16-year-old Maryland chain Shareef’s Grill returns to food trucks amid rising costs

Shareef’s Grill, a local halal carryout chain, is temporarily closing its Franklin Street location at the end of the month to transition from a brick-and-mortar business to one that leans on food trucks and prepackaged meals.

Owner Ronnie Faulcon, who also goes by Shareef, said his five-digit Baltimore Gas and Electric bill and the costs of ingredients and labor make it too challenging to continue serving guests solely from a storefront.

“Baltimore, thank you for 16 years of support,” he said in a social media post this week announcing the shutdown of the Harlem Park spot.

Faulcon said in an interview Tuesday that he prides himself on offering food at affordable rates, especially for lower-income residents of Upton, where Shareef’s Grill began in 2010. The new restaurant model will still focus on serving quality food at low prices, he said, but primarily through the business’ two food trucks and cheaper, already made meals, instead of the usual a la carte offerings.

The shuttering is the latest for Faulcon, who expanded the business from selling halal burgers and Italian ice outside Upton mosque Masjid Ul Haqq to multiple food trucks and locations.

Shareef’s Grill at 3320 Belair Road closed in December 2025 after 10 years in business, he said. Shortly after, in January 2026, his Randallstown spot at 8511 Liberty Road closed after five years. Faulcon’s other concept, The Madison 801, shuttered in February after just over a year in business at 801 N. Chester St.

“I won’t lie — I lost a lot of money on this project. But I refuse to call it a loss,” he wrote in a caption on a social media post announcing The Madison 801’s closure. Faulcon added that heavy construction affected foot traffic at the eatery, as well as his star chef moving back to Los Angeles.

Faulcon said Tuesday that, after feeling the economic downturn early this year, he needed to find a way back to his roots. In 2013, he purchased a food truck and drove around the city selling halal food, including his signature chicken over rice and fried fish. He took broccoli, onions, and red and green peppers grown on a plot of land off North Carey Street and tossed them with yellow rice and his special sauce.

“I went around the city and people loved me,” he said. Thinking about that period often makes him cry. “I gave to people who usually don’t have the means to buy shrimp and crabmeat.”

Returning to the food trucks will take time. He hopes to reopen the Franklin Street location at some point but for fewer hours and days. Finding a way to remain solvent is most important, and that means removing labor-intensive processes and producing meals that require fewer ingredients.

“We have to restructure a lot of things,” he said. “With the way things are looking [in the economy], we had to try something different.”