Feeding the fridge and serving Medium Rare steak and fries with that tasty gravy

Local restaurateur Mark Bucher tells Nestor his Medium Rare and Feed The Fridge story at Faidley’s Seafood on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour presented by The Maryland Lottery, Jiffy Lube and Liberty Pure Solutions.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

baltimore, food, medium, restaurant, people, give, french, meals, steak, fridge, dc, put, family, city, feed, years, rare, week, line, wife

SPEAKERS

Nestor J. Aparicio, Mark Bucher

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home we are W n s t tasmota More Baltimore positive we are positively in the most positive barber place I can think of. It’s a little empty in here right now because it’s raining outside the Orioles are playing it’s the end of the afternoon. This Mother’s Day weekend. And we I’ve given so many of these away I’m running out Pac Man scratch offs from our friends at the Maryland lottery had some winners today from there was a convention here from San Francisco. They didn’t. They were used to that Dungeness crab but they got the real thing here. So brought to you by the Maryland lottery your friends at Jiffy Lube multicharacter three up with us on an annual deal big appreciation to them, keeping our cars running smooth and safe. And Liberty pure solutions keeping my water safe. This guy here’s a guy I’ve been wanting to have on and within 30 seconds and ever been there’s no green room, anybody? So I really I know a little bit about you. I’m LinkedIn with you. I know I like your cusine. And I know I like the concept of feet feeding the fridge. Correct? Did I get that? Right? You got it? Mark butcher? Correct. Beuker Beuker I got that wrong. I was gonna ask you. Well,

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Mark Bucher  01:01

well, butcher would make sense given my line of business, right? Well,

Nestor J. Aparicio  01:03

all right, well, so get give me give me the story of medium rare. Let’s start with this. Because my dear friend Rich Johnson, who founded sports pages.com 15 years ago, there’s this French concept restaurants where they bring the steak and the potatoes and the salad. And then they bring you more but you can’t order anything else off the menu. You know, it’s like, it’s such a cool concept. It’s a place I’ve sought out now in England, in Paris twice in New York until they closed it down and reopened that I haven’t been back DC had one. Medium Rare is a concept that not a lot of people are familiar with, right?

Mark Bucher  01:42

Well, you know, it took us forever. So let me get back to how we actually got to medium or how many merits here. So my business partner was good friend of mine was over in in Paris for a year with his family. And by the way, this is the real story. This is a real Paris. This is the real story. There are two stories on our website that are legend and lore. Yes. So he needed some help with an event over there. He was running a food manufacturing company asked me to come over and help him I had another chain of restaurants at the time went over and I helped him we crushed it. And as a thank you he goes I want to take you to my kids favorite restaurant. Okay, so he takes me to in Paris in Paris. All right, it is raining harder than it is here. There are people lined up all around the corner. Mostly French. And I’m like, I know a lot of French people. They’re the most impatient people in the world. And they’re waiting in the rain to get into this place. Must be good. Must be good. It must be good. We get in literally. How do you how do you eat your steak cooked? Medium you want anything to drink with it? I’ll have I get the wine.

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:50

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I get the one red wine.

Mark Bucher  02:51

Do you have do you have a wine list? Now we’ve got red or white What do you want? Just read half bottle our whole what is it? We don’t know it’s good though.

Nestor J. Aparicio  03:01

Do you want beer like beer? We don’t know what’s good.

Mark Bucher  03:03

So we get it was it was one of the most obnoxious yet most satisfying dinners I’ve ever had steak fries wine, boom

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Nestor J. Aparicio  03:12

and then they bring you more and then they bring you more right that’s why I try to I always say to my cat my cat always you know she always wants a second helping save my wife a second well you think we’re French restaurant

Mark Bucher  03:27

we go do this and we get through this thing and I turned to him and I go you know we can Americanize this and he’s like you know what when I get back we’ll do it.

Nestor J. Aparicio  03:34

Usually when you see a French restaurant you’re gonna Americanize it means you’re gonna screw it off. Well

Mark Bucher  03:39

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that that’s part of the fun of it. We poke fun at the French and the whole Russian throughout the whole medium rare experience or Easter eggs of us poking fun at the French. So if you come in you got to kind of pay attention to it like he served freedom fries. And no Pepe Pepe Le Pew Penelope the pew in the bathroom. We misspelled deliberate deliberately some French words in and around the restaurant.

