Bar And Restaurant

The House of Welsh -- the aged downtown restaurant-bar where political deals were cut between slices of sizzling steak and shots of Maryland rye -- is closing next week.Owned by the same family since 1900, its three 1830s rowhouses were located out the back door of City Hall and attracted politicians, lobbyists, bookmakers, lawyers, policemen, judges and reporters who wanted plain, tasty food served in an unhurried manner -- the epitome of an old-time Baltimore steakhouse.Martin J. Welsh, the third generation of his family to own the business at 301 Guilford Ave., said he will reopen in Fenwick Island, Del."

The Fork & Wrench, a new bar/restaurant in Canton modeled on Prohibition-era speakeasies, shifts to full-mode this weekend after a week-long soft launch. Andy Gruver, one of the owners, said the grand opening is March 29, but he promised the bar will be at "full blast" this weekend. It'll be the first time a new bar has opened at 2322 Boston since Pur Lounge closed three years ago. The new bar is still owned by Jason Sanchez, whose Ma & Me, LLC., has owned the building since 2006 and has seen several bars come and go. First, there was Good Love , which closed in 2007, and later Pur Lounge , which closed in 2009.

FOR DECADES, the corner saloon inside Baltimore's House of Welsh was the classic stag bar -- men only. Small and dimly lighted, it didn't even have bar stools because its patrons were just as happy to stand. "Women patrons would put a damper on the men-talk," owner Thomas Welsh groused to a reporter in 1970. "The bar provides some place where men can hide." The bar finally was forced to admit women in the early 1970s, after a federal judge in New York ruled that it was illegal for bars to keep out female patrons.

After a bar has been around for a while, it's easy to take it for granted. This year, three Baltimore bars that have been in business for over a decade marked major anniversaries: Brewer's Art turned 15 and Max's 25. These two bars are hardly taken for granted; they are universally praised by wildly different constituencies. The third, though, which turned 15 in September, doesn't get nearly enough love. Holy Frijoles deserves recognition. It has excellent, under-rated cocktails - the margaritas are poured by the dozen - and a menu that is stuffed with guilty pleasures.

On the morning a fire devasted the Mt. Washington Tavern, its two owners, Rob Frisch and Dave Lichty, rushed to the scene convinced the incident would be minor. "While we were driving down, my wife said, 'I still have to get a Halloween costume because I'm bartending tonight,'" Lichty said. "We didn't know what were walking into. " The two owners had been working at the restaurant since their early 20s, each doing his best to keep together a bar and restaurant that was famous for its consistency and that had become a mainstay in the city, and especially during the annual Preakness Stakes.

Customers can see One-Eyed Mike's in two very different ways. On one hand, it's a crowded little Fells Point bar and restaurant, complete with a silly ahoy-ye-mateys name, a tattooed and T-shirted wait staff and a recent kitchen mishap featuring a fire extinguisher that went off when dropped. Poor:]

A renovated Robinson's department store building, the last ++ large, vacant building in the Glen Burnie urban renewal district, should be at least partially occupied by a new bar and restaurant in time for Halloween.Peter's Bar and Restaurant will take 10,000 of the 16,000 square feet on the first floor of the two-story building, officials of the company that owns the building told the Glen Burnie Town Center Committee yesterday.The building on Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard east of Crain Highway has been vacant for more than seven years, during which several attempts by its owners, the North Star Group, to find tenants have fallen through.

In an effort to rejuvenate Columbia's downtown, a parking garage is under construction along Little Patuxent Parkway and Wincopin Circle, with plans calling for it to be topped off by a restaurant.The 280-space garage in Town Center will be completed by September. Rouse Co. officials say they are looking for a restaurant to occupy a facility on top of the garage. Rouse officials say they will wait for a tenant before building the restaurant.During construction, the parking area in front of the Columbia Association building will be closed.

For class with a capital "C," few restaurants in town can top the 26-year-old Brass Elephant, located in a gorgeous 19th-century Mount Vernon townhouse. But two people can easily spend a c-note or more eating there. The solution, for those who want a snazzy atmosphere and delicious food but don't want to spend quite as much money, is the Tusk Lounge, the bar and restaurant on the restaurant's top floor. This is the place for those times you want to eat like a grown-up but pay kid-sized prices.

Rootie's makes the grade; Business: A student who 0) interrupted his college classes now gets an education as the owner of a successful sports bar and restaurant.The summer of '96. It's not a new Bryan Adams song, but it is a time Vincent Arosemena Jr. will always remember. That July he opened the doors to his Baltimore sports bar and restaurant for the first time, and Rootie Kazootie's was born -- just 20 years after its owner.Now a wiser 22, Arosemena is still one of the youngest bar owners around.

