Business

Bertha’s Mussels — a 51-year relic of a Fells Point era gone by — took its final curtain call Monday night, owner and co-founder Tony Norris said. The Fells Point landmark had become one of Baltimore’s most recognizable restaurants, with loyal patrons smacking their signature “EAT BERTHA’S MUSSELS” bumper stickers on objects far and wide, while on trips to destinations such as the Great Wall of China and the South pole.

Candice Bruno was excited when she saw the JumboFresh Supermarket sign on the former Price Rite building in Southwest Baltimore. For nearly a year, the building in the Mount Clare Junction shopping center has been empty, and Bruno and others have had to go outside the neighborhood for groceries.

The bustling Greater Baltimore restaurant scene has welcomed around 50 new spots already this year and there is more to come by 2024. Around 10 restaurants are expected to debut in the region in the last quarter of the year, helping offset the roughly 20 spots that have closed in the region so far this year.

Blink Charging Co., which makes electric vehicle charging stations, is embarking on an expansion of its Bowie manufacturing facility that will grow its production capacity. The Miami Beach, Florida, company (NASDAQ: BLNK) is investing $49 million to add 30,000 square feet to the 27,000-square-foot former SemaConnect Inc. facility. Blink bought SemaConnect and the property, 4961 Tesla Drive, for $200 million in 2022.

LifeBridge Health officials said they have halted plans to develop a 22-acre health care campus next to the Pimlico Race Course to give the state more time to figure out the future of the troubled historic race track. The health system that operates Sinai Hospital in Northwest Baltimore also may move a $100 million ambulatory services building planned as the centerpiece for the campus out of the development altogether.

William Sterling moved his Saturday Morning Cafe to Little Italy in the midst of the pandemic. Businesses struggled to attract patrons to the beloved city neighborhood. But Sterling said the decision to depart downtown for this ethnic enclave couldn’t have worked out better. Sterling is among the optimists who see a bright future for Little Italy even amid the dramatic changes to the neighborhood’s business and residential life.

She had to say something. Speaker after speaker at the Prince George’s County Council meeting had just railed against the very business that Chante Goodwin, 35, hoped to launch as a Black woman intent on joining the green rush ushered in when Maryland legalized adult cannabis sales. One county resident compared dispensaries to sex shops. “What happened to just say no?” another asked, referencing a Reagan-era slogan on drug prevention.