How a restaurateur from El Salvador built thriving businesses in Baltimore

Carlos Cruz, a restaurateur from El Salvador, built three thriving businesses in Baltimore. His work not only feeds the community but also some of Charm City’s best athletes. 

Cruz said he left El Salvador in 1979, just before the start of a civil war. He knows what it means to build a business from the ground up. 

“When I left my country, I was young, had no education,” he said. 

“Basically, my first job was at a restaurant as a dishwasher,” Cruz continued. “I learned…I said, you know what, I like this.” 

After leaving his home country, Cruz moved to Puerto Rico, where he lived for seven years and opened his first restaurant: Casa Maria’s.

“I was 22 years old, and after the devastation of [Hurricane] Hugo that destroyed the island, I was depressed,” Cruz said. “I never experienced something like that. So, I told them, I said, ‘You know what, I’m done.’ So, first flight took it back to the States again.” 

From there, Cruz’s career in the restaurant industry took off. 

Cruz’s Baltimore restaurants 

He opened Carlos O’Charlies in 2006 in Baltimore’s Highlandtown neighborhood, Bayside Cantina along Canton’s waterfront and Chilango’s in Fells Point. 

Chilango’s and Bayside Cantina both include views of the Inner Harbor and Patapsco River. The menus feature seafood and Tex-Mex-inspired dishes that customers like Sydney Pedersen enjoy. 

“We are from Texas, and Tex-Mex is huge, and this is on par with Tex-Mex,” Pedersen said. 

Feeding the Baltimore Orioles 

Cooking is what got Cruz where he is now, and why he was called on by friends to help feed the Baltimore Orioles, a job that lasted many years. 

“Cooking means everything to me, because that’s the only thing I guess I learned how to do,” Cruz said. 

In 2023, Cruz had the chance to throw the first pitch at an Orioles game. 

“I think for me, the most important is just the fact that I was there as a Latino,” he said. “For me, it means a lot.” 

Cruz said he would not be where he is today without the support of his wife, children and the valuable lessons his parents taught him growing up in a small village in El Salvador. 

“He said, ‘You don’t steal, you don’t lie, and you don’t offend anybody. You respect people and you’re gonna go far,'” Cruz recalled. “I carry that till today.”