, 78°
Wind: mph,
Each year, readers of the Severna Park Voice cast their votes for the best businesses, services and organizations in the area. For local eateries, awards are given to the voters’ choice in 30 categories spanning Best Wait Staff to Best Kids’ Menu to Best Seafood.
The five restaurants featured below won a total of 19 “Best of Severna Park” awards in 2025, including 16 in the “food/dining” category and three in the “entertainment” category. Their owners and managers have offered a behind-the-scenes look at their menus, recipes, hospitality practices and more – all things that likely contribute to voters selecting them as the best of Severna Park.
2025 winners of: Best Restaurant Overall, Best Wait Staff, Best Dinner, Best Dessert, Best Italian, Best Gluten-Free Menu, Best Special Occasion
The team members at Cafe Mezzanotte are no strangers to being voted the Best of Severna Park – they’ve won the categories of Best Overall, Best Dinner, Best Italian and Best Special Occasion four or more years in a row. This year, owner Kosmas “Tommie” Koukoulis is proud that his team was also voted the Best Wait Staff, and that the efforts the restaurant has put into expanding its house-made dessert offerings were acknowledged by voters as well.
Koukoulis noted that the wait staff at Cafe Mezzanotte devote time to meetings and workshops focused on providing an experience that marries aspects of fine dining with warm hospitality.
“Service and hospitality are technically different, and they’re both important, but we focus on the nuances of the two and really spend a lot of time trying to get on the same page with our staff that service is the technical delivery of the product,” he said, emphasizing that they want to do that part of the job well. “Hospitality is how the delivery of that product makes our guests feel, and that’s even more important.”
Koukoulis believes that elevated hospitality contributes to guests choosing to celebrate special occasions at Cafe Mezzanotte, too. For birthdays, anniversaries and other occasions, the restaurant intentionally does not send a group of singers to tables. Instead, the staff tries to start guests’ experiences on high notes with special touches like glasses of sparkling wine or prosecco, or perhaps an appetizer.
With a menu that evolves with the seasons, Koukoulis, who serves as executive chef, aims to maintain a good balance between classic Italian food and new-age innovation. “It starts from a place of traditional, authentic Italian preparation, and then we try to elevate it a bit, put our fingerprint on it, celebrate what’s in season, and not lose the essence of the dish,” he shared.
2025 winners of: Best Lunch, Best Burger, Best Salad, Best Happy Hour
Burgers of all varieties appear on menus across town, but Park Tavern claimed the award for Best Burger in Severna Park this year. The restaurant, which has been a part of the community for over 10 years, offers the Tavern Burger and the Park Burger year-round alongside seasonally rotating options. Currently, it’s serving a hatch chile burger topped with hatch chile relish, smoked mayo and muenster cheese, and an alehouse burger piled high with smoked bacon, onion marmalade, bleu cheese crumbles and a horseradish aioli.
Justin Dvorkin, a partner at Park Tavern, shared how the eatery has elevated its signature item, the Tavern Burger. “You can make a burger a lot of different ways, but that burger is made with ground New York strip steak that we get from J.W. Treuth, which is a local butcher in the area, so it’s ground New York strip; we use a smoked Nueskes double cut thick bacon; Tillamook cheddar; a house-made tomato jam; (and) we get our sesame seed brioche from a local bakery,” he said. “So, it’s the sum of the parts.”
Dvorkin shared that each week on burger Mondays, Park Tavern offers the Park Burger and a rotating chef’s featured burger with fries and a pickle for $11.
Serving great salads is a high priority for Park Tavern, according to Dvorkin, who shared that the staff ensures they’re offering fresh ingredients, generous portions and interesting options for customers looking to make healthier selections.
A high-quality yet affordable happy hour is also a source of pride at Park Tavern. A half-dozen $7 appetizers can be paired with $4 draft or bottled beer, half-price wines, or $6 craft cocktails.
2025 winners of: Best Crab Cake, Best Seafood, Best Outside Seating, Best Place To Take Out-Of-Towners
In Maryland, countless restaurants claim to have the “best” crab cakes, but only one received the votes to secure that status in the Severna Park area: The Point Crab House & Grill, located on the water in Arnold.
Chef and owner Bobby Jones shared that The Point’s simple crab cake recipe has been in his family for generations.
“The recipe comes from my grandma, basically,” he said. “My grandparents lived on … Kent Island, so as a kid we’d visit there. It’s kind of in our blood, it’s what we know and have here – blue crab – so I learned at an early age how she made her crab cakes and that’s where the recipe stems from.”
Jones will only use jumbo lump crab meat – no backfin or lump – mixed with traditional wet ingredients including eggs, mayonnaise, lemon and Worcestershire sauce, as well as a J.O. Spice Company blend, and brioche crumb to bind it all together.
Noting that Maryland has amazing food, from local produce to poultry to seafood, and pork from neighboring Virginia, Jones shared that The Point sources the best possible ingredients and pairs what is in season for its seafood and other dishes.
Hospitality is paramount for Jones, too; he takes his management team on annual trips around the country to experience great restaurants for fresh ideas. At The Point, he said it’s all about having a quality food product and a great experience where guests can relax, enjoy friends and family, and eat well.
2025 winners of: Best Kids’ Menu, Best Wings, Best Place To Watch The Game
When it comes to food, kids can be highly selective. The partners behind JBs in Severna Park, including Justin Dvorkin, aim to please even their youngest guests with a kids’ menu that offers a trifecta of variety, quality and value. All of their kids’ meals are $7 including a drink, and this year, their restaurant received the vote for Best Kids’ Menu from Voice readers.
“Just because the portion size is smaller, we’re not trading down on quality,” Dvorkin said of the kids’ meals. He cited examples: the kids’ pizza is prepared with the same house-made dough as all of JB’s pizzas. The burgers are smash burgers, just like the ones on the main menu. The chicken fingers are hand-cut, marinated, hand-breaded and fried to order, just like JB’s boneless wings.
This year, the family-friendly sports bar won Best Wings as well. Dvorkin noted that JB’s buys the highest-quality large wings it can get. “We’re marinating, we’re seasoning, we’re not just popping them out of a box into a fryer and serving them to people,” he said. “We’re taking the steps to make sure they’re flavorful and done right. And, we have a cool variety of sauces – it’s not just Buffalo and that’s it – we have honey sriracha, Nashville hot, Jamaican jerk, dry rub, Korean – all sorts of different options.”
He added, “We’re not taking the easy way out on any of this stuff,” emphasizing that JB’s makes almost the entire menu fresh, from scratch.
2025 winners of: Best Bakery/Cakes
In addition to roughly 48 doughnut flavors available daily, Donut Shack in Severna Park offers a plethora of baked goods, likely contributing to its clinching the vote for Best Bakery/Cakes this year.
Manager Rebecca Prayley listed a few of the pastries the Shack has incorporated into its rotation: apple fritters, cinnamon rolls, muffins, eclairs, and a new flavor of pop-tart each month. Doughnut types range from sprinkled to powdered, frosted, filled, cake and more. The sweets shop also offers four specialty doughnuts each day.
Going back to its roots, Donut Shack is once again open 24 hours a day – or until it sells out. All of its doughnuts and goodies are made in-house daily, with a recipe similar to the original one used by the couple who ran the Shack for decades. It now offers local delivery on the weekends, too.
Prayley believes the Shack’s long history in the community, its commitment to giving back and being involved, and the return to the 24-hour tradition are several factors that set it apart. “(We’re) trying our best to serve our community and make everyone happy with a doughnut, to bring a smile to their face,” she said.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here