03:58

All right, all right, the E and the you mix

Mark Bucher  04:01

it and report back. Alright, so So fast forward a year later, someone shows me a site for my other restaurant that I had at the time. And I’m like, this isn’t going to work. Because there’s no lunch but it’s all dinner. I got a concept. Call my buddy. I said I find a location for what for the restaurant we said we’re gonna do that’s what medium rare was born now. By the way. How long ago

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:23

was this that you ate in this French restaurant 15 years ago. That’s probably around when I when I walked into New York, New York was the first place that experienced buddies up in the 60s Lexington we stayed on that side of you know, not Upper East Side but east side and part of town. Yeah, but like, let me know it was a $50 steak dinner in in New York and they brought you two rounds and it wasn’t like there weren’t a lot of decisions to make and either have a table or they don’t and it’s a little bit cool, fun, kitschy and more than that. It’s so unique that I’ve only experienced it in one place and I’m looking forward to coming to your place.

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Mark Bucher  04:57

Well Good to have you Yeah,

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:58

I mean I’m really am I’ve talked My wife Amanda, you’ve been on my six months maybe we’ve

Mark Bucher  05:01

been open six months in Baltimore needs to discover Baltimore hasn’t fully discovered medium rare yet part of its location. We’re up in Rotunda. Okay. That where the movie theaters haven’t quite kicked yet we had a writer strike. So once we get the concerts going and a movie theater, applause

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:15

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and we are I mean, that’s everybody knows where the rotunda is. Oh my god,

Mark Bucher  05:20

Baltimore, come out. Let’s go. We’re ready for you. So we go, I go to the landlord. I say look at my burger place is going to work. But I got this steak fried concept. Well, what’s on the menu? Just steak and fries. He’s like, it’s never gonna work. You’re going to chicken or salmon? Is it? No, he goes, it’s not going to work. It’s part of the vegetarian stew, right? That’s right. My wife, my wife, vegan and vegetarian, actually. So I had to stay married. And she dictators and we do a grilled portabella for her this often. Oh, so we get here we do it. I can. There was no landlord that would rent a space. It’ll never work. I’m like, Dude, it’s been working for hundreds of years. As you saw Switzerland invented it. The French ripped it off the British rip that off. But Switzerland is where it all started. Okay. There’s no new idea in the restaurant business ever. There’s just people doing their borrowing, borrowing doing their own iterations of it. So boom, we get we get a landlord says no, it’s a great spot. And after going back and forth, back and forth. I’m like, dude, what’s your favorite Thai restaurant? I was so frustrated. He goes, Oh, solid Thai and Arlington is best Pad Thai ever. I get it every time. I said it’s just single item restaurant for you. Got it. So that’s what happened and then now we’re in the middle of an expansion. We’ve been in DC 14 years.

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:40

Okay, so you found this concept 15 years ago? Yeah. And within a year open. See, I love the concept and I often wondered It’s what made it so special to go to New York and when there was one in DC because there wasn’t one in San Francisco there isn’t one in Chicago not that I’m you know, I travel a ton and in lots of places this cons worlds can you get this in Tokyo? I mean, I’m wondering like, is there no

Mark Bucher  07:06

but you know what’s big in Tokyo are American steak houses I know that

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Nestor J. Aparicio  07:09

and also in Brazil with the Brazilian the photo concept and but your concept is a French concept that is so niche There you go. Is it like French word going with French food? That I find it in the middle of Baltimore? I didn’t know it existed in DC. Your way? And I mean, are you trying to put this in 50 cities the way the Brazilian barbecue thing is or No,

Mark Bucher  07:34

we were we are bringing medium rare to every NFL city. Oh, okay. All right, because it makes it easy. I ask them involve the NFL it tasted the NFL every year the Super Bowl. So we got the whole NFL.

Nestor J. Aparicio  07:48

I’ve been at the taste the NFL 25 times how many years you’ve been doing it last four. Okay, so not back in. Okay, number wink, Ostrowski ran it and because brig Owens was always the red skin or the commander and that would have been your table right? In the old days.

