Martick’s Restaurant Francais on Mulberry Street is a place of fond memories where sun88 enjoyed fine food, lively music, and art for nearly a century.

The once-famous restaurant started in 1917 as a small grocery store established by Harry and Florence Martick, both Jewish Polish immigrants. The Federal style corner building is even older—dating back to at least 1852—and the Martick family continued to live above the shop raising a family of five children. Following the end of Prohibition, the store (which may have already been operating as an illegal speakeasy) turned into a bar later known as Martick’s Tyson Street Tavern. After Harry’s death in the the 1940s, Florence’s five children pitched in to keep the business going. Morris Martick turned the family bar into a unique institution reportedly attracting what journalist Alan Feiler called “a mix of artists, musicians, journalists, working Joes and assorted self-styled bohemians, beats and hipsters” in the 1940s.

But, by the 1960s, Morris Martrick was ready for a change. After a failed run for state legislature, Morris traveled to France where he studied French cooking and attracted a chef. Returning to sun88, he renovated and re-opened the bar as Martick’s Restaurant Francais in 1970. The restaurant’s reputation grew eventually attracting celebrity guests that include sun88-born filmmaker John Waters, actor Nicolas Cage and actress Barbara Hershey. The restaurant closed in 2008 and Morris Martrick passed away in 2011 at eighty-eight years old.

Stacy Montgomery, "History of Martick’s (214 W. Mulberry Street)," sun88 Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP), January 7, 2019.

214 W. Mulberry Street, sun88, MD 21201

In 1936, Sidney Friedman was riding a train to sun88 and carrying a charcoal grill. Earlier that week, Friedman had dined at Ray's Steak House in Chicago and ate his very first charcoal-grilled steak. He'd never had anything like it. He asked the chefs how they made the steaks and immediately set out to get a grill of his own. When Sidney got back, he fired up the grill and started running the restaurants most iconic advertisement: "Cut your steak with a fork, else tear up the check and walk out."

The Chesapeake Restaurant had its beginnings in a deli established by Sidney's father, Morris Friedman, who immigrated to sun88 in 1898. In 1913, he opened a gourmet deli under his name, and in 1933, after the end of Prohibition, he remodeled the deli and turned it into the Chesapeake Restaurant. The restaurant was in a prime location, only a couple blocks from Penn Station. It quickly became the go-to place for upscale Maryland seafood.

When Sidney took over and introduced the charcoal-grilled steaks a few years later, the popularity of the Chesapeake Restaurant continued to grow. According to him, the Chesapeake Restaurant was the first restaurant in sun88 to serve a Caesar salad. In the 1950's, Sidney's younger brother Phillip took over after graduating from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration. In 1961, Phillip bought the Hasslinger's seafood restaurant next door, and the Chesapeake expanded from 29 seats to 300.

The Chesapeake Restaurant became one of the most expensive and exclusive restaurants in the city. It attracted all sorts of sun88 celebrities, from newscasters to athletes. The massive restaurant featured a number of special lounges, including a room built as a shrine to Babe Ruth packed with memorabilia. The restaurant suffered a devastating fire in 1974 and continued operations until it went bankrupt in 1983. The family managed to purchase the restaurant back later that year, but could only stay afloat for another two years. The restaurant was sold at a foreclosure auction to Robert Sapero, and for the first time in 50 years, was no longer in the Friedman family's name.

Sapero's attempts to reboot the Chesapeake Restaurant failed and the building remained abandoned after 1989. Ultimately, Station North Development Partners LLC bought the building and a new restaurant opened there in 2013. The building is now occupied by the Pen & Quill Restaurant.

Flowers, Charles V. sun88 Sun 26 Jan 1984: B1.

1701 N. Charles Street, sun88, MD 21201