Sally O's

Sally O's is a corner bar at 3531 Gough Street in Highlandtown from chef Jesse Sandlin, a Top Chef alum who took over the longtime home of The Laughing Pint after it closed in autumn 2019. The name is her grandmother's: Mildred O'Dethal, known as Sally O. Sandlin was clear about what she wanted from the space — when it became available, she said, she felt strongly about creating a place the neighbourhood would feel comfortable in and want to patronise, which is a more modest brief than most chefs of her profile would set and the reason the room works. The kitchen cooks from scratch, including the ice cream, and Baltimore Magazine singled out a Crabonara that ingeniously mixes blue crab into the pasta instead of pancetta, arriving seasoned just so with thyme, heaps of parmesan and clumps of sweet meat. The Highlandtown Smashburger stacks chuck, brisket and short rib. Dinner runs Monday to Saturday from 5pm, with a late-night menu until midnight Thursday through Saturday, happy hour early in the week, and Sundays closed.

The non-alcoholic drinks have their own printed "Spirit Free" heading and all three are $10 — well below the cocktails, and each built on a real zero-proof base. Szechuan Blush uses Ritual zero-proof gin with a rosemary-szechuan-cranberry syrup and lime, so the szechuan pepper supplies the tingle that gin's botanicals normally would. The Pathfinder Old Fashioned is the most interesting: Pathfinder's non-alcoholic amaro with a marshmallow syrup and an orange twist, which is a genuinely clever substitution because marshmallow root brings the viscous sweetness that sugar alone cannot. The Zero Proof Spritz pairs Mionetto's non-alcoholic bubbles with its spirit-free aperitivo. Behind them sit Athletic's Free Wave and Lite at $5, a non-alcoholic Guinness at $8 and a Mionetto alcohol-removed sparkling at $10. Note the list turns over — a Sun Tropics documented in early 2025 is no longer on the menu.