Very interesting. Thanks for the update about Hops. I tend to disagree about having less time to spend at a restaurant, but just from my own perspective. My wife and I have two little ones at home, so on the uncommon occasion when we can dine out alone, we like to spend as much time there as the babysitter budget will allow!

I had heard rumours to this effect. I liked Hops and couldn't figure out why it didn't do better. Most of the time all the restaurants in Owings Mills are crowded leaving one to believe no one in Owings Mills cooks anymore. Oh well. Wonder what will go in there? I'm worried the restaurant park is part of the mall management and it will stay empty like so many mall stores.

Paul Seidman suggested that another national chain was interested in taking over the space (and perhaps the employees), but nothing has been finalized yet.

"I know I'm less willing to spend the time cooking a meal than I used to be, but I hadn't thought about the eating part."

I'm less willing to spend the tme cooking a meal, too. Much to my hubby's sorrow. But I'll take all the time that's needed when I eat out - and that's either in a restaurant or at a friend's house.

I prefer to take my time eating.

Oh Elizabeth, this photo makes me salivate.

The one time we went, the food was mediocre at best, and the service was worse. Further, with a name like HOPS, you would think they brew their own beer.

On the other hand, Don Pablos is pretty decent both food and service-wise.

I agree with Joel. My only experience at Hops was a major letdown. In addition to the mediocre food, poor beer selection and bad service (staff was rowdy and more concerned with goofing off than actually working), the place was filthy. You would have thought that we asked our server for their first-born child when we requested to have our sticky, crumby table wiped down!

I'll also agree with Joel. That Hops location was all-around horrible, including the service, cleaniness and food. My time is precious, and I'm not willing to waste it (or the calories) eating at a medicore & overpriced restaurant. But, for the right restaurant, a long meal is a glorious event (on the weekends!).

Well, now we know why this Hops underperformed.

I'll add my "ditto" to the above comments. I can't believe someone classified Hops as a steak restaurant. The one time I had steak there it was tasteless and tough. The last time I was there, I paid my bill, which was something like $17.20, with a twenty. The server brought me $2 and zero change. I've heard of rounding up, but geesh! I told the manager on my way out to please let the server know why his tip was so low.

how do you explain the line at outback steakhouse then?

I have to disagree with the negative comments about Hops. Everytime I went there, I had a wonderful meal in clean surroundings with adequate wait staff. In addition, the price for a rather large steak with 2 sides couldn't be beaten by anyone else in the area. I don't know why, but it seems to me that Owings Mills has never supported a steak restaurant. When my son was small we used to go to Hanover to eat at Ponderosa or some other "family" type of steak restaurant. Guess we'll be heading "north" again when we want affordable steak!

I wholeheartedly agree with Jessica's comments; for the right meal, time isn't an issue. But for food that comes right out of the cryo-vac pre-cooked, I can't get out of a place fast enough.

I ate at a Hops in Florida (with some folks I work with) and kept thinking "didn't fake brewpubs go out of style around 1999?" Three words: overpriced Sysco chow. At Hops though, it came with $5.00 macro-brew pints with a server who could have fit in at Flingers from 'Office Space'.

I thought Hops does brew its own beer? I have never been to one here (I didn't even know there was one) but we went to them frequently when I was in college in Florida and always liked the beer.

I've always thought Outback's success (first time I went I was told there was a 45 minute wait: I walked away laughing) had as much to do with the waitresses sitting down at my table. The Block is the only other place I've had that happen, and there there was clearly an alternative menu, on offer. It must be true with Outback: it can't be the food.

"how do you explain the line at outback steakhouse then?"

Bloomin' Onion?

Interesting, lately my husband and I had the opposite experience. Since we too have a toddler at home, when we go out to eat we want to take our time and savor the meal (after all, neither one of us is letting our dinner get cold while we cut up the toddler's dinner.) But lately we feel so rushed when we go out to eat; the line to get a seat is out the door and the wait staff is bringing us our entree before we've even had a chance to finish the appetizer/salad. Worse, the check comes and no one has even bothered to ask us if we want dessert or coffee. Used to be that was the easiest way for a restaurant to make more money was upselling. I guess shooing people out the door is more profitable.