Mark Bucher  08:04

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Yeah, they gave us different ones now. So I go and I’m like one of the four hosts and then we got everyone from their country around there. So me Andrew Zimmern. Carla Hall, Tim,

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:12

I’ve had Andrew on a bunch of times. I had Tim lob on two years ago, I saw Carla in LA, because the thing really changed during the plague. Before the plague was a different kind of event. It came I went to the LA event at the car thing I was there for, dude, I was on the stage. I got a picture. Oh, my gosh,

Mark Bucher  08:29

Carla. I was there. My

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:30

wife loves Carla Hall. And we went on what did the chew we did you know, I’m an eater. I’m in the middle of a crab cake joint. So March wondering what he’s doing is the Maryland crab cake tour. And the whole idea this was to get people back to local business and back to talking without masks and I still see people here. This is your first time in the new fade. Lee’s right yes. Then you’ve spent your DC guy your cue 107 He’s got a radio background right let’s right you are the jock on rock radio cue 107

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Mark Bucher  09:00

number one in the charts and one of your hearts you have

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:02

absolutely missed. So you were playing like classic rock at that point of mainstream sir late late 84 Playing scorpions and stuff. 780 89 I entered

Mark Bucher  09:11

into the MMR in Philadelphia, so that makes a bomb. And Pierre robear Bella, I was trying to bail this morning show producer Well, he’s saying High School. That’s right. They didn’t get along. So I still

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:26

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think MMR is one of the I listened to it for days. It’s wondering stations and Jackie bam bam and Pierre robear. Legend. So you’re a Philly guy.

Mark Bucher  09:33

I’m a Philly guy.

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:35

I think of you as a DC guy. That’s why I bring you on.

Mark Bucher  09:38

But no Philly guy came to DC. Got my radio job in the mid 80s

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Nestor J. Aparicio  09:42

I always tell on the Escot of Baltimore, but I’m better looking. That’s what I tell he dresses nice though. He’s

Mark Bucher  09:47

had a role our Deskins had the role of all roles. Oh, cool,

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:50

man. How it’s good man.

Mark Bucher  09:51

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It’s good man. So came down here got the radio job. Well came down here cause the radio job actually and you know kind of went through it. And when they were redoing this building, we’ve been open a couple years. And I’m getting a call that the Mayor’s Office of Baltimore wants to talk to you. I’m like, There’s no way I blow it off, I blow it off, I blow it off. Finally, I take the call. It’s a deputy mayor of Baltimore at the time saying, Look, we would love to show me the American Opportunity in Baltimore. And we did a whole bunch of info where they get consumers it Sure yeah, what do you want? They all said medium, right. So there’s nobody in Baltimore that even knows it. Medium Rare is and at that point, said, look, we’ve got we want to do something other than crabcakes in Baltimore, that our demographics telling us they want it, we got plenty of that. And I said, Okay, so we get up here, we had a deal. We had a deal, a lease ready to be signed, but medium rare, literally, right? Where we’re standing right on that weekend, if you remember, dude got hammered, and drove his car up the sidewalk of Fells Point killed a bunch of people. I remember that. Right? We said, we’re not ready for Baltimore. Okay. And then it took years for me to get so this is really the

Nestor J. Aparicio  11:05

collateral damage, right that this is why I do Baltimore positive. I lived on the 23rd floor six blocks from here I saw the city on fire and 15 My wife’s a two time leukemia survivor. I walked back and forth to the hospital during 14 and 1516 when the city and then Pugh went to prison, and I’m like, I need to do something as a sports radio goob for 25 years, I said we need to heal the city and fix the city. So like this is exactly these are things opportunities that were lost and then folks like failed that stayed in

Mark Bucher  11:34

and people like the city Yeah, always loved. They say right, opening day Camden Yards back. I’ve been in 92. Yes, nice, huge Ravens fan tight with the Ravens organizations. And they said, hey, when we’re gonna do construction for the first year, the building is going to rattle because our trains that run under it, and we’re re tunneling but in about five years is going to be gone. Which is where we are now. Right? And it’s fantastic. But we said no, we’re gonna wait then the the rotunda got sold. The new owners came to us said, Let’s do medium rare here. Okay. And we’ve said I’m down because I’ve been desperate to get back to Baltimore. Okay. And then here we are

Nestor J. Aparicio  12:12

six months ago was because I started seeing your name, pronounce your last name say get it right.

