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Food & Drink

The Karzais will take over Chesapeake restaurant space

Baltimore Sun
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With the end of Prohibition, Morris Friedman remakes his Charles Street delicatessen into a full-sca

With the end of Prohibition, Morris Friedman remakes his Charles Street delicatessen into a full-scale restaurant he names the Chesapeake Restaurant. It would evolve into one of Baltimore's best-known seafood restaurants for 50 years but was also famed for its charcoal broiled steaks, introduced to Baltimore by Morris' son Sidney in the 1930s. "Cut your steak with a fork, else tear up your check and walk out," becomes a well-known slogan. This is how the restaurant appeared in 2003. (Baltimore Sun photo)

The Chesapeake, which was closed for business last week, will reopen under new management.

The restaurant's owners have entered into a management contract with the Karzai family, whose restaurants in Baltimore include Tapas Teatro and The Helmand.

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Helmand Karzai, who is a partner in the restaurant group started by his father, Qayum Karzai, said that the family will soon release further details about the restaurant, including its menu and its new name. The family is working to complete interior renovations to the space in time for the annual Artscape festival, scheduled to begin on July 18.

The Chesapeake's opening last June was greeted as a welcome return for the long-shuttered property on the corner of Charles and Lafayette streets, which had once housed a Baltimore dining institution, the Chesapeake Restaurant, which flourished in the 1950s and 1960s.

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The restaurant property was purchased from the city in 2010, along with adjacent lots, for $2.5 million, by Station North Development Partners LLC developers Michael Shecter and Ernst Valery.

The Karzai family was originally to be the operators of the restaurant but ended up up pulling out before construction began. Valery then formed his own group of restaurant operators, which included his wife, Dana Valery, and the Philadelphia-based restaurateurs Mauro Daigle and Annie Baum-Stein.

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