La Paz owners look to sell downtown Frederick restaurant

One of the staples of downtown Frederick's restaurant scene is for sale as its owner looks to retire — although he hopes the restaurant he established in 1978 will continue to operate.

Graham Baker, the owner of La Paz Mexican Restaurant with his wife Marcie, said Thursday that "it was just time" as they look to sell the restaurant along Carroll Creek in downtown Frederick.

But Baker said he and his family hope La Paz can continue operating under new ownership.

Fitzgerald Realty Group, which is helping handle the transaction, said Wednesday that it wants to hear from people interested in either acquiring the restaurant and the building at 51 S. Market St. that houses it.

They also could acquire the restaurant to operate as a tenant in the building or acquire the real estate.

The downtown Frederick restaurant scene was "very sparse" when Baker opened La Paz in 1978, in the space off North Market Street that currently houses White Rabbit Gastropub, he said.

The area offered a variety of places for workers and shoppers to get lunch, but few options for dinner, he said.

When La Paz came in, downtown Frederick basically offered diners or places to get a hamburger or hot dog, but few full-scale restaurants, said Ron Young, a former state senator who served as Frederick's mayor between 1974 and 1990.

He sought to make downtown a destination for restaurants, and attracted several establishments when La Paz took over the space that had been occupied by a Chinese restaurant and "went gangbusters," Young said.

"We caught the wave" of the effort to revitalize downtown after several floods in the 1970s damaged the area, Baker said.

He likes to think they helped with that transformation and helped lead the way when the restaurant moved in 2005 to its current location at the corner of South Market Street and Carroll Creek Linear Park, which Young helped devise as an effort to control the floods that periodically damaged downtown.

"It was a great move for us," Baker said, although the area was hardly the thriving pedestrian thoroughfare that visitors to downtown would see today.

The creek didn't have any of the brickwork or other aesthetics that exist now, Baker said.

"The vision was there. It just had to have its moment to come to fruition," he said.

Young credits Baker for having the foresight to understand what the area could become.

Some people only saw the channels for the flood control part of the project, and couldn't imagine what it would look like when it was finished, he said.

"He had the vision to see what it was going to be," Young said.

La Paz was an "early adopter" of outdoor seating on the patio along the creek, said Richard Griffin, the city's economic development director.

The original La Paz location was known as a spot for people to gather downtown, he said.

"It was packed all the time," Griffin said.

The current building was designed and built to be a restaurant, and he expects that it will remain one under the new owners, Griffin said.

The building includes more than 6,200 square feet of space on three floors, including restaurant, bar, and kitchen space of the first floor; additional seating, bar, and a server/prep area on the second floor; and office and storage space on the third floor, according to the Fitzgerald Realty Group.

The building also has a basement with walk-in coolers, a keg cooler with a tap system for feeding the upstairs bars, and other restaurant amenities.

But whatever occupies the space, its success will be important to the continued success of the creek and that area of downtown.

"It's an anchor location, for sure," Griffin said.

Kara Norman, executive director of the Downtown Frederick Partnership, said La Paz has been a "cultural touchstone for our community" for more than 40 years.

It's hard for people to imagine that there was a time when the creek wasn't what it is today, Norman said.

La Paz's move was a key moment in building momentum toward the area's development, she said.

"It definitely is a big part of downtown's evolution," she said.

For Baker, he said his next step after retirement will be to just "take it as it comes."

"Every new adventure, you just see what comes," he said.