Try the tre semi boulle toasted with some olive oil and salt. Or put eggs on it in the morning. Incredible.

> If you are open downstairs, why not also upstairs.

First just the logistics: downstairs is smaller thus if you have less staff on that night you can far more easily man it than upstairs alone.

But second, downstairs is a far cooler space than upstairs.

It's the week before christmas, everyone's routines are disrupted by travel or holiday plans. Try it in August.

Goldberg's has bialys too, and flagels!! I love the fact that you can see 'em making the bagels. I like the plain ones best - they have that nice shiny crust that comes from boiling the bagels.

Isabella's Brick Oven has a great variety of pizzas + generous with toppings.

Fox45 was once again just stirring shit without actually fact-checking

Is Never On Sunday still around? That place was Heaven after a dozen beers.

Rofo chicken is my go to late night

Prior to COVID-19, everyone was packed because Baltimore was packed. You had people coming into the office, working 8-9 hours, coming out, getting drinks during happy hour, maybe a dinner, take a show or two, drinks afterwards, stumble on home and hope not to get mugged or stabbed or shot while you were at it.

Now... well, everything's shifted to work-from-home and most companies have kept a hybrid approach. Some companies have even reduced their "footprint" or office space used... because you can do it from home. My office, for instance, was about 80 people on the floor... and now it's zero. Support staff are in the datacenter's office now. Last time I went, it was basically a ghost town.

So there's not many people going into the office. They're not driving into Baltimore, having happy hour, taking a show, yada yada yada. And thus why your local dive's not open at O'dark 30.

I live down the street and don't bother with it anymore. Really sucks moving to Midtown/Mt. Vernon this year because antime we want to go out we really have to go back up to Hampden. If there were any decent sized houses up there I'd move back in a heart beat because the rest of Baltimore seems dead now. And I've asked a few bar tenders in this area why this is the case and they all say they have neither the business nor people willing to work those time anymore

> Station North, old goucher and Remington have also stolen the night life crowd in central Baltimore.

Yeah, as much as I was defending Brewer's elsewhere in this post, I do agree that some of the following may have more of the feel the OP is looking for, at least on the weekend: Alma Cocina, Clavel, Dutch Courage, Fadensonnen, WC Harlen. Possibly also Royal Blue (though I haven't been there enough to be sure).

Well that explains it.

DC has never been great about this either

> When I entered through the front all the chairs were either gone or on angle forward indicating the bar was closed.

Since they reopened mid-pandemic, they only have seating at half the bar, and the other half is cleared as a space for people to order.

Strange - we noticed the same! I always think they have INCREDIBLE fries so I wanted to get some fries and beer. Thursday night around 6:30 or so. It was TOTALLY dead. I remember it being packed and we couldn’t get in pre-pandemic. This was a few months ago so we sat outside where a few other tables were but no other patrons came the entire time we were there. It was bizarre. Seemed like a shell of its former glory days idk. Wondering what happened too.

I remember in NYC I'd look at my watch and think "oh awesome it's only 2:30am!" Hours of partying left to do lol

As I recall, a late night place was told by the city to close by a certain time (apologies for the FOX45 link but every other site was paywalled) in part because of how many violent incidents have happened near there at night (nevermind it's a shitty joint with a shitty owner that overcharges drunk people for shitty pizza).

If it weren't for the real and perceived public safety issues in the city, the demand for late night food would be there and the labor market would probably respond accordingly.

NYC or Philly has a lot more people to feed, so it's worth staying open later. It scales with population density.

There is one place to go....the one next to the Hustler Club where you walk downstairs. They have half descent girls in the afternoon.

I might have misread the situation. When I entered through the front all the chairs were either gone or on angle forward indicating the bar was closed. No one was seated at the bar and I didn't see a bartender. I might have just caught them on a smoke break and just misread things. However, the vibe still stunk. And this is not just Brewers, it is so many places. The energy is just gone when going out at most places.

I agree that they're pretty good but I wish they had more variety too.

Wasn’t about 20 years ago. Now. Yeah, it sucks.

Those baguettes at the wine source are the best I've found in the city. The sourdough is very good as well.

Not sure how to reconcile the following with this post: I was literally in there upstairs last Fri night, left probably around 7:30 or 8, and the upstairs bar was open and active, normal lighting. It wasn't crazy busy but it was fine, for that time in the evening (and there were actually quite a lot of people in the dining room then, above average for even pre-pandemic I'd say).

It's true that pre-pandemic that place would often be too packed for me to bother with (maybe this is what you describe as "packed and fun") on a Fri/Sat, which maybe hasn't returned -- though that would have usually been somewhat later than 8:30.

[Also, I will say that the main upstairs bartender that day, who isn't one I know, was definitely not on the friendly side..]

Thank you, I am concerned that if I use street parking, my car will get broken into

we're in the start of another covid surge. a lot of workers are out sick and that leads to things like early closures or partial closures. brewer's art is usually pretty energetic and full, especially when the weather's good enough for them to have outdoor seating! i'm still cautious about being breathed on by a million strangers so i wish they had the heaters out, i'd definitely be frequenting as often as i did the rest of the year if i could still hang outside.