Business in Baltimore



Kansas Main Street group in Baltimore



Last week an

El Dorado Main Street

volunteer and I attended the National Main Street Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.  While this is the third National Main Street Conference that I have attended, this one was very different than the past two years.  Location, Location, Location!  The past two years have been in the Midwest.  With Des Moines and Oklahoma City as host cities, the experience itself was very similar to if it had been held in Wichita.  I love living in the Midwest, but being in Baltimore was a completely different world for me.  I was able to see the resources that they have on the east coast, the differences in architecture (oh my, lots of different architecture), and how they behave differently than most cities in the Midwest.  What I learned and observed made me think about some of our assets, behaviors and architecture in a slightly different way. 

If you have traveled to the East Coast (or many other places in the country), you are familiar with row houses.  These narrow, but tall structures are everywhere in the Baltimore area.  What was very interesting to me was the use of these spaces for commercial retail and dining.  Here in Kansas, when I talk to new business owners, they usually want large open spaces and have troubles considering small spaces because of the inability to have more floor space as well as storage.  I visited so many shops that were less than 1,000 square feet in size (which is very small compared to most retail shops around here).  The way that they used every space for the optimum use and tied in with the characteristics of the building made the stores very charming.  The best use of space that I visited was a small restaurant named the Blue Moon Café.  This place was recommended to us by a couple locals to check out.  If you are a fan of the Travel Channel TV show “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain, you may have seen their “Captain Crunch Stuffed French Toast” featured on the show.  We were told to go early to get a seat.  We walk in at about 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning and grabbed the last available table.  The place seated about 40 and was a bit smaller than our Jacob’s Well here in El Dorado.  On the walls were large, loud paintings by local artists.  The walls had blue retro wallpaper, the ceiling was wooden as well as the flooring and there was a stone fireplace right near our table.  We quickly realized that this was an old home that was transformed into a restaurant.  Within 15 minutes there was a crowd of about 25 people outside in the 40 degree weather waiting for tables.  When one was available, a waiter would open the door and call “NEXT!”  The vibe of the place was so neat, but also very comfortable.  Our waitress explained to us that they were open 7 days a week and 365 days a year.  Even more impressive was that the hours of operation were 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.  This place, even though it was so small and quaint, had gained the reputation of being the place to get a good breakfast. The use of space was brilliant and had I not been there myself, I would have not have understood why the Blue Moon Café was so successful. 

Finally, an observation during my week in Baltimore was the importance of appealing to pedestrians.  Everyone walks or rides bikes all over the city there.  Because of this, merchandise is moved outside, musicians are outside, and artwork is outside.  Here in El Dorado and many areas across Kansas, signs are meant to attract the drivers in their cars as they pass by.  In areas such as Baltimore, the signage is lower and much more detailed.  It almost seems more personal as you walk by a business.  They make an effort to invite you into their store with displays and other attractions. 

While we are very different in many ways, I think that we could learn a lot here in Kansas from the way that those on the East Coast do business.  It was refreshing to see a completely different approach to success and it gave me many ideas to share with our downtown businesses.