By David Walker
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Ernestine Chambers made Baltimore City history in May when she opened the first black-owned and woman-owned bodega in Fells Point.
Then her store was destroyed.
Just five months after opening its doors, Chopped Broadway was forced to shut down for weeks after a bathtub in an upstairs apartment overfilled and flooded water in the store below.
Opening on May 2, 2025, Chopped Broadway at 307 South Broadway in Fells Point, was bringing a New York City style bodega to Baltimore, offering affordable groceries to its customers alongside its signature “chopped” subs and sandwiches.
The idea for a convenience store came one night in 2024 when Chambers and her friend were hungry for something to eat after a long night out.
“Me and my [business] partner were chilling in the car at like two in the morning, and she was like, ‘I could really go for a chopped cheese right now,’” Chambers recalled. “And she was like, ‘Hey, Baltimore doesn’t have any bodegas!’ So, I’m like, with my social working side, we got these chopped cheeses, we could really activate the community [by opening a bodega].”
Chambers, who has worked in workforce development at Upskill etc., and her business partner, Ty Powell, began work finding a location for the store, getting the proper permits, and lining up the investment money needed to start the business.
“So, we were like driving around looking around for stores, then BOOM, I see this store is for sale,” Chambers said. “Then [my friend] Naté Gordon calls, ‘I’m looking for something to invest in.’ Everything was snapping into place.”
Chambers was able to secure the store space, signing the lease in October of last year. Shortly after, they began to design the menu and test some items prior to the grand opening this spring.
“My first job was at an Italian restaurant, so I’m playing around with those flavors, every sauce back there [in the kitchen] I made,” Chambers said. “So, boom, we started with these chopped sandwiches, but how do you get customers to eat cold subs in January? So, I started having free tastings on Saturdays and Sundays. Come in and try our food. I make a bomb cream of crab soup.”
A couple weeks before opening, Chambers had reached out to touted local food critic Samantha from @Baltimorefoodscene on Instagram, an account with a following of over 120,000.
“She had posted all the best Italian sandwiches in the city, so I sent her a DM like, ‘You haven’t had the best Italian sandwich,’” Chambers said. “She was like, ‘When I get off of maternity leave, I will come and try your sandwich.’ I said, ‘You don’t have to get off maternity leave; I’ll bring it to you.”
Chambers made her signature “Godfather” sub, a chopped version of a classic Italian, and drove to Owings Mills to drop the sub off at Samantha’s house. Samantha tried the sub and left a review that received over 2,000 likes on Instagram. The next day, Chopped had a line around the corner.
“I pull up next to my store, and it’s a line of people down the block,” Chambers said. “I call my daughter, and she says, ‘Go on Instagram, our page is on fire.’ We now have 10,000 followers.”
But just as they were getting into a groove, things begin to fall apart.
A few days before the flooding, there was a fire in a third-floor apartment in the same building as the bodega. Chopped was fine, but their luck would shortly run out.
“A couple days later, we get a group message,” Ikia Johnson, a longtime employee at Chopped, said. “Chopped Broadway has water damage. I’m inside the house literally crying, because I thought I was going to be out of a job. If I lose Chopped, I don’t have nothing.”
Manager Jisear Martinez-Williams, who has been with Chopped since it opened, was the one to discover and report the flooding to Chambers.
“I get here at 10 [in the morning]. The incident happened at eight in the morning. We weren’t told anything,” Martinez-Williams said of the fateful day. “It was crazy for us to walk in without any warning.”
With thousands of dollars of damage to the bodegas’s product shelves, floors, and the ceiling, Chopped Broadway was put in a terrible spot. One big concern: Customers might start eating somewhere else.
“How can we tell this story in a way that we are able to keep our customers?” Chambers remembers asking herself. “The doors are closed now, our customers are going to cheat on us. ‘I like you Ms. Ernie, you’re a cool person, but I’m going to get my sandwich [elsewhere],’ you know?”
Even after all the devastating damage to her store, Chambers knew they would have to reopen as soon as possible, regardless of the cost. A major concern, Chambers said, was the impact the closing would have on their employees, many of whom are people who need the job to stay off the streets.
“Number one, we both was like, ‘We got to make sure these kids don’t end up homeless.’ That was our first reaction,” Chambers said. “But it was like how quickly can we get this cleaned up?”
A central goal of Chopped Broadway is the employment of at-risk youth and providing them with steady work, as well as a comfortable and safe environment.
“I know that if the right people have the right support, they have the opportunity to do great things,” Chambers said. “It was done for me, and it has changed the entire trajectory of my family.”
When Chambers was 17, her brother was murdered in the street. Instead of putting her head down and allowing this tragedy to consume her, she pushed through.
“I could have said, ‘Oh my brother got killed, I’m going to go kill someone back.’ Everything comes down to a decision,” Chambers said. “I actually wrote an essay about the experience of growing up in poverty.”
After she turned her essay in for her high school class, her teacher submitted it to the Woodholme Foundation, a former philanthropic organization that provided scholarships to disadvantaged youth in Baltimore.
Journalism professor DeWayne Wickham, at the time employed at Delaware State University, happened upon Chambers’ essay. Wickham found her at her school and told her that he was going to pay for her college education.
“He was like, ‘I want you to study journalism, you’re an amazing writer, and I want to prove to you why dreams come true,’” Chambers recalled. “I have now spent my entire adulthood giving back to the youth that the world believes will be nothing.”
Chambers would go on to study journalism at Delaware State University, but graduate with a bachelor’s in social work in 2008. With Chambers’ experience in workforce development and her ambition to make a difference in the community, Chopped has become a staple of Fells Point convenience. Even after being forced to close after the water damage, the city has shown its support.
“It has been a pretty big weight lifted off of our shoulders,” Martinez-Williams said of the community’s continued support. “People are coming back. A lot of places, something like this happens and they’re gone.”
With the transition to only offering online ordering as they slowly begin the process of re-opening fully, Chopped has introduced a loyalty program. Through the hardships, they will be rewarding those that stick by them.
“That is the one thing I can say about Chopped, we are loyal here,” Johnson said. “If you’re here, and you order a lot, you can get 100 points and get a free sub on us.”
Chopped is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are online-only for the time being, but will be back to a full reopening in the coming months.
It won’t be an easy return to normal, but the Chopped staff says they are optimistic they can make it through the storm.