Cafe Hon

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and his show "Kitchen Nightmares" blitzed into Hampden's Cafe Hon Wednesday to see how the restaurant has fared since his visit last fall. Ramsay stepped out of an SUV and into the cafe, capturing owner Denise Whiting in an embrace, calling her "darling," and handing her a gift. Things only went up from there. Before Ramsay arrived, Whiting, looking camera ready in a vivid turquoise top and matching earrings, said she'd begin given almost no information about what the chef would be doing or looking for during what promised to be a quick filming stint -- about three hours.

Just read the article by Steve Kilar about Baltimore's local currency, the BNote ("Baltimore's local currency, the BNote, is 2 years old," May 7). This is such a great idea. I'm headed out to find some BNotes, have dinner at Cafe Hon and then head up to Liam Flynn's Ale House for a couple of Bohs. Jack Arnold, Middle River Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

All's well at Cafe Hon , and Chef Gordon Ramsay is very pleased. That was the message of Friday night's "Kitchen Nightmares" on Fox, as Ramsay revisited the Hampden eatery where he was instrumental in tamping down a war that had erupted over owner Denise Whiting's decision to trademark the word "Hon. " After recounting Ramsay's initial visit to the restaurant, in fall 2011, the segment got down to brass tacks. First, he stopped in to see MIX 106.5's JoJo and Reagan, who assured him that, as far as they knew, things were going just fine at Cafe Hon. The food was better, they said, the staff seemed happier -- the first piece portrayed them as primed for a full-scale revolt -- and the community seemed ready to let bygones be bygones, especially once Whiting made good on her promise to let go of the trademark.

All's well at Cafe Hon , and Chef Gordon Ramsay is very pleased. That was the message of Friday night's "Kitchen Nightmares" on Fox, as Ramsay revisited the Hampden eatery where he was instrumental in tamping down a war that had erupted over owner Denise Whiting's decision to trademark the word "Hon. " After recounting Ramsay's initial visit to the restaurant, in fall 2011, the segment got down to brass tacks. First, he stopped in to see MIX 106.5's JoJo and Reagan, who assured him that, as far as they knew, things were going just fine at Cafe Hon. The food was better, they said, the staff seemed happier -- the first piece portrayed them as primed for a full-scale revolt -- and the community seemed ready to let bygones be bygones, especially once Whiting made good on her promise to let go of the trademark.

Denise Whiting will be watching Friday night's "Kitchen Nightmares" episode featuring her restaurant in the cozy confines of Cafe Hon - in the attached Hon Bar, to be specific. Cafe Hon is bringing in a big-screen TV for the viewing, which is open to the public but booked solid, Whiting says. Whiting said she hasn't seen the show yet but has seen the promos for the episode that have been running on the local Fox affiliate. "I'm really grateful to Gordon Ramsay and his team for dealing with everyone here so graciously.

One of the best Christmas cards out there can be found at NotCafeHon, the Twitter feed created after cafe owner Denise Whiting trademarked the word "hon. " There's a photo of Whiting celebrating with the mayor who came to her rescue a little over a year ago when the restaurant's pink flamingo was imperiled. "Merry Christmas," the card reads, "from a disgraced woman who stole from Baltimore … and Sheila Dixon . " On the same topic, a Baltimorean posted on Facebook: "Just realized that the Boycott Cafe Hon Facebook Page is registered under the username ' Cafe Hon .' What a huge mistake on Cafe Hon 's part for not getting to it first.

After complaints from several people, Cafe Hon removed a picture early Thursday morning of one of its staff members in blackface for Halloween. The Hampden restaurant had posted the photo on its Facebook page. It showed an employee, in blackface, apparently dressed for Halloween as Whitney Houston, singing with a smudge of white powder around the nose. "We humbly apologize for our misjudgement in posting a Halloween picture, we have removed the picture," Cafe Hon said on Facebook early Thursday.

Denise Whiting cried, was scolded by Chef Gordon Ramsay and then hugged out months of drama on tonight's "Kitchen Nightmares" episode featuring Whiting, who Baltimoreans -- and the staff of her Hampden theme restaurant Cafe Hon -- love to hate. The show did an exceptionally good job of explaining the controversy that mired Cafe Hon and  Whiting for the better part of a year. If you knew nothing about Whiting and "Hon" trademark, you'd come away with an accurate understanding of how the story played out in Baltimore.

