Six guides, one trade each. They share a structure because Baltimore City processes them in the same order whatever the trade: confirm the site, build the space, get licensed, open.
What differs is which stage is the hard one. For a restaurant it is the build-out and the liquor calendar. For auto repair it is the zoning. For a salon it is the plumbing. For child care it is the regulations themselves, which decide the business model before anyone has drawn a floor plan. Each guide says so plainly at the top instead of treating all four stages as equally difficult.
Anything not covered by a guide is still covered by the general licenses and permits page, which sets out the three layers of licensing and how to work out which of them applies.
What each guide covers
Opening a restaurant. The longest of the six, because restaurants touch every agency at once: zoning, construction, health department plan review, fire, alcohol, and public-space permits for anything on the sidewalk. The stage that governs the timeline is the liquor board’s hearing calendar and the inspection queue at the end, neither of which shortens for a well-prepared applicant.
Retail and grocery. Simpler, with one trap: the trader’s license fee is priced on the wholesale value of the stock held, so a shop with a full stockroom pays materially more than one that turns inventory quickly. Food on the shelves adds health department licensing by category, and alcohol, tobacco and lottery each add a license of their own.
Barber shops and salons. The trade where licensing sits on the person and on the premises at the same time, issued by different bodies that do not check each other. Plumbing is the cost driver: a space that has been a salon before is worth far more than the rent difference suggests.
Automotive repair. Zoned more tightly than any other trade here, with outdoor vehicle storage frequently limited even where repair is permitted. The environmental obligations start before the first car is on a lift, and they are as much documentary as physical.
Child care. The one where the regulations design the business rather than follow it. Ratios set the revenue a room can produce, qualification requirements set the payroll, and facility standards set the capital cost. Model the regulations first and the plan second.
Green business. Two different subjects under one name: an ordinary business reducing what it consumes, and a business whose trade is environmental. The first is mostly about utility efficiency programs, which are the most accessible money in this whole area.
What the guides do not do
They do not replace the issuing office. Every guide names the body that issues each permit, because the definitive answer for your address and your trade comes from that body and from nowhere else. Fees in particular move, and any figure here should be read as the shape of the cost rather than as a quotation.
They also do not cover every trade. A business outside these six should read the closest guide for the pattern and then work the general licenses and permits page, which covers the trades that have no guide of their own.
The one step common to all six
Confirm that the specific address permits the specific use before signing anything. It is free, it takes one phone call to the planning office, and it is the only check that can end a plan outright. Every other requirement in these guides is a matter of time and money; zoning is a matter of whether.