John Brown III, who chaired the Maryland Stadium Authority but might have been more popularly known for founding and owning the popular RJ Bentley’s restaurant and bar in College Park, died Saturday. He was 77.
In 1978, Brown joined Richard MacPherson, a food broker, and Bill Knight, an attorney, to open a restaurant along Route 1. They purchased O’Briens Pit Barbecue housed in a building that had once been an auto repair business. In keeping with that theme, they installed antique gas pumps and hung old license plates and Pennzoil signs.
Their decision to name the restaurant “RJ Bentley’s” was a combination of the initials of Mr. MacPherson’s and Mr. Brown’s first names (RJ) and the British luxury car (Bentley’s). They marketed the restaurant as an upscale yet affordable destination for professors and parents visiting their children.
Johnny Holliday, who has broadcasted Maryland football and men’s basketball games since 1979, described Mr. Brown as “the unofficial mayor of College Park.”
“I don’t think I’ve met anybody as gracious as John was — even with people he didn’t know when they came to Bentley’s,” Holliday said. “I know when I first came here to start at Maryland, he introduced himself and said, ‘Anything I can ever do for you, please let me know.’ You’d go into his place for lunch, and he would always be there. He could be sitting at the bar or sitting at a table. He was just so gracious to everybody. Anytime I was going to be doing something for Maryland, he was always there.”
Maryland men’s basketball coach Kevin Willard recalled that his first beer after being introduced on March 21, 2022, was at RJ Bentley’s.
“You talk to anybody that has ever had anything to do with Maryland basketball, John Brown’s been a supporter, he’s been a fan, he’s been a confidante,” he said after the team’s 84-53 victory over Florida A&M on Monday night. “He was tight with everybody. He was just a good person. Go have a beer, sit at the bar with him, and he’d tell some great stories. We lost a very good and important man to Maryland basketball a couple days ago.”
Brenda Frese, coach of the women’s basketball team, also expressed her condolences via X.
“Saddened to hear about the loss of John Brown to our Maryland family. Always supported our program throughout all the years. Will miss you,” she wrote with emojis of a turtle and red heart at the end.
Holliday said Mr. Brown made RJ Bentley’s a home away from home for anyone who dined there.
“RJ Bentley’s was a feel-good place,” he said. “It wasn’t fancy, but it was comfortable, and he made everyone who walked through the door feel comfortable.”
Mr. Brown’s generosity wasn’t limited to the restaurant. When Holliday was hospitalized for more than a month in 2003 after suffering internal hemorrhaging following a double hernia surgery, he said the first get-well card and phone call he received were from Mr. Brown. When Holliday’s grandson Jack Rolle was diagnosed with brain cancer in May 2009, Mr. Brown reached out again.
“He was a giant among men,” Holliday said. “He was just somebody I loved to be around all the time. Everybody at Maryland loved him, and boy, he loved that school. He loved [coaches] Gary Williams and Ralph Friedgen and Bobby Ross and Lefty [Driesell] and Mark Turgeon. He was just one of the biggest supporters. Always willing to do anything at all to help that school and promote that school. What a loss.”
Since 1995, Mr. Brown was a member of the Maryland Stadium Authority, which oversaw the Camden Yards sports complex and an annual budget of more than $80 million. He became the agency’s chair in 1999 until he was replaced in 2003 by Carl A.J. Wright.
During Mr. Brown’s tenure, the first Army-Navy football game was played at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore in December 2000.
According to a Baltimore Sun article on Mr. Brown’s appointment as chair of the Maryland Stadium Authority by former Gov. Parris Glendening, there were whispers of cronyism. “He’s a bartender,” one opponent of the governor said at the time.
But Mr. Brown had been a consultant on complex transportation issues and has his share of supporters.
“He’s a very good businessman who knows how to run an operation,” said Joel Rozner, an Annapolis lobbyist and former chief of staff to Glendening when he was Prince George’s County Executive. “He’s an organizer. He’s a coalition builder. He’s a leader.”
Mr. Brown grew up in Whiteville, North Carolina. His father, an electrician, died when Mr. Brown was 13 years old. His mother worked as a bank teller to support the family.
Mr. Brown made the varsity swimming team and played intramural basketball in high school. After graduating in 1965, he enrolled at the University of North Carolina before dropping out to enlist in the U.S. Army.
After three years as a sergeant tasked with modernizing the branch’s post in London and overseeing shipments ranging from household items for soldiers based in Europe to equipment for nuclear missile bases, Mr. Brown returned to the United States and enrolled at the University of Maryland.
After graduating in 1973 with a bachelor’s in business with a concentration in transportation and a minor in marketing, Mr. Brown began working for Booz-Allen & Hamilton and scouting potential sites for Prince George’s County Metro stops. He later worked for the Institute of Transportation and Regional Planning, studying the impact of Chicago’s elevated train system and handicapped accessibility of mass transit in Boston and other cities.
Mr. Brown was also managing partner of the College Park Professional Center, president of the Downtown College Park Management Authority, and chair of the Government Relations Committee of the Restaurant Association of Maryland.
Mr. Brown was actively involved with several organizations with ties to the University of Maryland, serving on the board of directors for the Maryland Business School Alumni Chapter, the board of governors for the University of Maryland Alumni Association, and the board for the University of Maryland Medical Systems. He was also president of the Terrapin Club.
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