Bingo Beer duo opening Morty’s Market & Deli in Brookland Park

Jay Bayer (left) and Adam Stull in the future Morty’s space. (Mike Platania photos)

A new restaurant is heading to Brookland Park, courtesy of two local industry vets. 

Morty’s Market & Deli is preparing to open at 305 W. Brookland Park Blvd. 

The new sandwich shop is from Jay Bayer and Adam Stull of Bingo Beer Co. Bayer co-owns Bingo and also previously owned Jackson Ward restaurant Saison, while Stull is a longtime Bingo employee and co-owns Cambodian concept Royal Pig, which is now a pop-up but previously operated in the now-closed Hatch Local food hall in Manchester. 

Bayer said he keeps a list of restaurant ideas in a notepad and Morty’s was among them. When he STull came across the Brookland Park space, they jumped on it. 

He said Morty’s will be a sandwich shop where everything is served on house-made focaccia bread. The restaurant isn’t named for anyone named Morty, but rather it’s a nickname for mortadella, a type of Italian cold-cut. 

Bayer said Morty’s sandwiches will be Italian-, Balkan- and Central European-influenced, but that they’re not going to adhere to strict culinary traditions.  

“We’re not trying to, like, exactly honor tradition from anybody. We’re just trying to make delicious things,” he said. 

The building was most recently home to Brookland Park Kitchen.

Outside of sandwiches, Bayer said Morty’s will also offer some small plates as well as grab-and-go items like house-made sauces, spreads and salads.

It’ll include a bar and seating for about 30. Bayer said Morty’s is planned to have a solid wine selection as well as cocktails that he said will focus on “well-executed classics, with slight twists on them,” aligning with his overall philosophy at his restaurants. 

“A thing that I think is pretty consistent in my approach to hospitality is accessibility,” Bayer said. “I think things in Saison were executed at a very high end, but the space was always a spot where you could come in (and get something) how you want it. And obviously Bingo’s focus is on approachable beer.”

Bayer and Stull recently leased the roughly 2,100-square-foot Brookland Park space, which has housed a few concepts in recent years. Brookland Park Market, another restaurant-market combo, opened there in 2020 before brothers Sean and Pat Lynch converted it to a sit-down restaurant a year later. They sold the business in 2023 to operators out of the Hampton Roads area who reopened it as Brookland Park Kitchen, which closed late last year.

The building’s recent life as a restaurant has given Bayer and Stull a lighter buildout to get Morty’s open. 

“We’re talking primarily cosmetic things to make the space brighter and lighter,” Bayer said, adding that they’re hoping to have it open in late April. 

The building is owned by local investor Charles Widmer of DaySpring Ventures. Thalhimer’s Danielle Beckstoffer and Katie Siegel handled the Morty’s lease. 

Another sandwich shop focused on fresh-baked bread is in the works in Church Hill, as Liberty Public House’s Alexa Schuett and Austin Curtis are turning the old 8 ½ on East Marshall Street into Chimbo Sandwich Shoppe. 

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