Downtown
Inside Ocean City's Oldest Bar
By KristinDecember 2, 20215 min read
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A piece of Ocean City history
Head bartender Buddy Groff makes a Whiplash, the bar's signature drink of his own invention that includes Pinnacle Whipped and freshly-squeezed oranges.
"She's hanging in here 'cause she don't want it to change. She doesn't want someone to come in, buy it out and change this corner of OC."
Buddy Groff has been bartending at the Harbor Inn for almost a decade. He mentions the bar's current owner, Sheree Musson, and how she's received offers from businesspeople looking to buy out the Inn and the surrounding three buildings that Musson also owns. Groff says that Musson was once offered a million dollars for the lots, an offer that she declined.
Harbor Inn has always been owned by women, since the mid-1920s when Musson's grandparents, Irish and Emma Farrell, first opened the building as a market. This was during prohibition, when they couldn't legally sell alcohol. Now, decades later, the truth comes out. "Trust me, they were selling liquor before prohibition," Groff said with a laugh, adding that the bar claims the oldest existing liquor license in Maryland (it officially became a bar in 1935, two years after prohibition ended). When asked to recount a story from the bar's days of yore, Musson smirks and says, "If walls could talk, they'd probably tell a lot." But she and Groff both have a favorite story from Harbor Inn's early days, passed down from the older generations. "Years ago when my grandmother first opened it up, she was friends with the Chief of Police," Musson said. "It was really originally a little market for the marina over here, and she would pour whiskey in Coca Cola bottles and put them in the counters where the candy or whatever was sold." The moral of the story is, essentially, that it pays to have friends in high places: the Chief of Police would call up Emma Farrell whenever the police were coming to raid the place, and she'd put the illegal Coke bottles in a cart and wheel them around the block until the cops were gone.Ocean City Bars
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Owner Sheree Musson, out on Somerset Street in front of the bar.
"She remembered when the Inlet was cut through," Musson said of her late grandmother. "She used to sit and talk to the customers and tell ‘em stories all about Ocean City, which I’m kind of glad to be a part of, growing up here. I can remember when Ocean City wasn’t passed 33rd street. "
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Wayne Short moved to Ocean City from Essex 40 years ago, and he's been a regular at Harbor Inn ever since. "I came down on spring break, I just ain't left yet," he says, perched on the stool where he watches customers weave in and out while he downs a pitcher of Landshark. Short lives in one of the other buildings that Musson owns, but he picks up his mail right at the bar. Ever the character, he once trained an iguana, Hillary, that he had registered as a service animal."What's up with the Barbies?" a customer asks, pointing to the mostly-naked dolls sitting on top of a TV behind the bar. "He collects 'em," Short answers, motioning toward Buddy. Groff doesn't actually collect them, but he and Short quip back-and-forth like this all night. The Barbies belong to bartender Dawn Ramashka, Groff says, whose friends bring them in to her for "dates."Best Bars in Ocean City - Category winners for the Best of Ocean City®
Ocean City is known for being a family-friendly resort, but the town has a vibrant and exciting nightlife scene in the summer. Sometimes it just seems criminal to sit out on the beach without a Piña Colada in one hand and an orange crush in the other, and with so many bars lining the streets of Coastal Highway, it can be hard to decide where to get your drink of choice.
"Dawn #1" is written on Ken's chest because he's supposedly Ramashka's number one boyfriend.
While at first glance the dive appears to be decked out in the expected beer brand paraphernalia, it also sports its own unique, personal touches. There's the naked Barbies, for one, but there's also the picture of Groff with the guitarist from heavy metal band Jackyl ("I asked him for a picture and he said he'd only do it if we took it under the 'Dumbasses' sign," Groff recalled) and framed newspaper clippings on the wall, media coverage from Harbor Inn's 80th anniversary three years ago.
A lot of blood, sweat and tears has been poured into this place over the years. More recently, the bar underwent renovations after Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012, but even with a fresh coat of paint and remodeled bathrooms, Harbor Inn never really changes.
"It’s really been kind of the same since the beginning - as far as the storms coming through, we’ve lost the flooring and things like that," Musson said. "But we haven’t changed it a lot. We haven't had to."
The bar has always been owned by the same family, but Musson says that her children have no interest in taking over the business someday. Her main concern is that, if she sells Harbor Inn, the oldest bar in Ocean City will cease to exist, or else become a place that she doesn't recognize.
Two young women stumble in through the side door, evidently hitting the next stop on their Friday night bar crawl. Groff invites them to put something on the jukebox, and one of them chooses Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself." It's not a song you would expect to hear in a place like this, where classic rock is in regular rotation, but Harbor Inn defies expectation all the time.
About Kristin
Kristin is a writer and photographer in Ocean City, Maryland, and is the content manager for OceanCity.com and other State Ventures, LLC sites. She loves getting reader-submitted stories and photos, so send her an email anytime. She also works part-time at the Art League of Ocean City and the Ocean City Film Festival and lives just off the peninsula with her dog and fiancé. Her photos can be found on Instagram @oc_kristin.
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