Business

The owners of Persimmon in Bethesda passed the torch of ownership to three employees Monday afternoon after 25 years. Stephanie and Damian Salvatore had been contemplating selling Persimmon for the past couple of years. “It wasn’t an overnight decision,” Stephanie said. “It just evolved to where we were able to connect, and when we finally talked to the employees, I was really excited that they wanted to purchase it. It just took a while to make sure that’s what we wanted to do, both personally [and] professionally.”

Gaithersburg’s Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) is taking more aggressive steps to preserve its cash and ensure it can stay in business — slashing a quarter of its workforce, consolidating its real estate and paying down liabilities — before its planned fall launch of a new Covid-19 vaccine. The local biotech said Tuesday the restructuring should help reduce its 2023 research and development spending and sales, general and administrative expenses by 20% to 25% compared to last year.

A Catholic priest resigned from his position on the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center’s board of directors after The Baltimore Sun revealed his role in helping to cover up child sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Monsignor Richard “Rick” Woy, a longtime board member at the Towson hospital, delivered his resignation letter Saturday to St. Joseph Board Chairman Gerard Holthaus after giving word Friday that he planned to do so, Holthaus said.

A Shoppers grocery store located along a busy retail corridor in Baltimore County is set to close this summer, but the space may not be vacant for long.The store at 1955 E. Joppa Road in Parkville in Perring Plaza will close on July 15, affecting 49 workers, according to a notice filed earlier this month with the state’s Work Adjustment and Retraining Notification log

The Maryland Craft Beer Festival will celebrate its ninth anniversary Saturday as more than 65 area breweries are expected to showcase hundreds of unique beers at Carroll Creek Linear Park in Frederick. The event is scheduled for noon to 5 p.m. in a festival footprint expanding eastward from S. Market Street across S. East Street.

The Sandlot is coming back, but you’d better be booking a private party. Beatty Development Group announced Monday that it is bringing back the popular pop-up bar to Harbor Point, but with a catch: Sandlot will be a private event space managed by Canopy by Hilton Baltimore, the nearby hotel. A few public events are being planned for the space throughout the summer, including Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day.

A Western Maryland landmark is hitting the auction block this month — and the building’s new owner will get a chance to buy into a renaissance project in downtown Hagerstown. The former headquarters of the Hagerstown Herald-Mail newspaper is being auctioned by the state at noon on May 24. The sale will be held at the former newspaper office building and printing press at 100 Summit Ave., which sits next to a 5,000-seat sports complex that is under construction and will open next spring.

Crea Petty is a little embarrassed about how often she’s been to The Battery. “Like, a lot. A lot,” the 31-year-old Atlanta Braves fan said. “Probably 100-plus times.” Petty, who lives in nearby Smyrna, said going to The Battery, the ballpark district that surrounds the Braves’ stadium, is the hip thing to do, not just to see the home team, but also to go out to dinner, shop, celebrate birthdays and, even, attend a wedding.