Oh, that's right. Cafe Hon is a restaurant. It would have been easy, last year, to mistake Denise Whiting's Hampden establishment for almost anything else. It was only in November, when Whiting announced she was rescinding her controversial "hon" trademark, that the municipal emergency surrounding Cafe Hon subsided. Two months after the TV show "Kitchen Nightmares" gave it a wholesale makeover, Cafe Hon has settled back nicely into its primary business of serving food to customers — lots of them, too. On recent visits spanning several weeks, the Hampden restaurant was full of patrons, many but by no means all of them families with young children.

Cafe Hon owner and "hon" trademarker Denise Whiting wants Baltimore to know she's sorry. Not sorry that she trademarked the town's classic term of endearment. Just sorry that she spoke about it so clumsily that her adopted hometown came to think of her as greedy. And sorry that nobody seemed to be listening a month ago, when she made basically the same apology in a letter to the editor in The Baltimore Sun. The newest apology came in the form of a news release Wednesday.

Chef Gordon Ramsay, whose visit to Hampden's Cafe Hon in the fall of 2011 helped diffuse the tension from owner Denise Whiting's attempt to trademark the word "Hon," returned to see just how much good his earlier visit accomplished. The "Kitchen Nightmares" episode featuring the return visit airs Friday.   Many area residents and one-time customers -- infuriated over Whiting's attempt to control what they viewed as a unique piece of "Bawlamerese" -- had been boycotting the business and pillorying its owner.

The "Unhappy Halloween, Hon" (Nov. 3) commentary by Michael Cross-Barnet was a scream. Like a Holy Roman emperor or a demented totalitarian dictator, it dictated what was appropriate free speech for all times and all places. It also chastised the owner of Cafe Hon for apologizing for a Halloween depiction of a white person with a black face only twice and not at least three times. Moreover, the writer actually spelled out in several sentences what it deemed as the only appropriate wording of a theoretical third apology by the Cafe Hon . And what was the Hon's verbal trespass?

Given the trouble she's gotten into in recent years (think: trying to trademark the word "Hon"), one might presume Cafe Hon owner Denise Whiting would take special care to avoid unforced errors that cast her establishment in a less than flattering light. One might presume so. But one would be wrong. The Sun's Jill Rosen reported this week that Cafe Hon posted on its Facebook page a photo of one of its staff members in blackface for Halloween. That's right: a white person, in blackface, "dressing up" as a black person (in this case, the singer Whitney Houston)

After complaints from several people, Cafe Hon removed a picture early Thursday morning of one of its staff members in blackface for Halloween. The Hampden restaurant had posted the photo on its Facebook page. It showed an employee, in blackface, apparently dressed for Halloween as Whitney Houston, singing with a smudge of white powder around the nose. "We humbly apologize for our misjudgement in posting a Halloween picture, we have removed the picture," Cafe Hon said on Facebook early Thursday.

Among the teased and towering hair, the fluttering boas and the crowd sticky with snowballs Saturday at Hampden's Honfest wound a joyful party who were celebrating more than the neighborhood's quirky character. "Make way, make way, here come the bride and groom," called Dot Tucker-Houk, leading a procession of several dozens revelers cheering and rattling noisemakers. Behind her, niece Angie Gentile twirled a parasol, beaming at her newly-wed husband, Andy Snair, and paused for a photo with a crowd of women wearing towering pink wigs.

It's been seven months since Cafe Hon owner Denise Whiting publicly dropped her controversial trademark of the word "hon. " Chef Gordon Ramsay and the rest of the "Kitchen Nightmares" crew were even in town last week for a follow-up to the original Cafe Hon "Kitchen Nightmares" episode. So, with Honfest set for this weekend, is Hampden and the rest of hon-loving Baltimore ready to put the hon-troversy to rest? Whiting thinks so. "We have heard from an overwhelming number of our neighbors since the 'Kitchen Nightmares' experience ... generally, most everyone who objected to the initial trade-marking have embraced our efforts to put the issue behind us," Whiting said in an e-mail.