Two Eastport Patios, One 77-Seat Limit

Walk Severn Avenue on any warm Friday and you'll pass two very different kinds of outdoor seating: Forward Brewing's driveway-turned-patio at the corner of Fourth Street, and the tented deck at Boatyard Bar & Grill down at Fourth and Severn. Different beer, different menu, different crowd. Both, as of this year, are licensed for exactly 77 outdoor seats, no more, from March through November.

The two approvals came through separate applications. They are part of a broader set of restaurant and marina changes on the peninsula in 2026. Alongside changes in Eastport's restaurant scene, marina ownership on the water side of Severn Avenue has also shifted.

How Two Eastport Patios Got 77 Seats

Forward Brewing opened in 2020 with fewer than 30 indoor seats and a takeout window, because that's all the pandemic allowed. The outdoor tables in the driveway were supposed to be temporary. They became the business. By the time the city formalized its outdoor dining rules last year, Forward was operating with roughly 90 outdoor seats on what had started as a parking lot, and owner Cam Bowdren had to apply for a special exception to keep them.

A city planner recommended cutting that number to 45. Bowdren countered with 77. After a nearly three-hour Board of Appeals hearing that drew hundreds of written comments and 26 public speakers, the board landed on 77 seats, March through November, unanimously. As The Banner reported, Bowdren said, "Now it's become our identity."

The detail that turns this into more than a zoning footnote is that 77 is also exactly what Boatyard Bar & Grill, a few blocks away, had already been granted for its own seasonal outdoor dining. Two businesses, two different applications, two different hearings, and the city arrived at the same ceiling both times. That's not evidence of a formal cap written into code. It shows that Eastport's outdoor dining capacity is being decided case by case; in the two examples here, each business was approved for 77 outdoor seats.

The Corner That Keeps Changing Businesses

Ruth's Chris has anchored the end of Severn Avenue since 1996, long enough that most people who eat there have never known Eastport's restaurant row without it. This fall, that ends. The steakhouse is closing its Eastport location and relocating to Annapolis Town Center, taking a 10,150-square-foot, two-level space with a ground-floor entrance and an elevator up to a dining room overlooking the development's entertainment green. The new location is technically in Parole, on the mall side, in a box that had sat empty since a previous chophouse concept exited. Federal Realty Investment Trust, which bought Annapolis Town Center in October 2025, is the landlord behind the deal.

The building Ruth's Chris is leaving has its own history worth knowing if you live nearby. The two-story corner at Severn Avenue and Third Street was once home to Marmaduke's, a sailing bar with a reputation that reached well beyond Annapolis before it closed in the late 1990s. Ruth's Chris took over from there. Whoever takes the space next will be the third chapter of a building that has already turned over once before.

"I hope the building is filled with an even better opportunity in the future."

The Banner quoted Alderman Frank Thorp, who represents Eastport on the City Council, saying this about the corner after the closure was announced. He called the departing steakhouse iconic for the neighborhood and described the vacancy as an opportunity.

Ruth's Chris isn't the only sign of new ownership on the corridor. Atlas Restaurant Group, the Baltimore-based hospitality company, acquired a majority stake in Boatyard Bar & Grill earlier this year, putting one of Eastport's best-known crab cake spots partly under outside ownership for the first time in its run on Restaurant Row.

Eastport's 2026 Business and Waterfront Changes

Changes on the Water Side

Restaurant changes are visible along the street, while marina ownership changes are less visible. Eastport has a working waterfront as well as waterfront views, so changes in marina ownership are another part of the peninsula's story.

Start with what already closed. In November 2025, Safe Harbor Marinas acquired both Port Annapolis, a roughly 250-slip facility on 16 acres, and Eastport Yacht Center on Back Creek. Those purchases followed Blackstone Infrastructure's $5.65 billion acquisition of Safe Harbor Marinas in April 2025, a deal that made an already-dominant national marina operator larger still. Two of Eastport's marina properties changed hands within the same twelve months, and neither transaction required a public vote, a zoning hearing, or a City Council quote, because private marina sales don't come with that kind of visibility.

The Annapolis Yacht Club's proposed purchase was being considered in public. Club members had been scheduled to gather at the Annapolis Waterfront Hotel on September 14 to vote on whether to buy Annapolis City Marina at 410 Severn Avenue, a facility that includes a public fuel dock, dozens of slips, and underground parking, despite its name suggesting municipal ownership. It doesn't belong to the city. It's privately held and managed by the MacKenzie firm. An approval would place the marina directly next to the club's existing Sailing Center at 510 Severn Avenue, giving the Annapolis Yacht Club a contiguous stretch of Eastport waterfront alongside its main clubhouse on Compromise Street and its Activity Center on Sixth Street.

The timing isn't incidental. The city's multi-year City Dock Resiliency construction project, running from 2026 into early 2028, has already closed several municipal slips and suspended some downtown harbor services, pushing more boaters across Spa Creek toward private slips in Eastport. A 2020 city task force assessment had already flagged that Annapolis City Marina's aging fuel dock tanks would need an estimated one million to one and a half million dollars in capital repairs, the kind of expense that makes an asset attractive to a buyer with deep pockets and unattractive to one without them. Whether that buyer ends up being the yacht club next door or continues under private ownership, the marina's fuel dock and public slips sit at the center of a real question about who gets waterfront access on this peninsula over the next few years.

At 222 Severn, Rosso Commercial Real Estate and W&P Nautical recently leased Building 2 at the mixed marine-industrial campus to US One-Design and McLaughlin Boat Works, a sailing equipment and boat retailer. The owners cited proximity to the water and the sailing community as reasons for choosing the space.

What This Means If You Already Live Here

None of this changes what Eastport is on a Tuesday morning. Forward Brewing still has its trivia nights and its run club. The Eastport Business Association still counts sailmakers and yacht brokers among its more than fifty represented professions. In 2026, several ownership and operating changes affected the peninsula's restaurants and marinas. A Baltimore hospitality group owns part of Boatyard. A national landlord is filling the space Ruth's Chris leaves behind. A private equity-backed marina operator now controls two of Eastport's slip inventories. The yacht club next door to a working public marina had been scheduled to vote on a purchase on September 14.

The 77-seat patio approval formalized outdoor seating that began as a temporary arrangement. In 2026, several restaurant and marina ownership or operating changes involved organizations based outside Eastport.

If you're curious how any of this shows up in what a home or dock near Severn Avenue is actually worth, or you just want a neighbor's read on what's changing before it hits the news, Annapolis Fine Property is a good place to start that conversation.