Silver Diner had not yet filed its planned lawsuit against the company that manages concessions at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport as of the morning of September 8, alleging its longtime airport restaurant has been hit with a rebuild demand many times larger than what it originally agreed to. The Rockville-based diner chain says Fraport USA breached a collaboration agreement covering its BWI location and plans to file a complaint in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court.
According to the Maryland Daily Record, Silver Diner initially supported Fraport USA's bid for the master concessions contract at BWI, entering a collaboration agreement that included a 10-year sublease if Fraport won and contemplated renovations costing up to $1.5 million. Silver Diner went on to develop renovation plans for its airport dining space, including a new storefront with updated finishes, furniture, booths, tables, chairs and lighting, and supplied those plans and renderings to Fraport. Instead, the company says Fraport later demanded a complete gutting and rebuild of the premises at a cost of $8 million to $10 million, claiming, per the complaint, that the state's aviation administration required it.
Silver Diner alleges that claim was false. The company says the Maryland Aviation Administration itself told Silver Diner that the state did not require the gutting, and that Fraport's rebuild demand was commercially prohibitive and contractually unauthorized, according to the complaint described by the Daily Record. The Maryland Aviation Administration did not return a request for comment, and Fraport USA also did not return a request for comment, per the same report.
A Nearly Two-Decade Airport Partnership at Stake
Silver Diner's BWI location has operated since 2007 and employs 120 people, according to the Daily Record. The outpost generated $8.7 million in gross sales last year, with sales this year trending 11% above the prior year's pace, the paper reports. Silver Diner and the state of Maryland have enjoyed a partnership for nearly 20 years, and the company says it expects to continue its BWI dining operation into the next decade.
Company co-founder Robert T. Giaimo said Silver Diner's partnership with the state of Maryland is in danger, per the Daily Record, but added that Silver Diner is confident it will prevail and have a long future at BWI. As of the morning of September 8, the lawsuit was not yet listed in online court records, the paper noted.
Founded in Rockville in 1989 by Giaimo and Chef Ype Von Hengst, Silver Diner's parent company, Silver Brands, now operates 23 locations across the Mid-Atlantic and generates roughly $150 million in annual system-wide sales, according to Silver Brands. The chain has more than 20 locations across Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey, and describes itself as a Maryland-owned business dating back to 1989. In 2011, Maryland's Board of Public Works was involved in approvals related to BWI terminal moves during the Southwest/AirTran merger.
Fraport's Master Contract and BWI's Bigger Buildout
Fraport USA is the concessions manager at BWI Marshall, a role the Maryland Aviation Administration awarded it in 2025. The state's Board of Public Works formally approved Fraport Baltimore Partnership LLC's 23-year concessions management contract on February 12, 2025, following a procurement process that dragged on for nearly three years amid political controversies, according to CBS News. Earlier solicitation attempts had faced accusations of biased RFP terms under former Governor Larry Hogan, forcing vendors onto temporary month-to-month leases while the state restarted the process, per Maryland Matters.
Under that master agreement, Fraport committed $31.5 million in capital improvements across BWI's more than 115 concession spaces and agreed to pay the state 90% of gross concession revenues, projected at $39.4 million in its first full year, per CBS News. The venture includes Baltimore-based, minority-owned Ernst Valery Investment Corporation alongside Fraport USA, according to the Maryland Board of Public Works. Fraport AG is Fraport USA's parent, while the U.S. subsidiary operates airport concessions, per AviTrader.
The dispute lands as BWI undergoes the largest expansion in its history. The airport opened its $520 million Concourse A/B Connector and Baggage Handling System in January, adding a 14,000-square-foot open food and retail market and expanding capacity for primary carrier Southwest Airlines, according to the Office of Governor Wes Moore. BWI logged a record fiscal year and 2.66 million passengers that July, per the governor's office. Fraport's broader concession overhaul has also brought new tenants to the airport, including Attman's first airport location, planned for Concourse B by May 2027.
