621-625 S Broadway: What’s up with the history of La Calle?
This building in Fell’s Point in Baltimore has been feeding people one way or another for over 130 years.
The grocery side: 625 S Broadway
Back in 1890, this spot was the dry goods store run by a man named Charles Birkenstock.
1890 Baltimore City Directory
That's not even the oldest claim on this land. A 2013 court notice revealed a sliver of ground behind these storefronts was last legally owned by Colonel Edward Fell himself - the man Fells Point is named after.
A few years later, a Jewish immigrant family named Greenbaum took it over and ran it for a couple decades.
And in 1942, it becomes a deli. By 1950, it's a full grocery store called Ben's Food Market, run by Ben Copland, selling groceries locally and supplies to ships and tugboats docking nearby.
Ben runs the store for 26 years, by what I can find, and then sells the store when he gets sick in 1968. But don't worry, he goes on to live another 13 years - his obituary says he spends his retirement sculpting and painting.
1940 Baltimore Census
It was quiet for a little while until it got a new life in the 2010s.
In 2015, an Italian restaurant called Sammy's Inoteca opened here.
Today, it's La Calle, a Mexican restaurant opened by the Sandoval Brothers.
I love that this building has had the job of feeding the neighborhood through a different immigrant family every generation or two since its inception.
The hardware side: 621 S Broadway
Next door, the building had a different job: keeping the neighborhood's houses standing.
In 1916, it was Pondfield Bros. By 1921, Herbert Siederman ran the space.
Then in 1933, it became Castine Hardware, and it didn't change hands again for 60 years. The Castine family ran that store from 1933 all the way to 1993, eventually sold by Mary B. Castine.
