My favorite restaurant in Baltimore has closed. Help.
About a year ago, Café Papa opened at the corner of Central Avenue and Gough Street, just outside the periphery of Little Italy. The restaurant offered carry-out and a small dining area on the ground level of a row house. I ate there often and my friends and I got to know the owner, Mike, as well as his father, Willie, who helped him out.
Café Papa was the best restaurant I have ever known. I had the best dessert there I've ever eaten, superb pasta dishes, garlic bread unlike any I have ever tasted, and an ever changing selection of complimentary appetizers. One of my companions, a woman who has lived her entire life in Manhattan, said that the spaghetti and clam sauce at Café Papa was the best she'd ever had. Another companion said to Mike that her eggplant parmigiana "may have been the best I've ever tasted." And so on. I visited Café Papa with many different people and they all had the same satisfying experience.
I was disappointed by a recent review of Café Papa that appeared in Baltimore Magazine. It was quite favorable, but not nearly as positive as the experience that I and my friends had there.
Café Papa prices were reasonable, significantly less that the neighboring restaurants in nearby Little Italy
Mike learned to cook from his Italian grandmother and then was kind of an apprentice with different chefs in Italy.
During my year of dining at Café Papa, I, or my companions and I, often had the sad luxury of being the only people being served at the restaurant. I asked Mike why he did not advertise. He said that he would rather build up his clientele gradually. He said that if he made a mistake with a customer who had eaten there 5 or 6 times, they would overlook it, but someone coming there the first or second time would not be so forgiving.
Because of a dispute with his landlady, Mike has closed Café Papa and is now seeking a new location. Mike lives in Little Italy and is negotiating with a landlord to take over the contract for a restaurant located in Little Italy. Unfortunately, Mike is short of the capital needed to come to an agreement by an amount between $25,000 – 50,000, depending on what the owner of the business finally agrees to. The business for sale includes a liquor license (nearly impossible to get otherwise) and the right to rent the second floor apartment, which would be worth roughly $1,000 a month.
The writer of the Baltimore Magazine review of Café Papa said she would be glad to write another review of the restaurant, if and when it reopens.
I have endured the loss of Haussners and many other wonderful local restaurants in my time. I am writing this message in the hope that someone, either someone with experience and/or money might be willing to work with Mike in getting his venture back up and running. Mike’s phone number is 410-258-2410.
I and my companions who have eaten at Café Papa will be glad to be references for the wonderfulness of Café Papa, down for the count, but not out.
Sincerely,
Mark Borinsky