Pepper House, the Sichuan restaurant tucked into an Ellicott City strip mall that landed on Yelp's national top-11 list of Chinese restaurants, is opening a second location inside Remington's R. House food hall this fall. The stall will mark the first permanent Sichuan concept in the almost decade-long history of the Baltimore food hall, and it puts owner Yuan Shen's dan dan noodles and house-made chili oil within walking distance of Johns Hopkins University for the first time.
The new outpost, reported first by The Baltimore Banner, will open in mid-October at 301 W. 29th St., taking over the space vacated by the Chopped Broadway Bodega & Deli pop-up. Shen opened the original Pepper House with her husband, chef Frank Liang, in 2021, and the pair has become known for Chengdu dumplings and noodle dishes that have drawn praise from local chefs, according to the Banner's reporting. Shen said the goal behind expanding is simple: making authentic Sichuan food more accessible.
Diners have not exactly made that easy on themselves. Some customers have been driving 40 miles round-trip from Baltimore just to eat at the Ellicott City flagship, per the Banner, and Shen said she and Liang were encouraged by those regulars to open a second branch closer to the city. Jon Constable, who represents Seawall Development, the company that owns and operates R. House, said he saw demand for Sichuan food both in the surrounding neighborhood and across Baltimore.
From a Howard County Strip Mall to a National Ranking
Pepper House's flagship sits along Route 40 in Ellicott City, part of a five-mile commercial stretch that Maryland and Howard County officials designated “Koreatown” in 2021 and which functions as the region's main hub for Asian retail and dining, according to Turf Valley Resort. Neither Liang, a professional opera singer and Chongqing native, nor Shen, who is from Hunan, had prior restaurant industry experience before opening the original location, according to Baltimore Magazine. Liang reportedly still plays a piano kept in the dining room.
That flagship's rise to national attention came in December 2024, when Pepper House placed 11th on Yelp's Top 100 Chinese Restaurants list. The ranking, which evaluated non-chain establishments nationwide on review volume, star ratings and health inspection records, reflected the restaurant's 4.7-star average, according to The MoCo Show. Neighboring Ellicott City businesses, including the Korean pub Rainpia and Korean BBQ restaurant Dae Jang Geum, later reported a measurable bump in out-of-state customer traffic tied to Pepper House's newfound fame, per the same account.
A Food Hall Built for Low-Risk Expansion
R. House occupies a 25,000-square-foot building constructed in 1924 as the Eastwick Motor Company's automobile showroom and service garage, a structure that later housed Jarman Motors and Anderson Motor Company before Seawall Development completed a $12 million adaptive-reuse conversion in December 2016, according to Explore Baltimore Heritage. Seawall's operational model handles facility maintenance, bussing, marketing and shared seating for its vendors, which lets independent chefs open stalls without the $500,000-plus setup costs typical of a standalone restaurant, the company has said. That structure is what allows Shen and Liang to expand their chili oil and Sichuan menu into Baltimore while keeping their Ellicott City site running.
The Pepper House stall will replace the Chopped Broadway Bodega & Deli pop-up and fills a spot left open since Molina Pizza closed at R. House in spring 2026. Temporary Sichuan pop-ups have proven popular at the hall in the past, per the Banner's reporting, giving Seawall further reason to bet on a permanent Chinese food vendor. Shen told the Banner that the R. House environment is much better than her first location.
Johns Hopkins' Growing Appetite for Sichuan Food
The Remington stall's location, less than a mile from Johns Hopkins, taps into a rapidly shifting campus demographic. Asian American students made up 45.1% of the university's incoming Class of 2029 as of late 2025, up from 25.6% in 2023, according to City Journal. Shen said many Chinese students from Johns Hopkins already make the trip out to Ellicott City to eat at Pepper House, and soon they will be able to walk there instead.
North Baltimore already has a growing roster of authentic Chinese food offerings, with Charles Village eateries like Lao Sze Chuan and Mahjong contributing to what the Banner describes as a broader rise in Asian restaurants in the neighborhood. The new Pepper House stall will carry the same menu as the Ellicott City flagship, including its dan dan noodles, plus additional dishes exclusive to the Remington location.
The expansion follows a Sichuan restaurant's path from a modest, inexperienced-owner startup to a nationally ranked kitchen with a built-in fan base willing to drive across county lines. It's a trajectory that mirrors other recent shifts in Ellicott City's dining scene, including a Little Italy pizza spot's county jump. For now, Pepper House's owners are focused on mid-October, when Baltimore diners will no longer need a car to get their fix of house-made chili oil and Chengdu dumplings.
