A fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood is adding a new branch in Locust Point — and that’s just the beginning of a planned expansion.

Cafe Fili will open on the ground floor of the Anthem House apartments at 900 E. Fort Ave. in spring of next year. The space was previously home to Amber, which closed in January.

“Fili’s always done very well for us in Baltimore,” said owner Ziad Maalouf, who opened the first Cafe Fili in 2017 on the ground floor of an apartment building at 816 Cathedral St. Prior to that, Maalouf spent 20 years running the Lebanese bistro Cafe Ole in Washington, D.C.’s Tenleytown neighborhood. Though Cafe Ole closed in 2018, Maalouf returned to the nation’s capital a year later to open a branch of Cafe Fili in an apartment building.

Maalouf said having space in a residential property has worked well for the eatery. “We position ourselves in neighborhoods and basically those residential buildings and a community,” he said.

The South Baltimore location will continue that trend, catering to residents of the nearly 300-unit Anthem House apartment building in Locust Point. Cafe Fili will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus small bites and cocktails in the evening. The menu for the Mount Vernon restaurant features an elevated take on Lebanese and other Middle Eastern dishes with varieties of hummus, shawarma, and baklava for dessert.

The Locust Point outpost is part of a larger expansion planned for Cafe Fili next year. Maalouf said he intends to open two additional branches of the restaurant in Baltimore in 2026. But don’t expect an appearance at 305 McMechen St., the Bolton Hill location previously occupied by The Tilted Row, which Maalouf closed this year after a rebrand.

“I don’t think it’s a good location for Cafe Fili,” he said. “We need foot traffic, we need to be part of a business area.”