Elizabeth Large,
The Baltimore Sun's restaurant critic, blogs about memorable meals, dining trends, comings and goings on the restaurant scene and more.
Elizabeth Large retired in February. Until a new critic is named,
Laura Vozzella will be blogging here. Vozzella has been a reporter with The Sun for 10 years. She’s covered small-town scandal (Columbia gym towel thefts!) and big-city mayors (O’Malley, Dixon).
Lately she has been writing about food (cilantro, pine nuts). She also writes The Talk, a weekly column about politicians and other local oddities (again: O’Malley, Dixon). She’ll continue with the food writing and The Talk column while blogging.
Comments
Pol's Place in Canton (including bar, license, and three BR apt upstairs) is only $190 right now...You can just make it your own faux-Irish bar.
Posted by: Cheese | July 23, 2009 4:42 PM
190k for pols also buys you the mess of the back taxes and penalties.
Posted by: quabex | July 23, 2009 6:59 PM
See what happens when you mess with glycol!!
Hey experts: does $100 a sq ft sound reasonable in this market? Admittedly I haven't been involved in a real building project for years, and it was office, not commercial/retail/restaurant. I'm just curious.
Posted by: Canon | July 23, 2009 8:04 PM
Hello, Attention all wealthy construction, doctors, lawyers, Johnny come lately, novoriche..Lend me some monies and I might show you some profits. At least you will have a good time.This business is a bear....My advice... if you got the itch to open..PAY ME TO SHOW YOU AROUND THE LIVES OF THE BEST OWNERS.
Posted by: W.T. | July 24, 2009 12:07 AM
Canon, you may be interested in this recent survey of construction costs for various uses and cities. Another industry survey indicated that the median cost to open a restaurant (including land acquisition) was $125/sq.ft., but the date of that survey is unknown.
Posted by: hmpstd | July 24, 2009 8:05 AM
quabex-It is totally worth it if the mix of neighborhood smokehounds continues to come in for cheap drinks at 8 a.m. Maybe I could call it a speakeasy, charge too much for drinks, and get all of Bmore's hipsters to come in for late night?
Lucy's had some interesting food, great staff, and an excellent atmosphere. Hopefully someone picks it up.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 24, 2009 8:20 AM
They are probably going out of business because it's not rational to charge 6.50 for a Guinness or 5 dollars for a basket of popcorn with Old Bay sprinkled on it. Beautiful space, absurdly expensive.
Posted by: Billy | July 24, 2009 10:38 AM
Canon, MDAT lists the property as a little over 6,000 sf of enclosed space on a 3,200 sf lot. Sounds like the CL ad is being a bit...ahem...generous.
The actual cost would be $133/sf.
Posted by: st. | July 24, 2009 1:42 PM
st., the SDAT assessment usually excludes basement space from square footage, but a real estate broker is likely to include that space, especially if it is actively used in the business. (For example, some bars use their basements for cold storage of kegs that are connected by plastic lines to the taps at the bar level.)
Posted by: hmpstd | July 24, 2009 2:25 PM
@ hmpstd: right. thanks.
Posted by: st. | July 24, 2009 2:28 PM
I can't see anyone making it in that space with a $13,500 a month noose around there necks
Posted by: LouieNCanton | July 26, 2009 9:58 PM