Things to Do in Trappe, Maryland Right Now

Order breakfast at Coffee Trappe on a Saturday morning, come back for dinner at Momma Maria's that same night, and you might notice the same guy checking in with the bar as he did seven hours earlier at the coffee counter. That is not a coincidence. It is the whole design.

Tom Mitchell, who spent earlier careers in construction, car sales, and real estate, owns all three of the restaurants now anchoring Trappe's Main Street: Coffee Trappe, Momma Maria's Mediterranean Bistro, and Old Trappe Tavern. They share one general manager across all three kitchens, even though each has its own chef. Mitchell has said that in theory, "you could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in Trappe," and if you actually do it, he gives you a hat.

One Menu, Three Storefronts, Same General Manager

The story behind this starts with a building most residents already know without knowing its history. Mitchell bought the old Mitchum's Steakhouse property after it closed, along with the empty bank building directly across the street. In 2018 he renovated that former bank, the old State Bank of Trappe, and opened it the following year as Coffee Trappe, a breakfast and lunch spot serving eggs, brunch plates, and coffee out of a building that used to hold safe deposit boxes. Later that year he opened Momma Maria's Mediterranean Bistro and Bar in the Mitchum's space, named for his wife's Greek cooking. Old Trappe Tavern followed in February 2024, sharing its address with Coffee Trappe in that same former bank building.

The three operate less like competitors sharing a block and more like one restaurant with three different moods:

• Coffee Trappe handles mornings and lunch, breakfast plates and coffee.
• Momma Maria's takes over evenings, open 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, for the fine-dining crowd.
• Old Trappe Tavern fills the gaps, a pint and a casual bite whenever the other two aren't the right fit.

Mitchell has described how the day shifts between them, "one sort of morphs into another at different times of day," especially between Coffee Trappe and the Tavern. That is why the same staff faces show up at different counters depending on the hour. It is one payroll, one supply chain, one general manager deciding who works where.

What That Structure Actually Buys A Regular

If you have lived in Trappe for a while, you already know these three names. What is less obvious is why the town went from three failed restaurants in a row in that same building to what Mitchell now calls a stretch that has been "the top restaurant in Trappe for three years in a row." The answer is not that Trappe suddenly attracted three separate restaurateurs willing to bet on a stoplight town on Route 50. It attracted one, willing to make three bets at once and manage them as a single operation. That is a meaningfully different kind of revival than a scattered mix of independent owners, and it explains a texture locals may have felt without naming: there is no real competition for the lunch crowd between these three, because there is only one person deciding how to split it.

The Pier Everyone Assumes Is Open

Main Street is not the only place where what people assume and what is actually true have drifted apart. Bill Burton Fishing Pier State Park, the old Choptank River bridge converted to a fishing pier and picnic ground, has been a Trappe fixture long enough that plenty of residents still talk about it as a place to walk the shoreline or cast a line without checking on it first.

Here is where that assumption runs into trouble.

A 2022 underwater inspection found crumbling concrete below the waterline on both sides of the old bridge, the kind of structural weakness that can fail with little warning. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources closed both piers and has not set a reopening date. The Talbot County side, including the roughly one mile of shoreline trail and the picnic grove near where Bolingbroke Creek meets the Choptank, remains open and is arguably the better half of the park right now, since the Dorchester side across the river has lost most of its restroom access as well. If you want to walk the river or watch for osprey and waterfowl this year, that side of the park still works. If you were hoping to fish off the pier itself, that plan needs updating.

The Debate Playing Out On Backtown Road

Trappe's other live conversation this summer has nothing to do with restaurants or recreation. Atlantic Concrete Co., based in Milford, Delaware, has proposed a concrete batch plant and prestressed concrete manufacturing facility on nearly 38 acres near the intersection of Old Trappe Road and Backtown Road, land that is already zoned industrial. The Trappe Planning Commission took up the proposal in June, and residents pushed back, citing concerns about truck traffic, noise, dust, and strain on local roads and wastewater systems. Several unresolved questions remain on the table, including projected truck volume, proposed hours of operation, and how much of the review falls to the Planning Commission versus what the property's existing industrial zoning already permits. The Town Council heard formal public opposition to the plan at its August 5 meeting.

It is worth knowing that Backtown Road is the same road the Rural Life Museum of Trappe calls home, a small volunteer-run museum that spends its energy preserving farm tools, an old truck scale from the Defender Packing Co. canning days, and even the clock that once controlled the bell schedule at the old Trappe High School. The museum holds its Friends and Visitors Day each June and turns out for both the Trappe Volunteer Fire Company Parade and Nace's Day Parade every year. This proposal is arriving on the same stretch of road as that kind of small-scale preservation work, which is part of why it has generated the discussion it has. It also lands amid a longer-running conversation in town about growth, following the large mixed-use Lakeside development on Trappe's east side, itself no stranger to disagreement over its wastewater treatment plans.

The Day The Whole Town Still Turns Out For

Whatever gets decided about the concrete plant, one date on the Trappe calendar has not moved in over 150 years. Nace's Day, also called Uncle Nace's Day, traces back to 1867, when Nathaniel "Uncle Nace" Hopkins organized a parade and church service to mark Maryland's November 1, 1864 emancipation of enslaved people, the moment the state freed enslaved residents by popular vote rather than federal order. Hopkins led that parade himself every year until his death in 1900. His descendants still lead it today. In 2025, the celebration reached its 158th year, with a parade down Main Street, food trucks, music, and a special theatrical performance at Scott's United Methodist Church, the same church Hopkins helped found. This fall marks the 159th.

It is considered one of the longest-running civic traditions on the Eastern Shore, and it is the one fixture in Trappe that outlasts every restaurant opening, pier closure, or zoning fight the town works through in between.

What This Adds Up To Right Now

Trappe in August 2026 is a town where the things that feel most alive trace back to a small number of concentrated decisions. One person built the entire restaurant identity of Main Street and runs it as a single system. One state agency has left a beloved recreation spot half-open for four years running, with no fix in sight. One zoning question, still unresolved, will shape what Backtown Road looks like for the next generation. And one 159-year-old parade keeps happening regardless of any of it.

Knowing which of those things is actually settled, and which is still very much in motion, is the difference between the version of Trappe you assume you know and the one that is actually unfolding down the street.

If you are watching how any of this, from the Backtown Road proposal to what a slower pier season might mean for property near the water, could touch a home you own or one you are thinking about, Eddie Matthews has been paying attention to this stretch of Talbot County for a long time. Let's connect.