café is opening Dec. 1 at 6805 York Road in the Stoneleigh neighborhood. Serving grilled kabob, lamb, salmon, basmati rice, hummus, baba ghanoush and Greek salad, Villagio will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Owner Foad Borhani is renovating the 1,800-square-foot space to seat 40 and another 10 on the sidewalk. He says he hasn’t set the menu yet.

Borhani was a restaurateur in Phoenix, Arizona, where he previously lived. He moved to Baltimore about a year ago to be closer to family. Borhani says Villagio will be very casual, with comfy booths for eating in, and take out service available. The restaurant will employ four.

The Stoneleigh neighborhood is a quaint historic district that was first developed in the 1920’s. The storefronts lining York Road are nearly all independently owned shops, including Uncle Wiggly’s Ice Cream, Mandarin Taste, Gennuso’s Barber Shop, and Stoneleigh Duckpin Lanes. 
 
Reporter: Amy Landsman
Source, Foad Borhani, owner, Villagio Café

The highly anticipated Cunningham’s restaurant at the Towson City Center building made its debut Nov. 22 with a cafe soon to follow.

The 10,000-square-foot restaurant employs 80, Bagby Restaurant Group Director of Marketing Dave Seel says. Cunningham Café will open early 2014.

Specializing in local, sustainable and seasonal cuisine, Cunningham’s relies on produce from Bagby Group Owner David Smith’s Cunningham Farms in Cockeysville. 

Billed as a sophisticated take on mid-Atlantic cuisine, Cunningham's will serve wood-fired flatbreads, grilled seafood and dry-aged steaks. Executive Chef Chris Allen recreates flavors that tap into his childhood in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Ryan Shacochis, formerly of the Wine Market, has been brought on as the restaurant’s general manager. 

The 260-seat restaurant consists of three dining areas, including a bar and a private dining space. The patio will seat another 80 during the warmer months. The modern decor includes big yellow lights that ador the ceiling and a lighted marble bar.

Cunningham Café, a 2,000-square-foot café and bakery on the ground level just under the main restaurant, will feature locally sourced ingredients for breakfast and lunch, fair trade coffee, artisanal bread and pastries. The café will seat 40 indoors and another 20 outside.  

Though Towson has lots of fairly casual places serving office workers, students, and the community, Seel says he believes Cunningham’s will fill a gap in terms of destination dining.

“There’s a huge need for new restaurants, different types of restaurants up there,” he says.
 
Cunningham’s will be the Bagby Restaurant Group’s fourth restaurant. The others are Bagby Pizza Co., Ten Ten and Fleet Street Kitchen, which are all located in Baltimore’s Harbor East neighborhood.
 
Writer: Amy Landsman
Source: Dave Seel, Bagby Retaurant Group.

About a year after opening his popular artisan pizza joint Birroteca, Robbin Haas has tackled his next restaurant venture in Mount Washington.

The Nickel Taphouse opened Nov. 20 in the former Blue Sage Café and Wine Bar space at 1604 Kelly Ave.

The 100-seat restaurant serves grilled oysters, mussels, burgers and roast beef served on kimmelweck rolls, topped with sea salt and caraway seeds. The sandwich is a specialty in Haas’ native Buffalo, N.Y. The restaurant also serves 32 craft beers on draft and about 50 wines. Menu items cost between $5 and $19. 

The 4,000-square-foot Nickel Taphouse is inspired by the places Haas used to frequent in his working class neighborhood. “They had great food and a lively bar crowd. These are places to hang out and stop in everyday.”

Haas, who is leasing the space, says he wasn’t looking to expand but a good business opportunity came along. He declined to say how much he spendt on the business.

“I like Mount Washington. I think there’s an opportunity for another restaurant there. I like it because it’s homey, it has a wide diversity of people. It has a great vibe to it.”

Located in the Jones Falls area, Birroteca serves pasta, calamari and other modern Italian fare. 

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Robbin Haas, Birroteca

After months of anticipation from Mount Vernon residents, Dooby’s Coffee opened Saturday in the building that once housed popular coffee shop Donna's.

Owner Phil Han says the coffee house features his four favorite things.  If “we can excel in coffee, in-house pastries, sandwiches, and craft beers, then we’re perfectly happy."

The cafe serves 12 draft beers and assortment of wines. Dooby's is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Reviewers on Yelp praise the cafe's avocado toast and butter-brown chocolate chip cookies. 

A pop-up version of the coffeehouse had been operating over the last few months in the Hatch, Han's incubator that is located around the corner from Dooby's. Home accessories retailer zestt is moving into the pop-up space. Founded by Jessica Diehl and Benita Goldblattt, zestt sells contemporary textiles, art and accessories. 

