Hutzell: Annapolis restaurants keep changing — and keep on breaking local hearts

I met Brian and Sarah Cahalan more than 30 years ago at a party my wife threw for work friends in the garage-loft apartment we shared after getting married.

My wife ran a big-knife steakhouse at an Annapolis hotel, and the Cahalans were recently relocated from Chicagoland. Sarah worked in housekeeping, Brian was a valet.

At the party, he talked about his coffee cart at Maryland Hall, serving arts patrons looking for an intermission pick-me-up. I remember thinking that would never amount to much.

Shows what I know.

A few years later, the couple opened 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar & Gallery.

It was 1995, and the second season of “Friends” was airing. Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey and Phoebe were hanging out with a growing share of the nation at Central Perk on NBC.

The Cahalans tapped into the cozy coffeehouse wave spreading across America and brought it to Annapolis. Starbucks wouldn’t arrive until 2001.

So when Brian and Sarah announced this week that they’d sold their business, I felt a pang of loss. Myriam Osorio McCormick, owner of McCormick’s Bakery and Chocolates, plans to add her confections to the business, but said she’ll pretty much keep everything else the same.

And yet, it will be different.

“We’ve been working on this for a long time,” Brian said. “It’s what we’ve wanted to do.”

Changes like this are big news on a personal level. Bars, restaurants and coffee shops are woven into the fabric of Annapolis.

These places are meaningful, shared spaces, where ordinary people spend significant hours away from home and work. The Cahalans created a public square in Annapolis centered on a cup of coffee.

When the restaurants, coffee shops and bars you love change, of course it breaks your heart.

O’Leary’s Seafood closed last month, and Naty’s Tex-Mex Cuisione left its A-frame building in June. A Baltimore company took over Boatyard Bar & Grill in January.

The Canton Restaurant closed in 2024, the same year Pusser’s Caribbean Grille left for a new home in Baltimore and Mission BBQ gave up on downtown.

That’s 100 years of combined restaurant tastes gone in a flash. Of course we’ll mourn the loss.

The Pearl Restaurant and Ponche Tiki Bar lasted just two years. Armadillo’s is rebranding as Mavericks. Ruth’s Chris Steak House is moving to a spot across town known for the restaurants that have failed to make it work.

Annapolis often gets all tangled up in its sharp sense of high dudgeon, and the collective desire to find the cause usually translates to 1,000 fingers pointing.

It’s because of parking. It’s the government’s fault. It’s Atlas Restaurant Group, the company that now runs Boatyard.

The family-owned restaurant behemoth has discovered Annapolis in a big way, following The Choptank’s opening in 2022 with The Admiral’s Cup, Marmo Annapolis and Armada Dockside Cantina this year.

Full disclosure, my wife works at the hotel where those last two opened last month. It’s not her fault, either.

I’ve been to all the places that have changed in this recent string of news. I liked some, didn’t think all that much of others. For a city with a long history, people seem to forget that none of this is new.

Before 49 West, the building was home to the beloved Crate Cafe for 12 years. O’Leary’s lasted 40 years, but it was where Sadler’s Seafood almost made it to 50 years of serving crabs.

The Naty’s A-frame was originally an outpost of the short-lived roast beef chain, Heap Big Beef. Its unfortunate name matched architecture meant to appropriate the image of a Lakota tipi.

You meet friends at these spaces, share meals and talk about your experiences.

None of that keeps change at bay.

“I remember places that everyone went, Little Campus Inn and Fred’s,” Brian said. “There’s been waves of places that change.”

I watched as the Cahalans and others transformed West Street from a worn-out commercial zone to a vibrant arts and entertainment district.

Rams Head Tavern came first, but Brian and Sarah were there when Gavin Buckley and Jody Danek opened Tsunami and Ted Joyce and Pam Finlay followed with Sean Donlon Restaurant and Irish Bar.

Today, Tsunami is for sale. It’s been almost 20 years since Sean Donlon’s was sold and renamed Stan and Joe’s Saloon.

Over the years — as Brian followed Buckley, a two-term mayor, into city government and Sarah kept the business moving — I watched their family fill the place.

Their kids are a few years younger than ours, and they worked there, too. Now the Cahalans are grandparents.

I’ve eaten their food and done interviews at their tables. I’ve listened to friends on the tiny back room stage and admired artwork from the Maryland Federation of Art.

For the life of me, I could never understand why they put lattes in a beer mug, but always appreciated the newspapers stacked neatly by the door. Still do.

It’s the kind of place where you see people with business at the county courthouse down the street, or lawmakers and aides from the State House around the corner.

There are plenty of other places to get coffee around Annapolis. You can grab one to go a few doors down at tiny Café Olé, or across the street at Dunkin’ if you must.

I missed the Cahalans’ final night Monday, when friends surprised them with cake and congratulations. The place will go on without them — music is booked through December.

Brian and Sarah now get a chance to go out to dinner and maybe catch a local act that isn’t playing in their back room.

“We’re hoping to do that,” Brian said. “We order in quite a lot.”

Life changes, and through change is proven true — even in a 380-year-old city where the past is baked into every brick, grown into each tree and hiding around all the corners.