Last Little Tavern closes

Posted by Jeff Quinton on April 30, 2008

The last Little Tavern restaurant — part of a local chain that served bags of small burgers for more than 70 years — permanently closed this afternoon, the owner said.

The restaurants, known for their green-and-white storybook cottage buildings and the slogan, “buy ‘em by the bag,” were one of the area’s first fast-food chains, opening in Baltimore in 1930.

Little Tavern was founded in Louisville, Ky., in 1926 by entrepreneur Harry Duncan, but the chain soon moved to this area. In the 1950s, more than 40 Little Taverns operated in the Baltimore-Washington area. The restaurants closed one by one until only a location on Holabird Avenue in the southeast corner of the city remained open.

The owner of the last Little Tavern, Al Roy of Abingdon, said today that his declining health caused him to abruptly shut down the restaurant at 1 p.m. today.

The Holabird Avenue location, which opened in 1983, had been open 24 hours a day, offering fried eggs and hash browns, french fries, onion rings, and other snacks. The famous hamburgers were made from fresh ground beef, sprinkled with finely chopped onions and served on a small bun from H&S Bakery. The restaurant was profiled in The Sun on Sunday.

Roy, 63, said that he hoped new Little Taverns could open through a licensing agreement.

“I’m going out of the picture altogether, but [some associates] are fighting to keep the name going,” he said.