Legendary Baltimore crab restaurant, Bo Brooks, closes
BALTIMORE — Obrycki’s, Gunnings, Brownies. Names that adhere to the soul of Baltimore, are improved than gum on the soul of the shoe. How about Bo Brooks?
Opened on Belair Highway in 1965, then ran to Canton. It can be humorous but the first Bo only owned the crab area for a couple of years before advertising it to an army of businessmen.
Herman Hannan then took in excess of the area. His four children and eight grandchildren all contributed to the custom of Bo Brooks. But our hearts sank to master Bo Brooks is shut. The crab pots that at the time screamed with steam are now silent. “Some of them are from Belair Road they’ve been around permanently,” claimed Chris Hannan, the gentleman in demand alongside with his sister Tracey.
We considered the Bo Brooks Lighthouse would usually shine on Baltimore, where crabs have been like peanuts, but $150 a dozen is not peanuts.
“People do not take in that way anymore,” claimed a male who chewed on a Bo Brooks mallet as a newborn.
The table you cracked your to start with crab with Grampy is stacked away. The booth you launched good friends to their initial dozen is now vacant. And Hannan gave us this excellent line, “It’s difficult to take in crabs when you are staring at your cell phone.”
There is no prouder Baltimorean than Hannan. When he was entering Calvert Hall, father arrived residence a person night time to announce, “I purchased Bo Brooks, you are kidding, no I purchased Bo Brooks.”
Two armed robberies in which Bo was born on Belair Street pretty much chased the spot out of the metropolis.
“Martin O’Malley coaxed my father to remain in the city and move to Boston Avenue,” Hannan spelled out.
So Bo Brooks moved to Boston Avenue exactly where your teeth would chip likely down the bumpy bricks. Hannan’s mother and father crafted a company on a rat-infested pier.
Hannan worked all the jobs, from the floor to the ceiling. In no time he turned the sorter of crabs.
“When you sort, you are a person stage higher than the owner,” Hannan mentioned.
After four many years at the Naval Academy and then serving, Hannan went on to provide the family company. Hundreds inside of and extra individuals outside the house on the deck.
But the great situations did not go on to roll. So anything is up for auction.
The bar has tales buried into just about every scratch and dent. The back of the bar is a 12-foot significant by 30-foot long operate of art. Hannan says, “we acquired this from a speakeasy in Chicago.”
Bo Brooks was a single of the initially to go south, sending crabs again on a Piedmont Strategy to Friendship Airport. Mainly because the Hannan’s are brilliant enterprise individuals, they operate the Pink Star in Fells Place and McGarvey’s in Annapolis, along with a catering enterprise referred to as MBB in Annapolis.
Oasis Marina runs the assets now. They have a pool and hundreds of boat slips and quickly will build a new cafe in a multi-million greenback enterprise.
