The following was sent by a Baltimore Scoop Follower

There are 3 points that I feel are important to consider regarding the Baltimore restaurant discussion:

1. Yes, it’s nice to be considered a community that “doesn’t feel the need to have expensive, over the top, luxury experiences and businesses” like many other large Jewish communities have. Yet at the same time, we as a community, don’t have to feel that we can’t progress further in the kosher restaurant scene because of this. Yes, Serengeti is a great, fine dining restaurant, but that doesn’t mean that Baltimore doesn’t have the population or income to support more similar restaurants. Our one “fine dining” restaurant seems to be packed most nights and it definitely feels like there are enough people in the community who can support another “fine dining” restaurant. BH Baltimore is a constantly growing community. No one on this chat can speak for the entire community when they say that “we don’t have the infrastructure to support more restaurants”

2. If everyone felt content with the restaurants that we currently have and don’t feel the need to have any more, all this attitude will accomplish is that the restaurants we do have will have no reason or motivation to improve. I personally have seen a decline in the service, quality, and ambience of a lot of restaurants in the community over the last few years. If Baltimore truly is a growing community, then the addition of any restaurants should be welcomed and hopefully motivate the restaurants we do have to improve and adapt their business and customer experience.

3. No one is saying owning a restaurant is an easy business, but there are obvious things in some Baltimore restaurants that can be improved. If you take a look at successful restaurants from a similar category in larger Jewish communities, there are things that they do that “work”and because of these things it drives business and makes them successful. If anyone ever looked at the owner of Bun in Lakewood, Yechiel Reiner’s LinkedIn page, you will see numerous posts highlighting all of the policies and practices he implements so that his restaurant has the best possible customer experience. It feels like there are some Baltimore restaurants that can use that “sense of pride” in their business and would do good things for their overall customer experience. I’m not saying Baltimore should become Lakewood or Monsey, but it’s not too much to ask for to have some options with a little more ambience, convience and charm. Again, I’m not a restaurant owner or have any experience in the industry, but I do go to a lot of the restaurants in Baltimore often and feel that there are some blatantly obvious things that can be fixed without much effort or financial loss to the restaurant.