Extensive renovation at 800 North Charles St. took place following a five-alarm fire in 2010. The fire forced local favorite restaurants Indigma, Donna’s and My Thai to close. Indigma has since opened across the street at 801 N. Charles St. and My Thai opened next to Heavy Seas Alehouse in the Tack Factory in Little Italy. Donna's is not reopening in the building. It has locations in the Village of Cross Keys and Charles Village. Its Columbia location closed in May.

The 2,500-square-foot location will have seating for 75 inside and an additional 22 seats outside once it gets its permit for outdoor seating. It will feature clean lines and natural colors.

Han says it took more than a year to settle on the perfect name for the coffeehouse. “Dooby” is Han’s childhood nickname and comes from a Korean word. 

Han says many Korean-Americans like himself are in the food service business, but he says a Korean-American owned coffeehouse was an unfilled niche. So, as a gift to the Korean-American community, he decided to jump in.

He first searched for a space in Howard County, home to many Korean-owned businesses. When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he turned to the city’s Mount Vernon neighborhood.

“It was like a no-brainer spot for me. This is such an awesome place, with colleges, young professionals. The amount of art and creativity that surrounds us is just amazing.”

Han says he believes the neighborhood is looking forward to having a new coffee house in the now-renovated block. Many area residents have taken pictures and asked him when he is opening.
 
Source: Phil Han, owner, Dooby’s Coffee
Writer: Amy Landsman [email protected] 
 
 

A Baltimore chef who has worked for the Wine Market and Fleet Street Kitchen opened a casual contemporary restaurant in an industrial building on the edge of Little Italy Oct. 15.

The 1,350-square-foot By Degrees Cafe serves soups, salads and sandwiches for lunch and half a dozen entrees for dinner. By Degrees serves lunch at the counter and relies on wait staff for dinner.

Located in the redeveloped Fallsway Spring building at 415 S. Central Ave., the restaurant will hopefully appeal to young professionals in the neighborhood and adjacent Harbor East, Owner Omar Semidey says. 

Semidey says he wants to offer a small, intimate dining experience for diners who want an alternative to the massive, swanky eateries in tony Harbor East. By Degrees will seat 50 in the dining room and another six at the bar. 

He describes By Degrees as a “third-day” restaurant. When you have a friend in town, you take him somewhere nice the first day. The second day you cook dinner at home. And the third day you’re ready to eat out again, but somewhere that offers "solid food that doesn’t break the bank.” Most entrees at By Degrees cost less than $17 and soups around $5 and sandwiches under $10.

“The goal is not to revolutionize the culinary landscape, but shift it by degrees,” Semidey says.

Semidey is working with a silent business partner, whom he declined to name. He also declined to say how much he and his business partner will spend on the restaurant, financed with cash. 

The building’s developer Larry Silverstein is responsible for refurbishing several other properties in East Baltimore, including the Union Box Co. and the Holland Tack Factory, home of Heavy Seas Ale House and My Thai. 

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Omar Semidey, By Degrees Cafe

Kara Brook hasn’t got time for the pain — of bee stings, that is.
 
It happens every time she checks on the 18 hives at her Eastern Shore farm. But that hasn’t stopped her from harvesting the honey to create honey-made products sold in her Owings Mills shop Honey House.
 
Brook opened a 2,200-square-foot production facility and retail outlet in the Pleasant Hill Center at 10989 Red Run Blvd. last month.
 
About 700 square feet is set aside as a retail showroom called the Honey House, where Brook showcases her all-natural candles, honey lollipops, body butter and scrub, and other beauty products. She also features a wide selection of different types of honey in jars.
 
The bulk of the facility is dedicated to honey processing equipment, including centrifuge tanks that spin the honey out of the hive, gravity pumps to send the honey through filters, and two honey storage tanks. Brook hopes to add new honey-based products every year.
 
Brook is the owner and has one employee. She used her savings to finance the operation, though she declined to say how much she invested.
 
“I really pride myself on the handcrafted nature of everything that’s involved in this product line.”
 
Brook started her honey and honey-based products business in her kitchen in 2010. Also an artist, Brook says she initially wanted the beeswax so she could make a special paint. In the process, she discovered the potential of honey. She produced 70 pounds of honey from her one hive that first year. She now has 18 hives and produced 500 pounds this year.
 
She also carries honey from other beekeepers, mostly from the Eastern Shore, but extending up and down the coast from Florida to New Jersey.
 
Brook hopes kids will visit the Honey House, and if she has time she’ll show them around. “I hope that I can inspire kids too, because we need future beekeepers,” she says.
 
Reporter: Amy Landsman
Source: Kara Brook, owner, The Honey House