"Mr. Beverage" is back at the Midtown. Nathan Beveridge, who owned the Midtown Yacht Club in Mount Vernon from 1998 to 2005, is back at the helm, the interim operators having jumped ship.
And that's the last of the nautical references, because the Midtown Yacht Club, as Erik Maza reported on Midnight Sun, is now Midtown BBQ and Brew. You can just call it "Midtown," Beveridge says, as many folks always did anyway.
In the 1990s, Beveridge earned a following, along with, inevitably, the "Mr. Beverage" nickname, at the bygone Conservatory, high atop the Peabody Court Hotel, where the views of Mount Vernon were giddy. Lawrence Heinze remembers the night at the Conservatory in 1998 when he and Beveridge were admiring the view. Heinze says he pointed out the Midtown Yacht Club on Center Street. "We should buy that place," Heinze said he told Beveridge. And they did.
The former O'Henry's, the Midtown Yacht Club flourished in the Beveridge years. The barrel of free peanuts remained, Thursday night's "full-contact" karaoke became an institution and the food came to be actually pretty good.
In 2005, Beveridge sold the business (but not the building) and moved his family to Easton, where he opened, and continues to own, a nutrition and vitamin business named Muscle Inc. Beveridge, cherubic when he left Baltimore, has returned as a walking advertisement for his Easton business.
Beveridge will remain in Easton, with the new Midtown under the care of part owner Tony Harrison, a longtime "barbecue fanatic" -- he builds his own smokers -- who will introduce his new beefy, porky menu at Friday night's opening menu. The specialties are the ribs (not baby-back, neither), pulled pork and the Midtown Steak Sandwich.
Harrison's picaresque culinary adventures, which begin in 1977, when he was a 15-year-old runaway from his Shropshire home working in the pot-scrubbing room at The Athenaeum, the luxury hotel in London's Mayfair district, where his hard work was noticed by the famous chef Paul Bocuse, will save for some other time.
The free peanuts are still there, karaoke will be back soon, Beveridge says, and so will the meat-lovers Sunday brunch.
Midtown BBQ and Brew is at 15 E. Centre St. For information call 410-835-2472 or go to midtownbbqandbrew.com