Phoenix Emporium Is Now Phoenix Upper Main — What Happened After the Show?

Phoenix Emporium was one of three Ellicott City, Maryland businesses Ramsay set out to help in the two-hour "Save Our Town" special, which aired May 12, 2020 and was built around the town's recovery from catastrophic flash floods in 2016 and 2018. The Emporium had operated as a comfort-tavern-style beer bar for roughly 40 years at its original spot lower on Main Street, the same stretch repeatedly devastated by the floods, and by the time of the special the building and business needed more than a cosmetic refresh to survive. Rather than simply rebuild in place, the renovation moved the business uphill to a new address, merging it with the space formerly occupied by Ellicott Mills Brewing Company and combining the Emporium's tavern-style comfort food with European-influenced additions from the brewery side of the menu.

The special drew on an unusually large support cast for the format, including Baltimore Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr., members of the Baltimore Ravens, then-Governor Larry Hogan, the Maryland National Guard, and interior designer Nate Berkus, reflecting the town-wide scale of the flood-recovery effort rather than a single-restaurant rescue. The COVID-19 pandemic arrived almost immediately after the special aired, preventing the show from filming a normal follow-up segment. The relaunched business, now operating as Phoenix Upper Main, kept the Emporium's large bottled-beer program as a through-line to its history. The business's current address, 8308 Main Street, is confirmed by two separate sources: its own website, and an OpenTable reservation listing for Phoenix Upper Main that was independently updated in 2026 and shows the venue still operating under its post-renovation name at that address, a status most recently verified in a September 2026 check of both listings.