Sunday Dinner in Secretary

In the 1950s thru the 1990s Sunday would call for a drive and lunch or dinner out.  For casual dining Secretary, Maryland was a good place.  From Delmar  you could take enough backroads that it would turn into a respectful drive and end up at two spots around Secretary, one was Uncle Joe's (today called Suicide Bridge) and the other was Mutt's Place.

Now Uncle Joe's was nothing like today's Suicide Bridge Restaurant, the place was by the bridge over Cabin creek but it started as just an enclosed porch for a dinning room connected onto someone's house about 1952 and expanded from there.  Pete and Dolly Moxey had the place in the 1960s and 1970s.  It was a place know for cold beer and crab balls and it was casual.  It was one of those places that had a uniqueness about it that people would drive for 50 or so miles to go to it.  In the late 1970s they booked a number of nationally know country music artist into the pavillion they had outside

In  1984 Joe Gorski bought the place and changed the name to Sucide Bridge.  Briefly in 1989 it was manged by Dave Harper and in 1990 Dave Nickerson of Kool ice seafood in Cambridge took over the ownership of the restaurant.

Sucide Bridge in 1989

After Mr Nickerson took over he added the paddleboat tours and tore down to the old Suicide Bridge restaurant and built the new version you see today.

The other place was Mutt's Place, again in Secretary, Maryland or East NewMarket.  It was a converted gas station.  Brothers; William "Mutt" and George "Pete" Era bought the station in 1956.  They converted the back into a kitchen and served Crab balls and the famous Mutt Burger until 1991.  I think the place might have been able to hold a hundred or maybe a hundred and fifty if they were friendly.  They had some entertainment and the drummer for the band would throw a sheet of plywood on the pool table so he would have a place to set up the drums.  The walls were covered in what looked like surplus bathroom tile, various shades of blue.   They did however serve good oyster stews, crab and oyster sandwiches, crabs, crab balls and their Mutt burger.  Their burger was cooked in a cast iron pan in water so it was steamed and it was covered in onions also steamed.