The Quarry House Tavern made its official comeback Sunday, opening its doors at 4 p.m. to dozens of patrons who patiently waited in a line that snaked around the corner from the popular dive bar on Bonifant Avenue and along Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring.
“And … we’re back!” the bar posted on its Facebook page. “Thank you to every single one of you who embraced us and kept us in your heart for three long years. We can’t wait to see you again.”
The bar had been closed since a March 2015 fire in Bombay Gaylord Fine Indian Cuisine, a restaurant located above the basement bar. Though the fire didn’t badly damage the bar, according to owner Jackie Greenbaum, the management had to wait for county inspections of the building in order to reopen and so relocated temporarily across Georgia Avenue in the space that formerly housed the Piratz Tavern. Then a water main broke on Bonifant Avenue during the winter of 2016, leaving four feet of muddy water in the bar and threatening the possibility that it would ever reopen.
“No one knew how close we really were to being gone forever,” Greenbaum, who credits her landlord with standing by her, said last week.
Longtime patrons who anxiously awaited the return of the bar were rewarded Sunday with a renovated watering hole designed to feel similar to the original, including the same food and drink offerings, most of the original staff and the same style of knotty pine paneling on the walls. The bar is planning a grand opening party in late March, according to Greenbaum.