Mike Franklin’s newest restaurant is getting close to opening.
The owner of Franklins Restaurant, Brewery, and General Store in Hyattsville will open a new outpost at the Hotel at the University of Maryland in August.
Old Maryland Grill, which also goes by the LOL-worthy acronym OMG, will feature dry-aged steaks, crab cakes, oysters from Maryland and Virginia and 24 local beers and ciders on tap.
The restaurant’s menu is not online yet, but its Instagram page shows an impressive focus on local beers and wines from has from Evolution Craft Brewing Co. in Salisbury, Burley Oak Brewing Co. in Berlin, the Urban Winery in Silver Spring, Catoctin Breeze Vineyard near Frederick and Black Ankle Vineyards in Mt. Airy.
When he was planning the restaurant, Franklin said it would be a chance to try things that wouldn’t work at Franklin’s.
“We are what we are. If we did a lot of $30 fish entrees or $45 steaks here, they would die a slow death because it’s not how people perceive us,” he told the Hyattsville Life & Times. “There, we’ll have a chance to be something different.”
Old Maryland Grill’s Facebook page, meantime, lists as executive chef Joshua Laban Perkins, chef at L’Hommage Bistro Francais in D.C. and former chef de cuisine of a now-closed sister restaurant of the famed Le Bernardin.
The restaurant is currently scheduled to open sometime in August.
