Business

Joe Benny’s will close this spring after nine years of serving focaccia-style pizza out of its tiny shop on High Street in Little Italy. The restaurant will close at either the end of May or “very early June,” owner Joseph Gardella said in an emotional video posted to social media on Thursday afternoon. Gardella said his business model relied on him being in the restaurant all the time but “without a kitchen, without a staff, it just made things challenging at times, very stressful to say the least.”

Ever since Baltimore officials chose a team to redevelop 18 city-owned properties along Howard, Lexington and Fayette streets, the $100 million project has been characterized as a mixture of historic preservation and new construction. Next week, the developers will meet with Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) to see which properties the panel will allow them to alter or tear down to make way for their project, called The Compass.

White House economists said in a new analysis released Wednesday that an extended breach of the nation’s borrowing limit could wipe out more than 8 million jobs and cause “severe” economic damage, as lawmakers run out of time to resolve the fiscal impasse. In the report, the White House Council of Economic Advisers compared the potential economic impact of a debt ceiling breach to the 2008 Great Recession, in which economic growth contracts sharply and unemployment surges.

The signing of legislation legalizing cannabis in Maryland marks a mile post in a long strange trip for one Republican former delegate turned marijuana policy advocate. Don Murphy, a former lawmaker from Baltimore County, once sponsored legislation two decades ago that made it possible for someone arrested for possession of the drug to argue it was for medicinal purposes.

When the Maryland Jockey Club and Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association on Thursday announced their intention to race at Laurel this past weekend, a lot of folks scoffed. John Passero’s involvement had only been agreed to April 25, the thinking went. If the dirt track had been in such bad condition then, what could he possibly have accomplished in a day or two to make it safe to race?

Baltimore’s Preakness Stakes returns May 20. But several restaurateurs and small-business owners who participated in last year’s events won’t be coming back to Pimlico after losing thousands of dollars — and not on the horses. Land of Kush, Terra Cafe and Codetta Bake Shop were three of the eateries that were part of an initiative called Restaurant Row in 2022.

It’s been nearly two and a half years since White’s Ferry took cars across a lazy span of the Potomac River — and residents in Poolesville, Maryland, are still counting the days. For the small town in northern Montgomery County, the shuttered ferry means a lot. To Pastor Howard C. Copeland III, who goes by Chuck, an operating White’s Ferry means more time with his grandchildren.

Marriott International Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) on Tuesday reported net income of $757 million, or $2.43 per share, for the first three months of the year, a substantial rise that came as conditions continued to improve in both in the U.S. and globally. First-quarter earnings for the Maryland hospitality giant were up from $377 million, or $1.15, in the first quarter of 2022, and from $375 million, or $1.09, for the first quarter of 2019, prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.