Bits & Bites: Two Baltimore bakeries expand, Mama’s on the Half Shell adds a county outpost

Earlier this year, I wrote about an explosion of new bakeries in Baltimore. As 2023 comes to a close, the city is still adding places to buy bread, buns, bagels and more.

Just this month, two popular Baltimore bakeries have completed expansions, branching out into new neighborhoods as customers clamor for their baked goods. I have details on Ovenbird Bakery’s new — and very spacious — Highlandtown shop, as well as Maillard Pastries’ second location, in Hamilton.

They’re not the only local businesses going through a period of growth. A longtime Canton Square seafood spot just opened a second restaurant in Owings Mills. And elsewhere in Baltimore County, a city-based brewery has struck up a new partnership.

Art and artisan loaves

Keiller Kyle hasn’t had to do much in the way of marketing for the newest location of his Baltimore bakery.

Kyle, the owner of Ovenbird Bakery, which got its start in Little Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic’s early days, hasn’t even updated his business’s website to list the address for its new Highlandtown hub (It’s at 3925 Gough St., by the way). But when he posted about the bakery’s soft opening online, he was met with a flood of new customers.

“It’s a very organic Baltimore thing: One post goes viral and the whole neighborhood walks over and hangs out,” Kyle said.

Luckily, Ovenbird’s Highlandtown store has more than enough room to accommodate the crowds. At 9,100 square feet, the bakery’s retail footprint inside a former warehouse is 10 times the size of its Little Italy location, which mostly serves bread and pastries to-go.

The new space is the third for Ovenbird, which also has an outpost inside the recently rebuilt Lexington Market. In Highlandtown, there’s seating for 60 people and a 6,000-square-foot kitchen area, which has become the bakery’s main production facility.

There’s also lots of colorful art designed by Kyle’s wife, Nadire Nadu, and local artist Henry Johnson. The centerpiece is a multicolored, 20-foot-wide dome hanging above the retail area. The piece, a nod to Nadu’s Turkish heritage, “is meant to emulate a cathedral- or mosque-type dome,” Kyle said, “but since it’s a secular space, we found a hand-painted Turkish bowl” for inspiration instead.

For now, the Highlandtown store is operating on the same schedule as the Little Italy one (Wednesdays through Sundays, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.) and is serving a similar menu of freshly baked bread, bagels, scones and sandwiches like ham-and-cheese croissants and smashed meatball subs. With time, Kyle and Nadu hope to extend the hours as well as the food selection to include a Turkish mezze happy hour accompanied by beer, wine and cocktails.

“The ambience in the evening is really wonderful,” Kyle said. “We get to experience it while we’re baking. We can’t wait to share it with the neighborhood.”

More room for pastries

Up in Northeast Baltimore’s Hamilton neighborhood, bakers and customers alike at Maillard Pastries are also benefiting from more room to move around.

The bakery, which got its start out of a petite Hampden storefront, opened a second location at 5414 Harford Road on Dec 9. Owner Caitlin Kiehl said Maillard has had a warm welcome so far. Unlike Hampden, which is carryout-focused, the new space has seating for about a dozen people.

“It was really nice seeing how many people were in here hanging out this weekend,” she said. “That’s something we don’t really get to experience in Hampden.”

In Hamilton, the bakery is serving the same menu options for now. Maillard is known for buttery croissants, morning buns and other treats that change with the seasons (on a recent menu: chocolate apricot cake slices, winter citrus tarts and apple cinnamon hand pies).

Kiehl said she wants to make it through the holidays and then will start to consider expanding the dining options when the new year begins.

“We’re really excited for January to hopefully start testing and doing some different things,” she said.

A second serving of Mama’s on the Half Shell

Mama’s on the Half Shell celebrated 20 years in Canton over the Thanksgiving holiday. Just a few weeks later, on Dec. 11, the seafood spot expanded its reach.

A second Mama’s made its debut this week at the Foundry Row shopping center in Owings Mills, owner Jackie McCusker said. The restaurant is a larger version of the original, with 7,000 square feet of space, four dining rooms and seating for nearly 200 people.

The new location pays homage to its Canton predecessor with a dining room that showcases the restaurant’s collection of vintage oyster plates as well as booths named after Baltimore- and Mama’s-themed staples. You can choose to sit in a booth called “The Stoop,” one called “The Canton” or one called “The PBR,” a nod to the beer of choice at the seafood restaurant. Another is named “The Scunny” in honor of McCusker’s late husband, Patrick “Scunny” McCusker, a co-founder of Mama’s on the Half Shell and sister restaurant Nacho Mama’s.

“Our goal was to make sure that when you’re in Mama’s in the county, you still feel the soul of the Canton location,” Jackie said.

Her son, Finn McCusker, recently moved home from Florida to become a manager-in-training for the new restaurant, which means the spot is both family-owned and operated.

Adding a county outpost made sense for a restaurant that has always drawn diners from both the city and the surrounding suburbs, Jackie said.

“We have people that work in the city that will still dine with us but live in the county, and vice versa,” she said. “We’re getting a lot of that to and from traffic in different ways.”

Other features of the newly opened restaurant include space for private events (“You can have 40 people, 80 people, you name it,” Jackie said), as well as an outdoor bar and dining patio.

Brews on the waterfront

The Baltimore region has breweries in former industrial buildings, breweries on farms and even a brewery in an old church. But what about a marina brewery?

A new collaboration between Diamondback Brewing Co. and Charly’s, a waterfront restaurant in Baltimore County, seeks to fill the void.

Charly’s owner Ryan Perlberg tells me that his Essex restaurant, on the banks of Sue Creek, will soon serve exclusively Diamondback beers on tap. The Locust Point brewery will also partner with Charly’s for its limited edition beer releases.

The idea was inspired by the restaurateur’s brother-in-law, who is a fan of Diamondback’s Green Machine beer. Perlberg, who also owns gourmet hot dog spot Stuggy’s and Rye, a Fells Point cocktail bar, connected with the brewery’s owners and they decided to work together.

The brewery will have an outpost of sorts at Charly’s, Perlberg said, though they won’t be brewing Diamondback beer on-site – at least for now. In addition to Diamondback beers on tap, the restaurant will host samplings and educational events and it will be the only place to find some custom, co-labeled brews. Diamondback beer will also be incorporated into the food menu, in beer cheese and steamed seafood, and the brewery will have a retail area inside the restaurant where diners can pick up canned beers and brewery-themed merchandise.

Perlberg said Charly’s is going through the process of obtaining a brewery license, “but we don’t want to have a ginormous brewery” at the marina.

“We just want to have everything custom. We can bring fans of theirs here,” he said. “Instead of just having normal draft beer, why not actually work with people that you love who make great stuff?”