Cheesecake Factory

Tourism event to start tomorrow in Annapolis The Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Conference and Visitors Bureau will host the Fifth Annual Mid-Atlantic Tourism Public Relations Alliance Media Marketplace from tomorrow through Thursday at the Westin Annapolis Hotel. The event will bring together more than 60 journalists and 50 destination marketing organizations from the Mid-Atlantic region. Information: 410-263-0511. Five companies attend innovation program Five companies specializing in defense and homeland security technology participated in the Chesapeake Innovation Center's TechBridge program.

Punk's Backyard Grill has closed at the Westfield Annapolis Mall. The restaurant, which opened in 2009, evoked an American backyard gathering. The kitchen was enclosed behind a structure that suggested the back of a suburban home, the dining room was filled with picnic tables and the ceiling was painted to resemble the open sky. The closing announcement was posted Sunday night on the restaurant's Facebook page: "We are sad to announce that today,...

THE TURNAROUND David Cordish has produced at the Power Plant is quite astonishing. Less than a year after he was given control of the failed Inner Harbor amusement complex, Mr. Cordish has it fully leased with entertainment uses never before seen in this town.The latest tenant signed is the ESPN Grill, a prototype sports eatery the cable operator and Walt Disney Co. will unveil next spring and hope to duplicate throughout the nation.It may not be evident yet, but the whole character of the Inner Harbor tourism district is changing.

Today ' SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE': See your favorite top 10 dancers from Season 5 doing what they do best - dance routines from the show, plus original pieces created for the tour. They hit the stage at 1st Mariner Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St., at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $36.50-$54. Go to ticketmaster.com. 'THE PUPPETMASTER OF LODZ': Performance Workshop Theatre presents this drama by French playwright Gilles Segal at Baltimore Theater Project, 45 W. Preston St., through Oct. 25. A survivor of Birkenau concentration camp doesn't believe the war is over five years after it ended.

It was a night of eating, drinking, shopping and fundraising at Towson Town Center's Sip Savor Shop event Thursday night, benefiting the United Way of Central Maryland. Wineries, restaurants and big name retailers teamed up to provide guests with an enjoyable approach to raising money for charity. Some guests turned the event into a girl's night. Paula Phillips of Baltimore heard about the benefit through her friend. "I like the variety. There's food, wine and coupons," Phillips said.

St. Andrew's Monthly Community Feast will be held Oct. 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. This month's feast will be Italian cuisine and as always, donated by Smokin' Hot Catering, at the Inwood Shopping Center on Route 97. Proceeds from the October dinner will go toward Worldwide Shelters, a nonprofit organization that focuses on humanitarian aid by providing short-term shelters in communities ravaged by war and disaster. The organization also helps people to transition to permanent housing.

In the nine years that she's been at the Harbor Court Hotel, Holly Forbes - now executive chef - has won national recognition for Hampton's, the upscale restaurant under her direction (although credit has to go to chef of the restaurant Scott Hoyland as well).After March 16, though, Harbor Court will have a new executive chef. Forbes' husband has been transferred to Dallas, and she's going with him. "It's cheaper to relocate than to get a divorce," she says with a laugh.Forbes isn't sure what she'll be doing in Dallas, but she hopes eventually to open what she calls "an adult place."

Phillips restaurant, an original tenant of Harborplace in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, is planning its first major renovation since opening nearly 19 years ago.The popular, family-run restaurant, known for its crab cakes, piano bar and hanging Tiffany lamps, will be redesigned -- but in a way that continues to reflect its Eastern Shore roots, Honey Konicoff, Phillips corporate director of marketing, said yesterday.The local chain, which started in Ocean City and has locations in White Marsh, Washington and Tysons Corner, Va., hasn't settled on a new theme for the renovations, which will be completed over the next couple of years, she said.

On a balmy June day, Allyson Marley and her family drove to the Inner Harbor from Charles Town, W.Va., hoping to find the city's pulse at the green-roofed pavilions of Harborplace. Instead, they found California Pizza Kitchen, Hooters, Pizzeria Uno and The Cheesecake Factory. Marley, 42, also saw restaurants familiar from Washington, where she works at a law firm: Paolo's, J. Paul's, Capitol City Brewing Co. "It's sad," she said, boarding a water taxi bound for the cobblestone streets of Fells Point, a place mostly untouched by chain stores.

Police have ruled that the death of a Bolton Hill woman who was hit by a police car early Friday was a result of pedestrian error, a department spokesman said. The woman was hit in midblock by an officer trying to reach a colleague breaking up a bar fight in Southeast Baltimore, police said. Alyssa Caezza, 27, of the 1700 block of Linden Ave. was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash at 1: 30 a.m. in the 1500 block of Aliceanna St. in Fells Point. A graduate of Towson University, she was a server at the Cheesecake Factory, a Harborplace restaurant, and had just gotten a second job at the Camden Club at Camden Yards, her friends said.