11 Things Marylanders Miss About the Ocean City of Their Childhood

Some summer memories last longer than the places where they happened.

Many Marylanders who grew up going to Ocean City still think about spots that have since closed or come down.

Here are the places that made those summers feel so special.

Playland on 65th Street

Playland opened on 65th Street in 1965, in what Baltimore Magazine’s 2021 history of Ocean City describes as the boondocks at the time.

The park’s Rotor was a huge metal barrel that spun 33 times a minute.

Riders were pinned to its sides before the bottom of the barrel dropped out.

A 2018 post on Ocean City’s tourism website says the park also had a monorail and a wooden coaster called the Hurricane.

Playland closed around 1980 to make room for Ocean City’s Public Works Department headquarters.

The Rotor was at Playland in the summer of 1980.

Phillips Crab House

Phillips Crab House opened in 1956 and closed for good in late 2021, after 66 years.

Ocean City Today reported that eight years after the opening, the restaurant grew to 1,400 seats, which the paper called the largest restaurant in Maryland at the time.

Over the years the menu moved to a buffet style.

The owners’ farewell post said the restaurant had served millions of families, vacationers and locals, so if you ate there, you may be one of them.

Jester’s Fun House

Jester’s Fun House stood just off the Boardwalk at Worcester Street and featured a hag named Laffing Sal, a robotic rag doll, Baltimore Magazine says.

The spooky attraction was torn down in 1972 and replaced by the Sportland arcade.

Sal was then on display at the Life-Saving Museum.

The museum’s Boardwalk of Yesteryear exhibit lists Jester’s Fun House with Laughing Sal, the museum’s spelling, as of October 2026.

She was once the “Queen of the Fun House.”

If you went through Jester’s Fun House, it was before 1972, when the attraction came down.

English’s Chicken

English’s Chicken was established on 15th Street during the Kennedy Administration, Baltimore Magazine says.

It was known for its sweet potato biscuits before it closed in 2014.

If you ate there before 2014, you ate at a restaurant that dated to the early 1960s.

Maryland Inn on the Boardwalk

Baltimore Magazine describes the Maryland Inn as an elegant hotel with an Eastern Shore menu and white glove table service, on the Boardwalk at Caroline Street.

The Greenspans bought it in 1973.

They built an arcade where the screened-in porch once was and tore the building down in 1979.

If you ate in its dining room, it was before 1979, when the building came down.

BJ’s on the Water

BJ’s on the Water, on the bayside at 75th Street, was built in 1979 and served its last day on January 31, 2021, Ocean City Today reported.

If you were at the lagoon at 1 p.m., you could watch the daily corn feeding for ducks and geese.

Canoe races were held at the restaurant from 1979 to 2019.

George Washington Hotel

Baltimore Magazine’s history says Ocean City’s George Washington Hotel was razed in 1990 and replaced by the Americana Hotel.

In the mid-1960s, a rental stand stood on 10th Street in front of the hotel.

If you rented from that stand, the hotel behind you was razed in 1990.

Edwards Department Store

Edwards, a department store on North Division Street in Ocean City, opened in 1937, according to CBS Baltimore’s October 2012 report on its closing.

The owner said it would close at the end of that October to expand the neighboring surf shop.

If you shopped on North Division Street before 2012, you could have walked into a store that had been open since 1937.

Beach Plaza Hotel

Beach Plaza closed permanently in early 2021, Ocean City Today reported in January of that year.

The hotel stood at the Boardwalk and 13th Street and was built in 1954 by Ethel Griffin Kelley and her son Harry Kelley.

The Phillips family began operating it as a hotel in 1967.

If you stayed there any summer from 1967 on, the Phillips family was running the hotel.

If you’re wondering what happened to the property, the family had entered into a contract for sale for the entire property.

Embers Buffet

Station WTOP reported in January 2021 that Ocean City’s Embers buffet, which served seafood and prime rib, would close permanently.

The owner said in a Facebook post that it had been a fixture in town for more than 70 years.

The Taustin Group cited the coronavirus pandemic as the reason for not reopening it.

Station WMDT reported in March 2026 that a new building went up at the same address in 2023.

The restaurant would relaunch that April as 1945 Steak & Seafood.

The Embers name was dropped because the legacy branding kept causing confusion tied to the old buffet.

Flagship Hotel

The Flagship Oceanfront Hotel at 26th Street and the Boardwalk was built in 1964, station WMDT reported in March 2026.

Demolition began in late April 2026, according to Ocean City’s tourism website.

The same post recalled the whale at Jonah and the Whale, an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant.