302 The Local
Six years ago, two brothers took a chance on the Baltimore franchise, Chaps Pit Beef, turning a sleepy off-the-highway small box location behind Iron Hill Brewery into a pit beef concept with an inviting bar and order-yourself approach to casual food dining. The masses really never embraced the concept, however, and while lunch and early dinner visitors remained consistent, the ‘sports bar’ crowd never really materialized. Pit beef has long held its own in Delmarva, focused mostly in Ocean City, Maryland, including at the well-known Bull on the Beach. But the concept does not stretch to a full Delaware restaurant model, as it borders between fast food, fast casual, and sit-down dining, but other than a bar with televisions, there is no draw other than to quickly order, eat, and depart. In 2024, Chaps Pit Beef closed, and the brothers extended the bar nearly the length of the restaurant, imported plenty of new spirits, and re-tooled the concept to a faux speakeasy, 302 The Local. Offering a smattering of specialty smash burgers, ‘gourmet hot dogs,’ and other comfort classics, the recent launch suffered from early-opening menu and service issues, and the chef may be left over from its pit beef toddler stage of restaurant development, not ready for a more prime time menu. The breadth of available whiskeys and other libations, coupled with a 1930s look-and-feel bar and ambiance, gives The Local a cool vibe, and the cocktails are carefully curated for your hi-top tables or couch dining, not the most comfortable of speakeasy approaches. We dined in its first month of opening, and the restaurant surely needs to work-out service and staffing issues, including even the menu, which was not even close to what the kitchen was actually cooking, apparently given some commercial printer issues. We want to like The Local, but the brothers need to remain more local to the restaurant before the authorities (i.e., patrons) raid the speakeasy and shut it down again (by posting negative reviews or ignoring it altogether). There are plenty of other drinking establishments in Delmarva offering the same variety of drink with better food, so if 302 The Local wants to make it another five years, more focus needs to be given to the kitchen so that its opening and growing pains are less obvious than The Local’s off-the-highway and quasi-hidden location.
