Presence

I wouldn't hold out hope for the dairy place in Mt. Washington;
I think that the guy who is planning it as been in the planning stages of a kosher dairy establishment for the last two years.

won't happen, i don't think, but could and should - it could be akin to claire's in new haven or the milk st. cafe in boston, clean, eclectic menu, lots of vegetarians, wouldn't know it's kosher if there was no teudah. that's because they are good enough to attract young professional non-kosher consumers. wouldn't that me a nice change of pace?

Baltimore would never support a place like Claire's or Milk Street.
The non-kosher crowd is not hip and urbane enough. They want crab cakes and pit beef. And the kosher crowd only wants fleishigs. If they're going to get dairy they want greasy pizza from filthy pizza shops.
Baltimore could so badly use a nice dairy place that isn't primarily a pizza joint!

Cafe 921 tried and failed, and that was in what could be pretty much the best location ever. A place in Mt Washington has pretty much no chance to succeed.

Then again, Pita Plus has made a good go of it in College Park, so maybe I'm wrong.

A cool dairy place that caters to beyond the kosher community would be great. But one of the problems of the economics of such a restaurant is Shabbat. The rent and other overhead items (except labor) have to be amortized over 6 days rather than 7, plus of course all the holidays and especially Pesach.

Claire's in New Haven as well as the newer kosher vegetarian place in New Haven (Ahimsa, which was panned badly this morning by the Hartford Courant food critic) are owned by non-Jews and are open on Shabbat.

Is it conceivable that the Star-K would agree to giving hashgacha to a non-Jewish owned restaurant that was open on Shabbat? If not, the idea is probably dead in the water, it seems to me.

921 failed because their location was too expensive, and because they had some business problems unrelated to the running of the restaurant.

I think Charles is right: places that aren't open on Saturday are going to run into trouble making ends meet. If they have massive business on the weekdays (i.e. if they are in a business area, like places that are in downtown NY), they'll be OK, but Mt. Washington, last I checked, is not a major financial center.

Obviously, it would entail being open on shabbos. And is there a problem with a Jewish owner having a non-jewish co-owner to meet that criteria? Or maybe the Jewish owner could be minority owner. Or maybe a non-Jew altogether could open the place. Besides, you don't need Star-K to give the hashgacha - you could go with another one - a la Tov Pizza, or you could altogether go away from the organizations and get Salfer or Weiss. But I think it could be a workable concept in Mt. Washington if it's eclectic - would fit right in with Starbucks, Whole Foods and other high-end retail.