The Dish: This Baltimore family’s chain is expanding as others shrink

Restaurant groups across the country are shrinking their footprint amid rising food costs and slim margins. But that hasn’t stopped one small family-owned Baltimore chain from growing.

Nick Liberatore and his relatives — the family behind Lib’s Grill and Liberatore’s Ristorante — plan on opening three new restaurants around Maryland in 2026, the first time in the family’s more than 30-year tenure in the food industry that they’re unveiling so many new restaurants in one year.

In Carroll County, Liberatore will be opening a Lib’s Grill in the former Sykesville train station, which had been delayed until the end of the year. Two more Lib’s Grills are expected in Reisterstown at the end of the summer, in the space formerly home to The Grill at Harryman House and in Towson in May.

Altogether, his family currently operates nine restaurants across the state, as well as a catering company and a Timonium wine bar they’re spinning off into a new series called Liquid Lib’s. They’re known for fresh seafood, steak and generations-old Italian recipes by Liberatore’s family, who moved to Baltimore in 1974 from Argentina, where they settled following World War II.

But not everyone in the tight-knit Liberatore family believed the restaurant group would last.

“It’s not like it’s gotten easier to do this,” said Nick Liberatore, who operates the three Lib’s Grills already operating in Bel Air, Maple Lawn and Perry Hall.

So, why now?

Nearly half of restaurant operators reported falling short of profitability going into this year, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Chief executives at Wendy’s, Smokey Bones, Noodles & Company, Denny’s and The Cheesecake Factory each announced substantiative cuts to their business for 2026. Popular steakhouses are shuttering, and Atlas Restaurant Group shut down their longtime Ouzo Bay eatery in February, while Titan Hospitality Group is ending The Lodge in Pasadena this month.

Meanwhile, independent Baltimore staples like One-Eyed Mike’s in Fells Point and Foraged in Station North abruptly locked their doors.

“There’s so many places going out of business, it’s kind of survival of the fittest in this market,” said Jamie Beall, chief executive of the Maryland-born and family-operated Ledo’s Pizza chain.

“Do you curl up into a ball?” he said. “Or do you run and go after the opportunities that are here?”

Beall, who Nick Liberatore calls a mentor, says he’s excited by the growth. He believes businesses that are willing to take risks in a shrinking market will come out on top, especially if they have the proper systems in place. With over 100 restaurants on the east coast, Ledo’s plans to open another eight this year.

Collaboration is a key part of the business, according to Beall. He’s learned from Liberatore how to strengthen Ledo’s beverage program and, in turn, Liberatore said he’s figured out new ways to source materials and negotiate with landlords through Beall.

Without help, neither Liberatore’s nor Lib’s Grill would be where it is today, Liberatore said, adding that the expansion coming in 2026 has been years in the making.

It all began in Eldersburg in 1988 with Liberatore’s Ristorante, the first of six Italian eateries that Nick Liberatore’s father, Italo, and uncles, John, Dante and Pino, would open.

Not a lot has changed, according to Pino Liberatore, who operates the Liberatore restaurant in Westminster. There are some facade renovations, brighter colors and more current music. But the familiarity is part of what keeps customers coming back, he said.

Many customers have known the Liberatores and visited their restaurants for decades. Community initiatives have further ingratiated the family with the surrounding communities.

A four times per year “No Senior Eats Alone” event offering discounted menus and dining companions to older visitors at each Liberatore-owned location helped grow the company’s appeal and already substantial senior customer base, which is expected to increase in the next decade.

Their community outreach keeps the family’s several locations from feeling too corporate and diluting the family brand, Nick Liberatore said.

In 1993 the family opened their second Liberatore’s in Timonium. Then came the Westminster location in 2002 , Perry Hall around 2004, and Belair three years later. Last year, Liberatore’s opened its sixth location, a small plates and wine bar in Ocean City modeled after Liquid Lib’s, their other wine bar in Timonium that opened in 2013.

“We talk about opening a lot more than we do,” said Nick Liberatore, who’s yet to sell or close a restaurant he’s opened.

It makes this year an anxiety-provoking endeavor for him, as he leads Lib’s Grill into a new county. In 2023, he announced the Sykesville location. The former train station is one of the more complicated restaurants the family has taken on, due to the size and process of getting historic preservationists in the community on board.

It’s a long way forward from the pandemic, when some family members didn’t know if the business could survive.

Nick Liberatore recalls his uncle John Liberatore, who helped open the first eatery, calling him during the pandemic after visiting the Liberatore’s in Timonium and reminiscing over how hard his father and their families worked to create the company.

“He said to me: ‘This could really be it,’” Liberatore said. Labor costs mounted and customers disappeared.

“We didn’t realize we’d feel the effect of the decisions we made then for the next couple years,” he said.

Now, the size of the Liberatore’s family business is double what it was in 2020. By the beginning of next year they plan to take on 1,000 staff. Shrinking themselves down isn’t how the family functions, according to Nick Liberatore, even as beef prices for the grill climb about 20% this year, and fryer oil and trash liners nearly double in cost.

They’re intent on being the neighborhood spot, in as many Maryland neighborhoods that are willing to welcome the boisterous immigrant Italian family that is still proud of their crisp white table cloths and grandmother-approved Sunday marinara sauce after all these years.

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