Hops does brew their own beer...just not at the Maryland location. My husband is a brew pub freak and we have to go to every one we come across so he can try their beers. We drove all the way out to Hops from Bel Air (over an hour) to find out they didn't brew beer here. Their web site gave no indication that it wouldn't be serving their own brews and the server gave us some strange rant about a "law" that wouldn't allow them to...this was about 2 years ago now so I can't remember what the reason was. The food was OK but nothing that we felt the need to travel back an hour for!

I'm with Maggi - I like nothing more than sauntering through dinner at the table (I've also got a toddler at home - I sense a pattern?).

Premature plate-clearing is one of my biggest pet peeves. I'm a fairly slow eater, and 9 times out of 10, I end up feeling rushed because our waiter's cleared the rest of the table and is hovering to grab my plate, too.

I've never heard of these places. At first I thought IHOP had lost its passport.

Well, it may be too late for Hops, but now is the time that we must rally around the other Owing Mill's culinary treasures, like Red Lobster and Red Robin. If we don't act now, I fear the time will come when we won't be able to find coconut shrimp or southwestern egg rolls....and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

HAHAHAHAHAHA Hops had one good year and it was down hill after that. Who are they trying to fool. Both Red Robin and Don Pablos are doing fine business in the same area. I am glad they are gone. It will give somebody else a chance to do better with the space.

OMG & RfCK!! I'm trying to drink my coffee!

I can identify with PK's comments, but with a twist. We're enjoying not having any children at home, soccer practice, swimming meets, basketball... Amicci's was about as relaxing a dining experience that we had for years. (I do like Amicci's, they've always been kid friendly.) So, we do enjoy having time: time to enjoy a meal, Sotto Sopra works well; time to enjoy each other and friends; time to entertain and cook at home. I don't know about Hops, never heard of it, and we've not been to a steakhouse in years, but Fogo de Chao sounds like a great way to feed an adiction.

I've just been catching up my D@L reading and saw a world I don't wish to contemplate (no, not the one with little rugrats, [opps I mean] ones under foot [agh I mean] about): a world without Red Robin (Side question: did the same chap write their ditty as wrote Hot Pockets? Sing it with me: Red Robin Hot Pockets)

I'm crawling under my desk and putting a pillow over my head. It is simply too bleak. Damn you RfCK. I can not face the day.

That's settled: I am going to compose an oratorio based solely on tunes "inspired" by food. Can't you hear it now? The three opening chords, played by full orchestra (with an augmented brass section - how Mahlerian), are the Hot Pockets theme, which is then voiced by the soprano soloist using stratospheric notes and echoed "sotto voce" by the full chorus with marimba. And I'll dedicate the score to Elizabeth "Big Ace" Large and her merry band of bloggers. And Marin Alsop will conduct the world premiere. And Tim Smith will give it a rave review. And ... heck, anything's possible.

RfCK: Does this mean the death of jalapeno poppers as well? A nation mourns...

The long queues at Outback and that other culinary titan of mediocrity (Cheesecake Factory) aren't exactly selling points.

Dave-I can't speak for the Baltimore outpost, but the DC Fogo de Chao wasn't bad. The night I was there they had a decent wine selection, and their meat actually tastes like beef.

A group of eight of us went to Fogo de Chao for my birthday celebration and we really enjoyed it. The salad bar was full of unusual choices and the guys with their meats just kept swirling around us.

Hops had a period there a couple years after they opened where I agree it was not that good. But in the last few years, they really improved consistency and the steaks were good and so were the salads. I never really saw it dirty and the wait staff was never anything less than friendly and accomodating. Yes, plenty of chains in Owings Mills, but where aren't there? Hate to say this here, but chains are successful for a reason and most started out with their first location not part of a corporation.

Red Robin is not a nice place to eat dinner. The food is adequate and the staff is friendly but its a circus in there. I wasn't wild about Hops' menu, but it was supposedly a nice place to eat. When I went there, I liked what I ordered (it wasn't steak), but the staff was mindless and forgot us a lot. I'm a generous tipper, I know waiting is not an easy job, and I let staff get away with things like ignoring me but it was pretty bad.
I have to say we all need to start making our own damn dinners and forget about restaurant chains. Go to Trader Joe's!! mm mm mmm!