DUNDALK, Md. — At Squire’s Italian Restaurant and Catering in Dundalk, you can grab a slice, enjoy some calamari, and indulge with the rest of the community. But did you know there was something there that has stood dormant almost a century?
The business first discovered the secret while doing some renovations of the upstairs banquet room.
Back in the 1920s, the restaurant started as Squire’s Café, a small neighborhood tavern and pool hall.
WMAR-2 News' Kelly Swoope live at Squire's learning about the secret
Behind a wall upstairs was a 30 feet by 8 feet blackboard, and before you ask, Squire's was not a school before it became a restaurant.
It was actually a betting parlor for horse racing.
On the blackboard were names of horses and jockeys written in chalk for races in New Orleans and Cuba.
"We found out we had a little bookie joint going on back in the day. We had nothing to do with it. We weren't here yet.," said Bob Romiti, the owner of Squire's.
Kelly Swoope speaks with Jennifer Egan, a local artist, who was hired to preserve the wall
Jennifer Egan, a local artist, was hired to restore and preserve the wall.
She spent 80 hours using chalk paint to do a partial restoration of the piece of history.
"I wasn't sure what I was going to do at first. But then, once I got the paint, it's actually a chalk paint so that it would look like it was still chalk down there originally. And I started going over them and I said 'hey, it's not too bad. It's gonna take me a month, but it's not too bad,'" Egan said.
The restaurant held a public event to allow the Dundalk community to see the blackboard and to enjoy a nice Italian dinner.
A portion of the proceeds that evening went to the Defenders' Day Committee, a 501 (c) (3) organization which commemorates the Battle of North Point and the British attack on Baltimore one day before the Bombardment of Fort McHenry.
