Bar Alice Anne blends Korean bites with neighborhood bar vibes in Fells Point

Picking a home for Bar Alice Anne, Fells Point’s newest joint, was as much about the history of the space as it was about building “a nice place for a drink” — as the sign on the door states.

Back in 2014, 1900 Aliceanna St. housed Lobo, a casual yet elevated bar offering small bites from an often global menu. Local Fry and Toki Tako owners Liz and Kevin Irish were regulars, as were couple Katie Schlaffer and Chris Richards.

While the pairs never met at Lobo, they soon came to realize the Fells Point space connected them through their love for the city and local watering holes, leading to their eventual partnership and purchase of the building in October 2025.

“Strangely, we had crossed paths probably for so many years, which is the story of a lot of people here — just kind of being brought together literally by a space itself,” Liz Irish said.

Bar Alice Anne, which opened Thursday, is ultimately a revival of the corner neighborhood bar. Dishes are inspired in part by the fare at the since-closed Toki Tako in Hampden, a Korean American restaurant where Liz Irish served her heritage fusion food, often in the form of tacos and ssam, or wraps.

The pairing of Liz Irish, the Korean American helming the kitchen, and her husband, Kevin Irish, an Irish man, resulted in Bar Alice Anne’s small plates menu a la anju (a Korean term for food eaten specifically while drinking alcohol) and Irish-inspired toasties. While the final menu is still in the works, a few opening offerings include shrimp toast, an unctuous, almost dumpling-esque filling air-fried on two pieces of bread; tuna dip with smoked trout roe; rotating banchan, or Korean side dishes; and kimchi olives. They will also be bringing back Toki Tako’s signature Korean potato salad.

“We didn’t want it to be just Korean,” Liz Irish said of the mix of offerings at Bar Alice Anne. “That comes with a lot of expectations, but it’s a place where kind of anybody can find something that they like. And I know our Korean friends are going to be so hyped to see the menu.”

There are certainly limitations to the building to create what feels like magical food. No hood vent in the small kitchen means the team can’t fry anything on site, and a lack of space requires doing a lot of prep work and assembling at the back bar. But food is not the ultimate focus for the establishment anyway.

“We’re hoping this is a bar first and then restaurant second,” Liz Irish said.

The Korean American theme will continue at the bar, led by Fern Son of the now-closed Kenwood Tavern. There will be Korean alcohol including soju and makgeolli, and, in keeping with a revamped trendy space where a record player sits with plenty of vinyl, there will be natural wine offerings with an initial list curated by local distributor Zack Genin. Kevin Irish’s “local beer” — Guinness on tap — will also be one of the choices among a rotating Baltimore craft list.

The Irishes will lead operations in the beginning while Schlaffer joked that she and her husband will be “snow day support.” The hope is to eventually hire a full-time chef so the Irishes can pursue franchising of The Local Fry and maintain the stores and stalls in Hampden and Camden Yards.

“The brand, too, is meant to be of Baltimore,” said Richards, partner at creative agency Cohere, who led the bar’s branding work. The team also engaged Baltimore makers to bring the vision to life. The sign outside? Handpainted by Sean Danaher. The tables? Made by Garrett Brooks of Goodwood Design. The bar? Rebuilt by Mark Elson of Raronize Studios. The dishware? Sourced by Good Neighbor founder Shawn Chopra, a friend and client of Cohere.

While the details are nice, Schlaffer says the bar is meant to be casual. “There’s so many times that we stopped our errands in the middle of the day and just said, ‘You know what? The moment feels right — we’re stopping for a drink at different places nearby.’ I would hope that anybody would think that they could just pop in in the middle of whatever they’re doing, planned or not.”

BAA, as the team often refers to their new bar, also stands for “before and after,” since the team hopes people will frequent it before and after dinner. (“Baa” is also an ode to the Korean pronunciation of bar, and the onomatopoeia meant to represent an Irish sheep.)

For Schlaffer and Richards, who live around the block from Bar Alice Anne, the goal is to bring the neighborhood together at a bar — something they’ve been missing since the shuttering of Lobo in 2020.

“What’s great about Fells Point is the mix of everyone,” Richards said. “You have a lot of new people … you have some people who have been here for 50 years. … We hope this is the kind of place that encourages groups to expand.”