Baltimore’s liquor board on Thursday approved a request for live entertainment, outdoor table service and off-premises catering at The Barn & Lodge restaurant and events space at The Rotunda. Read More Entertainment
Construction has begun for Barn & Lodge at The Rotunda, a $4 million dollar restaurant and events space planned to open later this year.
Baltimore’s liquor board on Thursday approved a request from the restaurateur, Titan Hospitality Group of Crofton, to provide live entertainment, outdoor table service and off-premises catering.
The liquor board vote came after City Council member Odette Ramos, who represents the area, sent a letter supporting the project, part of The Rotunda mixed-use development at 711 West 40th Street.
Ramos noted in her letter that Barn & Lodge, a limited liability company affiliated with Titan, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Hampden Community Council (HCC) that spells out terms under which the business will operate.
“While the relationship with the [Barn & Lodge] started off in an adversarial capacity, the Hampden Community Council and the [Barn & Lodge] owners have worked hard to come up with a Memorandum of Understanding,” Ramos said in her letter. “I am grateful that all parties worked together, and that we will have a new restaurant in our district. We will continue to monitor to ensure all of the terms of the MOU are adhered to, and look forward to the relationship. We welcome this investment in our communities and ask for your support.”
Amended license
The liquor board granted a Class B “Beer, Wine and Liquor” restaurant license for the business on March 7, 2024, but Titan wanted to amend the original license to state that Barn & Lodge can provide live entertainment, and that required another hearing. The amended license supersedes the previously-approved license, which was never issued.
Hampden residents had expressed concerns that the project would create noise, trash and parking problems in the surrounding area if it’s allowed to provide live entertainment. Residents said they wanted to limit its hours of operation and where on the property it can have live music, among other restrictions. They said they didn’t want it to turn into a banquet hall, which is not a permitted use a use at The Rotunda.
At the liquor board hearing on Thursday, no one from the community spoke in opposition to Titan’s application to provide live entertainment, and the liquor board voted 3 to 0 to approve it as part of the amended liquor license.
The interior of the Barn & Lodge project is under construction at The Rotunda. Photo by Ed Gunts.
MCB Real Estate is the landlord
The Rotunda is part of the real estate portfolio of MCB Real Estate, the company that owns Harborplace and other commercial properties in Baltimore. It’s a historic complex that dates from 1921 and housed the Maryland Casualty Insurance Company before developer Bernard Manekin converted it to an office and rerail center in the early 1970s.
Barn & Lodge at The Rotunda will be created inside a freestanding brick building on the western edge of the Rotunda property that once served as a “boiler room” for the insurance company campus but has been vacant for years, and on an adjacent outdoor patio that will be covered.
Attorney Drew Tildon of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg LLP, the law firm representing Titan, said her client proposes to operate Barn & Lodge as a restaurant with a main dining room seating about 100 people and an outdoor patio seating another 100 people or so, and a private events space at the rear of the building for approximately 100 people.
She said the restaurant will be open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays. She said there will be “occasional deejays and acoustic groups et cetera” in the events venue, but not often.
“Most of these events are corporate events,” she said. “There may be some bands, if it’s a smaller wedding, but for the part it would be acoustic music. And then there will also be acoustic music in the dining room during dinner seating.”
She said the events space will be “a unique amenity to the Rotunda. There’s no other events space in the area. There are no similar businesses within the center or the broader Hampden area.”
A rendering depicts the planned Barn & Lodge restaurant and events venue at The Rotunda in Hampden. Credit: Titan Hospitality Group.
Sound test
Tildon told the liquor board that Titan has “performed extensive community engagement on this project” to show neighbors that its operation won’t disrupt the surrounding area and that it will be compatible with other activities at The Rotunda, including its “Rotunda Rocks” outdoor concert series in the summer.
At a special meeting of the HCC last fall, she said, “we discussed our plans and work with the community to make sure that this operation is going to work for them because they are hopefully going to be our customers.”
As part of its outreach, Tildon said, Titan engaged a live band and a sound engineer to perform a sound test at the property last November 25 with several community representatives present.
“It was conclusive that this actually is not going to have any impact” on the residents across the street, she said of the test results, including decibel readings. Barn & Lodge also plans to engage a security firm “to ensure that the use is not going to negatively impact the general health, safety or welfare.”
Terms of the MOU
According to the MOU on file with the liquor board, Barn & Lodge agreed that: that there will be “no outdoor live entertainment or music at any time”; that “there will be no bar in the outdoor patio area,” and that will it give the community council the general manager’s contact information.
It also agreed to grant community council representatives access to the restaurant property “to perform one supplemental sound test after build out is complete and before operation begins,” that “the outdoor patio area will have floor to ceiling brick walls on two sides, the side facing Elm Avenue and the side facing the ICON Apartment building”; that it will not paint the Elm Avenue façade of the building it is leasing at The Rotunda, and that it will install soundproofing curtains on the interior windows facing Elm Avenue.
A sign advertises The Barn & Lodge restaurant and events space coming in 2025. Photo by Ed Gunts.
The community council agreed: that it “shall relinquish its right to protest” Titan’s liquor board application; that it “shall relinquish its right to appeal any government approval necessary to commence operations of the Restaurant under design plans materially the same as those that have been shared with the HCC”, and that HCC “shall direct its individual officers and directors not to protest the [liquor board] Application.”
The community council said it “reserves the right to protest any matters that deviate from the terms described in this Agreement, any violation of this Agreement or the [liquor] License, and future matters regarding the License at this Location.”
As approved by the liquor board, the individual licensees for the Barn & Lodge are James Joseph King, the founder and CEO of Titan, and Peter Rosenwald II, a Baltimore City resident.
King signed the MOU on behalf of Barn & Lodge and vice president Blaise Ahearn and director Tim Cervi signed for the community council.
King said construction started on the Barn & Lodge within the past week and Titan is aiming to finish work within 2025. Herman/Stewart Construction of Lanham is the general contractor. King said he expects Barn & Lodge to create 60 to 80 jobs.
