JBGB’s closes in Remington: ‘We just couldn’t make it work’

Remington restaurant and butchery JBGB’s is shutting down as a new year begins.

The neighborhood spot, which opened at 2600 N. Howard St. in 2021, shared the news on social media Tuesday.

“We tried very, very hard to make the concept work and to stay there,” owner Robert Voss said. “We tried for two years and we just couldn’t make it work.”

The restaurant was closed for good as of Tuesday. An attached butchery and sandwich shop will stay open through Jan. 7, with discounts on grocery goods and cuts of meat.

JBGB’s, known for stick-to-your-ribs dishes like cheeseburgers, spaghetti with meatballs and pizza, was an extension and expansion of John Brown General and Butchery in Cockeysville. Voss was inspired to take over the 11,000-square-foot space — formerly home to Spike Gjerde’s Parts & Labor, another butchery/restaurant hybrid — after briefly leasing the building to store 300 turkeys during a particularly busy time for his Baltimore County business.

He told the Sun in 2021 that he wanted JBGB’s to be a butcher shop first and restaurant second. But the model shifted over time, as Voss tried to attune to the neighborhood’s preferences. Last spring, he rebranded the butcher shop as The Butcher and the ‘Wich, a lunch and sandwich counter with a more limited butcher menu.

Voss said many of the restaurant’s customers were fans of the butcher shop from Baltimore County. But sales weren’t strong enough to keep the Remington business financially viable.

“It’s heartbreaking that it didn’t work out, but we had to make decisions,” he said. “It kind of got to the point where it was threatening our flagship location, and that was the dividing line for us.”