Nightlife in Arbutus

Evocative aromas ascend from swirling chalices at Veritas Wine Bar, a brick-walled lounge where sommeliers pair more than 70 wines by the glass with a menu of cheese and charcuterie plates. Grape-infused elixirs gush from a temperature-controlled tap system, ensuring uniform sips unmarred by sudden climate shifts or clumsy fire breathers. Reds and whites from Italy, South Africa, and New Zealand slosh into individual glasses or join forces to create flights. Globetrotting artisanal cheeses fall under four categories—blue, cow, goat, and sheep—and deliciously mingle with charcuterie selections. Sippers can scrawl an appetizing epilogue across the evening’s feast by noshing on chocolate morsels laced with slow-cooked caramel or pistachio butter, which silence petulant sweet teeth without preemptively donning a bedtime retainer.

Baltimore Comedy Factory has nonviolently busted guts with nationally sourced joke-slingers for nearly three decades. Several nights a week, the club schedules sets by stars pulled onto the stage fresh from appearances in blockbuster comedies and hit TV shows. Tucked within the Power Plant Live complex, the club’s expansive new location finds room for comfy table seating, a beach-themed bar pouring sodas and cocktails, and an ample supply of super-size prop sunglasses.

Named Best Comedy Club by the Baltimore City Paper and blueprinted as a comedy club from day one, Magooby's newly built stadium of standup attracts a high-profile flock of TV-tested jokesters to its 240-foot stage and state-of-the-art sound system. The fully stocked bar lines up a joke-themed stable of specialty drinks, such as the Blind Pirate, with bourbon and coconut rum, or the Bearded Ballerina, with bourbon and Bacardi limon. The menu fuels laughing fits and juggling one-upmanship with burgers, chicken tenders, and a caesar salad.

Smokin' Hot Bar and Grille specializes in drenching their hickory smoker meats in their house-made barbecue sauces, from pork and beef to entire turkeys. A buttery wooden bar stretches across the edge of the dining room, where visitors quaff drafts of Sam Adams or Smokin Hot's house ale, order classic or flavored martinis, and enjoy live music on Friday and Saturday nights. Beside their beers, the staff prepares smoked wings coated in one of nine barbecue sauces that range in heat from a pleasant brown sugar to a daringly fiery Black Jack. Steaks coated in house rub char to perfection on the grill, which also cooks pairs of 4-ounce cheeseburgers draped in two different sauces. The kitchen also serves hearty house-made mac and cheese four ways: straight, topped with chili, mixed with black beans, or fried with marinara sauce for dipping. Smokin' Hot Bar and Grille’s team prides itself on creating an atmosphere that’s fun and family-friendly, unlike an R-rated seminar on tax deductions.

Proprietor Don Dey Ermand has been running Sly Horse Tavern for nearly 30 years, but the restaurant looks much, much older. That's because it was modeled after the 18th-Century elegance of the Raleigh Tavern in colonial Williamsburg. A fireplace spills warmth out into the room, where it is easy to imagine early American colonists warming their hands or whittling the extra corners off their hats. The flickering light wends across oriental rugs and merlot-red tablecloths. Atop them, waiters slide plates of cuisine that fuse modern American and European culinary traditions. Chefs stir steaming pots of cherry and bourbon sauce and craft lobster crème, destined to crown cuts of salmon, ostrich, and Chesapeake Bay crab cakes. Sparkling, white, and red wines pair with dishes such as stuffed trout, which the Washington Times said was “generous in size, exceptionally flaky and sweet, and was complemented with just the right portion of rich crab imperial.”

Though 200 domestic bottles, craft beers, and imports reside on the drink menu at Hop Heads Ale House, the bar’s draft selections are some of its most popular brews. With a rotating selection of kegs on 11 taps, servers encourage guests sample bright and foamy brews culled mostly from small-batch breweries. To accentuate the flavors of each pint, the kitchen crew at Hop Heads crafts pub specialties such as rib-eye-cheesesteak sandwiches and chicken wings smothered in one of eight sauces. Wraps come stuffed with the likes of seared ahi tuna or veggies, and fresh soups are tapped fresh from local soup trees. The bar also runs a daily happy hour from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. each day, in addition to nightly specials and live music every Friday and Saturday night.