People often ask me where they can go to eat near the Hippodrome Theatre. Now, I have an answer: Jerk at Nite.

The new Jamaican restaurant takes the place of Alewife, which closed in 2018, and sits next door to Forno, which shuttered in 2023. It has a lot going for it. The chef makes hands-down the best jerk chicken I’ve ever had in my life. The restaurant’s D.C. branch just got a shoutout from TikTok food critic Keith Lee, who rated the dish a 9 out of 10. I’d give it an 11.

But a recent trip to the Eutaw Street spot ahead of Jerk at Nite’s soft opening last week reminded me why doing business downtown is an uphill battle, even for a restaurant that has so much going for it. Walking up the block, I passed through a group of guys who appeared to be buying and using drugs. As I checked my email on my phone while waiting to go in the eatery, a man slouched on the stoop of the building had a fatherly warning for me: This wasn’t a safe place to be standing and looking at my phone.

Umm … thanks?

I entered through a side door — the front door is bolted up for now. Inside, I found a warm, tropical oasis that founder Denville Myrie Jr. said he built largely himself to conjure up his homeland of Jamaica. Reggae vinyl records on the wall and a mural of Bob Marley pay tribute to the island’s musical heritage, while another mural depicts an unusually serious-looking Gov. Wes Moore, who is also of Jamaican descent.

It’s Myrie’s third time opening a restaurant in Baltimore, after two previous efforts to bring the eatery here failed. But he persevered anyway. “I’m not somebody who is trying to just come into a community, make money,” he said. The city is a “gem” — “there’s no place like it.”

While the restaurant feels like the perfect spot to grab a bite before a concert at the nearby CFG Arena or a show at the Hippodrome, Myrie’s partner, chef Loic Sany, has ambitions of making Jerk at Nite and a sister concept upstairs called The Nest foodie destinations all their own. Sany, who was born in Cameroon and previously worked at the Inn at Little Washington, said he wants to win a James Beard Award “at the minimum.” His macaroni and cheese is more than Michelin-worthy. Look for an elevated chef’s tasting menu soon to come.

But for many customers, getting through the door of the restaurant will mean confronting an inconvenient truth of downtown Baltimore. The blocks of Eutaw Street outside Lexington Market and the historic Hippodrome are dominated by drug trafficking.

When Myrie, who founded Jerk at Nite while a student at Howard University, contacted Baltimore officials to ask for help improving safety in front of the restaurant, he said they advised him to either hire private security or pay to keep an off-duty police officer outside. Such pricey measures are beyond what he and other small business owners can afford.

In response to questions from The Banner, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore Police Department said that in the past few months, Central District officers have increased patrols and enforcement downtown. She pointed to 31 drug arrests in the area around the Hippodrome and Lexington Market area since June of this year. “We remain committed to ensuring the safety of our community through vigilant policing and collaboration with our partners,” she wrote in an email.

Downtown Partnership President Shelonda Stokes, whose organization advocates for businesses in the area, said in a statement that the group is grateful for “key public safety partners,” including BPD and the Maryland State Police, and their focus on the downtown corridor. “We recognize that challenges remain, but are confident that this collaborative approach is working and will help us continue to build a Downtown that is safe, welcoming and thriving. The major investments underway make clear that Downtown is well-positioned for its next renaissance.”

But clearly, there’s more work to do. I asked Myrie what he needed from Baltimore in order to be successful. “I need the city to take public safety more seriously,” he said. The stuff happening outside their space has been going on for years — but why? Given the presence of venues nearby like the Hippodrome and Everyman theaters, the newly renovated CFG Bank Arena and Lexington Market, “there should not be as much drug activity as I’ve seen,” Myrie said. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel safe when you’re coming up.”

And if customers don’t feel safe, they’re not likely to come out. Just ask Forno owner Ricky Johnson, who said that guests constantly remarked on the presence of drug dealers and users just outside the entrance of his restaurant. He tried to reassure them: “If you’re not looking for drugs or trying to sell drugs, no one is going to bother you.” They weren’t assuaged. He ended up closing his eatery last year after almost a decade in business. “So many people would tell me, ‘Considering that location, I can’t believe you made it that long.’”

Similarly, vendors at the revamped Lexington Market say customers are put off by the prevalence of people selling and using drugs just outside, particularly by the Eutaw Street entrance. “Inside the market, there isn’t any crime,” said Narayan Thapa, who owns the Lumbini stall. “But some people are scared to come inside.”

In the nine months since he opened an offshoot of his Mount Vernon restaurant inside the $45 million city-owned market, sales have been about half of what Thapa expected. He wants to see Baltimore do more to improve safety and encourage office workers to come back downtown. “If people don’t work [in-person],”” he asked, “who’s going to come to the restaurants?”

It wasn’t always this way.

Johnson said the problems of the neighborhood were exacerbated by the pandemic, during which he temporarily closed down his Italian trattoria. By the time the restaurant reopened, the regular daytime office workers were gone and “that block was just completely taken over by people hanging out and selling or using drugs.” The former Alewife, in particular, became a prime spot for loitering, putting Johnson in a tough spot.

“I didn’t want to say the city needs to bend over backwards to help my dumb little business, but that’s the Hippodrome,” he said of the theater across the street.

Even though his own restaurant has closed, Johnson said he’s glad to see a newcomer take a chance on a building that had been vacant for six years. But he’s never too optimistic.

“Every time a place does open you just think, ‘How long is this going to last?’” he said. “It sucks to see. You’re like, ‘Damn that sounds awesome, I hope they make it six months.’”