Solerno's

Salerno's Restaurant & Catering
1043 Liberty Road
Eldersburg, MD 21784
(410) 795-8400

Solerno's is a restaurant located on Route 26, otherwise known as Liberty Road, in Eldersburg, Maryland in Carroll County. It is one of the original restaurants in the area. It's been serving diners before the big-name chain restaurants like Chili's moved into town.

Solerno's, though an Italian name, is mostly a seafood restaurant. However, every St. Patrick's Day they have a, get this, St. Patrick's Day Special. Since cabbage and corned beef stink, my wife bans me from eating it, let alone cooking it, in the house. So I make my annual trip to Solerno's on St. Patrick's Day.

Since my wife was with my other two kids at the dentist, I took my 8 year-old daughter with me. We started off with a cup of Cream of Crab soup. Topped with Old Bay, it was nice and hot and spicy. A little lacking in crab meat, it still had a nice taste. I think they stress the cream in the Cream of Crab.


The main meal was the corned beef, potatoes, cabbage, and 2 slices of rye bread. The sliced corned beef was very sumptuous. Soft and salty and with an oh-so-good taste. My daughter despises the sight of fat, but this corned beef didn't bother her.

The cabbage was a little bland. It tasted as if it was blanched in hot water (what other kind of blanching is there?). It had no seasoning or added taste to it, which was fine. I was combining the tastes with the corned beef and potatoes. The potatoes were quartered and steamed. The overall meal was good.

As a drink, Solerno's offered Killian's draught for $1. The glass was 20 ounces, more than enough for me to have with a meal. Magically, the glass and the beer seemed to stay cold for the entire meal.

My daughter can be highly influential, especially when we are having a daddy-daughter dinner. So she decided that we were having dessert. The waitress persuaded us to have the Irish Brownie. It consisted of a home-made brownie with mint ice cream covered in a Bailey's Irish Cream whipped cream. Let me tell you, this was awesome! The brownie was hot, chocolaty, and gooey. The ice cream was great and the whipped cream was phenomenal. My daughter even said, "That waitress wasn't kidding when she said this would be good!"

The ambiance of the restaurant is fair. There's nothing fancy. There are televisions with ESPN in one corner and Keno in the other. Most of the patrons were retirees and they didn't get too wild. Solerno's is not a restaurant you go to for ambiance. You go there for food. And the food is good.

Other foods on the menu are seafoods, sandwiches, steaks, burgers, and salads. Prices range from $8 to about $25 for surf and turf. The wait staff is mostly young and friendly. Service was quick. The meal was served before I was done my soup and we did seem to wait for the soup a bit longer than I had anticipated.

Overall, I like Solerno's as a good family restaurant that caters to a lot of tastes. There's nothing fancy, but you can expect to get plenty of tasty food. This isn't where you take your wife for an anniversary, but it's great for a sit-down meal. Try it sometime!