A restaurant serving coal-fired pizza and burgers will open in the former Daily Grind site in Baltimore.
Run by restaurant industry veteran Mark Hofmann, Earth Wood & Fire will open in March.
Hofmann says he and his three partners will invest $500,000 to open the new restaurant.
The
3,000-square-foot restaurant will look "funky and edgy" and feature
fresh, local ingredients, says Hofmann. The partners haven't determined
the prices or the exact menu items yet.
Hofmann says he hopes
to draw everyone from the college kids at Towson University and Loyola
College to residents in neighboring areas. He also hopes to attract the
1,000 workers in the Bare Hills Corporate Center, where the restaurant
will be located. The restaurant will be located in a new retail
building currently under construction.
Close to Interstate 83,
the restaurant is easy to get to for residents in the affluent areas of
Homeland, Towson, Lutherville, and Pikesville, Hofmann says. "It's a
densely populated area," Hofmann says.
Trained as a chef at
the Culinary Institute of America in New York, Hofmann is the former
general manager of Tark's Grill in Lutherville. He also helped open the
Grille at Peerce's, at the former Peerce's Plantation spot. Hofmann was
also a chef at Linwoods in Owings Mills and the former Polo Grill.
Hofmann
says Earth Wood & Fire is a concept he has had in his head for four
years now. If it succeeds in the corporate park, he hopes to open
another one in Canton, Federal Hill, or downtown Baltimore.
"Gotta make this one work first," Hofmann says.
Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Mark Hofmann, Earth Wood & Fire