On the morning a fire devasted the Mt. Washington Tavern, its two owners, Rob Frisch and Dave Lichty, rushed to the scene convinced the incident would be minor. "While we were driving down, my wife said, 'I still have to get a Halloween costume because I'm bartending tonight,'" Lichty said. "We didn't know what were walking into. " The two owners had been working at the restaurant since their early 20s, each doing his best to keep together a bar and restaurant that was famous for its consistency and that had become a mainstay in the city, and especially during the annual Preakness Stakes.

The Power Plant Live entertainment district is getting a permanent outdoor stage with oversized video screens covered by a 50-foot-high glass canopy in time for next summer's concert season, the project's developer said Friday. The $11 million makeover also includes new bars and restaurants and marks the first major renovations since the project opened a decade ago in downtown Baltimore a block north of the Inner Harbor. "It's building upon an existing strength and taking it to a new level," said Reed Cordish, a vice president of Baltimore-based Cordish Cos., which renovated the collection of buildings formerly known as the Brokerage and opened Power Plant Live at the end of 1999.

The Celentano family knows the irreversible dangers of drunken driving all too well. In 2001, Jerry Celentano's 18-year-old daughter, Alisa, was killed in a crash involving a drunken driver. "She had her entire life ahead of her, and in a split second, life as we knew it was no more," he said Thursday at a Baltimore event to raise awareness for the fifth annual Tipsy? Taxi! campaign. "Alisa lost her life to a preventable crime." With his wife standing nearby holding their daughter's senior portrait, Celentano spoke of his family's painful experience and urged Baltimoreans and their visitors to take advantage of the Tipsy?

Send a tweet to @baltimoresun to add your specials to the list. Restaurants and bars • Bad Decisions 1928 Fleet St. Baltimore 21231 410-979-5161 Hot Drink Menu: Hot Gin Lemonade, $6; Hot Spiced Cider, $6; Hot Buttered Rum, $6; Glug (Scandinavian mulled wine), $5; Hot Mead, $7; Homemade Hot Chocolate, $5; add liquor Castries Peanut Rum or Rumple Minze, $7 Champagne Bar for Saturday: Choice of either Italian Spumante or French Brut; Traditional Champagne Cocktail, $6; Big Easy Champagne Cocktail, $6; Bellini, $7; Limoncello & Champagne, $7; Champagne and Berries, (strawberries or raspberries)

When Baltimore's liquor board commissioners were sworn into office in April 2007, they took over an agency reeling from threats, lawsuits and internal backbiting. Charged by Gov. Martin O'Malley with restoring public trust, the three-member panel has virtually cut out the infighting. But some observers argue that the commissioners have also taken a heavy-handed approach to their oversight responsibilities, dishing out substantial fines and suspensions and revoking more licenses than is necessary.

With just minutes to go before the Baltimore area's first smoking ban in bars and restaurants took effect yesterday, Steve Miller shouted a final rallying cry into the microphone at the crowded Phoenix Emporium on Main Street in historic Ellicott City. "Last call for cigarettes! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!" At the back of the room, Bradley Arnold, who turned 22 yesterday, lit up and shouted back, "Chainsmoke till midnight!" Arnold, a bar employee, said he had looked forward to having a beer and a smoke last year, on his 21st birthday, but the pizza place where he celebrated voluntarily outlawed smoking that very night.

THERE WAS A time when "Robinson's Corner" in Glen Burnie was a landmark -- not only because of the department store of the same name near the juncture of B&A Boulevard and Crain Highway, but also because it was the location of one of the only two traffic lights between Baltimore and Annapolis. Hard as it is for anyone driving between those cities on local highways to fathom now, that was a fact 60 years ago.Robinson's was notable in another respect. Started by Irving E. Robinson, former general manager of Mayer's department store in South Baltimore, it was one of the earliest attempts by a retailer to go after the growing suburban market.

As the clock struck midnight and beyond last night, patrons at some Baltimore bars were not glued to television sets, watching news reports from the Persian Gulf."

Customers can see One-Eyed Mike's in two very different ways. On one hand, it's a crowded little Fells Point bar and restaurant, complete with a silly ahoy-ye-mateys name, a tattooed and T-shirted wait staff and a recent kitchen mishap featuring a fire extinguisher that went off when dropped. Poor:]