Business

A new Mexican restaurant that will mix food with live music is scheduled to open its first Baltimore location this year, with its owners aiming to revive the former Bond Street Social space in Fells Point. The Wave Group, a Virginia- and D.C.-area restaurant partnership, will open Baja Tap at 901 S. Bond St. by August. The former occupants of the space, Bond Street Social, abruptly packed up and left in early 2022. Partners in the Wave Group include former Le Diplomate head chef Greg Lloyd and D.C.-area restaurateur Scott Parker, who operates Nighthawk Brewery & Pizza and Poppyseed Rye in Virginia. The group will open its first Baja Tap location in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. by March, with the Fells Point space to follow by August.

The Wittig family of Sykesville brought into the world a new baby girl and a new cocktail bar within the span of a few months. The Local Motive, the Wittigs’ new cocktail bar on Main Street in downtown Sykesville opened on Jan. 12. Juniper Wittig was born in late September, as her parents, Colleen and Tyler Wittig, were deep in planning mode for their new venture. Tyler and Colleen Wittig, both 30, met while attending Liberty High School in Eldersburg. They graduated in 2010, then reconnected at college, working together as bartenders since 2015. The two worked at Market Tavern in Sykesville for about 6½ years and when that establishment’s owners decided to move to Taneytown, the Wittigs decided to jump on the opportunity and take over the popular location, giving it a new spin.

On the banks of the Susquehanna River, the town of Perryville is home to a veteran’s hospital and a casino, and attracts history buffs learning more about the town’s role in the American Revolution and Civil War. For the most part, though, when you think of this Cecil County community, you don’t think of resort-style family fun. Until now. Perryville’s reputation as a sleepy pass-through could change in August when Chicago-based resort developer Great Wolf Lodge opens its 20^th – and largest – resort. The $250 million project is expected to attract more than a half million visitors a year to the 48-acre site. Most will come from the Mid-Atlantic region and travel less than two hours. It’s more than a three-hour drive from Baltimore to the chain’s closest resorts in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

As Shelley Halstead gazes upon the vacant, disheveled building that once hosted a stop in the “Green Book,” all she sees is potential. “They just want to keep scraping houses and buildings. And I just, I’m a carpenter. Like first and foremost, I’m like, ‘No, let’s rebuild it,’” Halstead said. “I live here. I want to see this thing happen.” Standing last month on a deserted street and bundled up against the cold, Halstead, 53, painted the picture of how she plans to transform 1415 Etting St. from an abandoned eyesore into a community gathering place for the residents of historic Marble Hill, situated in West Baltimore’s Upton neighborhood. The building was once a stop in the “Green Book,” a travel guide featuring businesses that would host Black customers during segregation. In Jim Crow-era America, Black customers risked not just refusal of service, but violence if they tried to patronize certain businesses.

The surge of new businesses that started with the Covid-19 pandemic may have lost a little steam from its peak in 2022, but entrepreneurs continue to launch new businesses at numbers not seen prior to 2020. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows more than 5 million new businesses were formed in 2022. That’s down from 5.3 million in 2021, but far more than the 4.3 million in 2020 or at any point since the agency began tracking the metric in 2004. Despite the decline compared to 2021, business formations in 2022 were up 44% from their pre-pandemic level. The continued surge in new business applications comes even as many current business owners are worried about the chances of a possible recession.

A third-generation Baltimore company changed hands last month in a deal spurred in part by decades-long friendships in the tight-knit beverage distribution industry. Bond Distributing Co., which was founded in 1950, sold at the end of the year to the Honickman, Origlio and Bergson Organization (HOBO), which is made up of the three eponymous families and focuses on beer distribution primarily in the northeast. The acquisition marks HOBO’s entrance into Maryland, where Bond distributes beer, wine and liquor to 3,000 retail customers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc. brokered the deal and Venable LLP provided legal counsel to Bond.

Stephen L. Snyder has his law license back. The federally indicted medical malpractice lawyer has been reinstated to the Maryland bar as of late Friday, when the state Supreme Court agreed to lift the suspension Snyder first consented to in October 2020. Chief Justice Matthew J. Fader wrote that a majority of the justices agreed there was no basis to continue Snyder’s suspension. “I’m emotionally thrilled to have been reinstated to the practice of law,” Snyder told The Daily Record. “I have always treasured my license and can’t wait to get started again.”

Inflation is easing, unemployment is low and the job market is strong — and most entrepreneurs believe a recession is on the way. About 61% of small-business owners expect a recession in the year ahead, according to JPMorgan Chase’s annual Business Leaders outlook survey. About 65% of midsize business owners expect a recession in 2023. Despite expectations for a recession, the survey found business owners remain bullish about their own companies’ prospects, with 72% of small-business owners and 66% of midsize business owners optimistic about 2023. Perhaps most importantly, additional surveys show many businesses projecting higher revenue and profits — a trend that could bode well in the months to come.