Power Plant

Joe Squared at Power Plant Live has started running weekly specials just like the original Joe Squared in Charles North does. Owner Joe Edwardsen posts the weekly specials on his website's blog, without fail. Let's have a look, shall we, at this week's specials. The skins are filled with stuffed with jalapenos and hanger steak with tomato, cheddar guacamole, cheddar and chives; the soup is sweet potato and coconut with ginger, honey, cinnamon and red pepper flakes; and the wings are ancho and cilantro.

John Houser III reviews the new Joe Squared at Power Plant Live. Houser loved the crunchy Vidalia onions, the sparing use of bacon and the clean and smoky flavors of the bacon and clam pizza but the did not like the limp and slimy basil in his mojito. I don't like limp and slimy anything, I reckon. Also, they should sell slice pizza on weeknights, Houser says. Here's that review of Joe Squared at Power Plant Live .

In recent years, beer gardens have enjoyed a renaissance on the East Coast. New ones have popped up in New York, Philadelphia and, last year, Washington. So it was with great anticipation that I went to Baltimore's new beer garden, Leinenkugel's at Power Plant Live. I've been hearing from local beer drinkers and beer experts that it's one of the best things the Inner Harbor complex has done in a while, and they're right. The new bar lives up to the hype — its best quality is the gorgeous greenhouse that is its home, an all-glass box beautifully lighted by shiny orbs on rustic chandeliers.

Love him or hate him, David S. Cordish, 71, is a man who gets things done. As the head of the Cordish Companies, he turned a languid patch of downtown into the open-air dining and night life destination Power Plant Live! and then brought the idea to other cities such as Louisville (4th Street Live!), Houston (Live! at Bayou Place) and Kansas City (Power & Light District). This month, he put the finishing touches on a $10 million upgrade to Power Plant Live!, and right now, he's building Maryland Live!

Dick Smith, who was there when the place opened 31 years ago, was back at his piano bar in Phillips Seafood Sunday afternoon, the last day of business at Harborplace for the last of the original tenants. Smith played "As Time Goes By," and longtime customers gathered on the high chairs around his piano to enjoy the song and a final crab cake. "I was here the day it opened and the piano has not moved from this spot," said Smith, who played and led sing-alongs in the restaurant in Harborplace's Light Street Pavilion.

  Monkton residents Ellen and Mike DiMayo, pictured at last year's Casey Cares fundraiser, are chairing this year's event on Sept. 24 at Rams Head Live at the Power Plant. The 9th annual Rock and Roll bash will raise money for the Casey Cares organization, which provides programs for critically ill children and their families.

The National Pinball Museum, forced out of Washington after losing its lease earlier this year, will be moving into the Power Plant Live complex. Trucks began moving owner David Silverman's vast collection of flipper-type pinball machines into a building at 608 Water St. Wednesday. Silverman, a Silver Spring-based landscape designer who has been collecting the machines for some 40 years, said he hopes to open for business by the end of November. "We're moving in now," he said early Thursday morning as he drove into Baltimore.

The new Joe Squared at Power Plant Live is set to open for business Wednesday at 5 p.m. The new location for the pizzeria has been in the works since May, when it was announced that it would replace Two Boots, which was near the end of its lease. The addition was part of the complex's $10 million renovation, which also includes the new Leinenkugel's Beer Garden. The restaurant, bar and live music venue will keep its original Station North location. Owner Joe Edwardsen said Tuesday the menu is almost done for Wednesday's soft opening.

A year ago, Hope Tarr found herself marveling at a new beer garden inBrooklyn. Tarr, who co-created an iPhone app that tracks beer gardens in New York City, had grown up in Baltimore listening about these outdoor promised lands where German suds flowed freely and the oompa music never stopped. Her dad used to talk about Blob's Park Bavarian Beer Garden in Jessup reverentially. "The promise was always, when you're old enough, I'll take you to Blob's," she said. Now, in Brooklyn, she'd realized what the fuss was about.