Ever since the city Liquor Board revealed via Tweet that somebody had a contract to buy The Brass Elephant, I've been trying to find out who the buyer is.
And finally, today, I can tell you who it is ... not.
Jerry Pellegrino is NOT buying The Brass Elephant.
But the Corks chef and financier Chuck Nabit had considered The Brass Elephant as a potential location for a new restaurant, Nabit and Pellegrino confirmed this week. Nabit called it "an interesting and somewhat problematical location -- in the middle of everything and in the middle of nowhere."
Nabit said they also considered Boccaccio before Peter Angelos snapped that up at auction. (Imagine losing to Peter Angelos. Not too many people know that feeling, at least in baseball.)
"Of course we're always looking for another venture," said Pellegrino, who's also an owner of Abacrombie. "Corks and Abacrombie are great, but we're always looking for something [else] to do."
Nabit said he and other Corks and Abacrombie investors have been shopping for a spot where they can leverage "Jerry's talent and our money."
But the economy and weather have slowed them down.
"We've looked at a variety of different options around town," Nabit said. "This is a very difficult time for the restaurant business in Baltimore, exacerbated in the last two months by the weather situation we've had. It's been a difficult two months for everybody. ... We continue to look at options [but] at this point, it's probably a prudent move to keep ourselves pretty focused on our existing operations at Corks and Abacrombie."