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Mark Bucher  12:16

Beuker boo schoon Erna table.

Nestor J. Aparicio  12:18

Okay, like Bobby Boucher. Euchre Yeah, I’m a guy. I gotta get that right. Mark Beuker is here. He’s medium rare. I think the thing that brought you here today was that your PR conscious, you’re obviously feed people conscious. I did a thing I’ve done 27 Super Bowls. So I’ve had Zimmern sitting next to me at the Super Bowl for several times, and he always there’s only one way to make a crab cake and I call Bucha on that. So next time I see when you see him tell him I’ll send just say the the one crabcake guy just heavily disputes that I need to get him back on. But we’ll face down Yeah, I mean, the feeding people and the messenger tasty the NFL for years. Yeah, this year, I did not go to the super bowl I have I’m abstaining from Super Bowls. After three decades of doing it. I did a thing called a cup of Super Bowl this week. So when you came you could get a cup of soup, or a bowl of soup. And we did donations for the for the Maryland Food Bank sauce. And we did nothing but charity all week. So we talked about as many issues as many ways in regard to the city, battered women, children, education, health, just all along the lines. feeding people is that the absolute core. We did food bank for the whole week. And I spent time with Carmen del Cueto and other folks, give me your feeding story because I didn’t realize I got very emotional as I’m told this story, but my father, you know, student soup lines in 1929 and Scranton, Pennsylvania. My dad was born in 1990. He never voted for Republican again after Herbert Hoover chicken in every pot, his whole life. That’s the way he thought steel worker at the mill the whole deal. And all these years later, my dad would touch my stomach and he you got $1 in your pocket, put some food in your stomach. That’s what my dad would say to me because I didn’t realize my dad starve when he was talking about starving. He talked about standing in soup lines. But if you stood in a soup line, you’re starving, right period and food insecurity, food shaming. pantry, pantries community, that’s why you’re here. But I know you’re way more committed to it than I you’ve rolled your sleeves up, man, you

Mark Bucher  14:19

know. So look, I mean COVID taught this country that our approach to food insecurity, hunger has never worked, because people are still hungry. Right? Hunger hasn’t gone away. It hasn’t gotten better has gotten worse. It always kind of stays here. And some years it pops up some years it pops down and when you go talk to politicians, they’re all like, sure we’re in it, we’ll support it, we’ll do whatever we need to do. It’s kind of like recycling. It doesn’t work. When a politician can’t get elected. They say I’m against recycling. If a politician says our current food insecurity programs don’t work, they’re never gonna get elected. So we have a problem. On one hand We’ve got an economy that wants to grow and do farming on rooftops. And do we waste more food coming out of the farms? Because our government, the USDA, agriculture, big ag, Monsanto, who’s the big contributor, good company doing

Nestor J. Aparicio  15:17

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lots of food that promises the best for us to eat.

Mark Bucher  15:19

So here’s the deal. So Monsanto pays USDA, they lobby the USDA, they do that they sell seeds, the more food that comes out of the ground, the more seeds they sell, right? However, the most of that food gets wasted. We can’t We can’t even do anything with

Nestor J. Aparicio  15:36

it. Because we have too much right. In some cases.

Mark Bucher  15:38

There’s too much food in this country, where you know, we’re a country that’s traditionally overweight, because we’ve got abundance. We we can move a strawberry from California to Baltimore overnight tonight without a blemish. You get. We’re telling people to go agro farm and do all this stuff. And I’m like, Wait, stop. It doesn’t make any sense. So maybe let’s think about this idea of and food banks, maybe needed updating. Those who are food insecure, can’t cook food, because they can’t afford the pots and pans to make the food. And you go to Salvation Army and goodwill. There’s no pots and pans because you and me and our parents, when we move, we pack that stuff up and we take it with us because it’s expensive. Our current SNAP benefit program in this country does not cover pots and pans doesn’t cover Ziploc bags isn’t covered aluminum foil can’t cook. So we started 20 years ago cooking people’s Thanksgiving turkeys for them for free deep frying them not because deep frying was a thing. But I could do 1000s of Turkeys on Thanksgiving. It takes 15 minutes to deep fry a turkey because everyone gets to free Turkey is to feel good food donation part of the year, right? We’re giving away all these Thanksgiving meals. No one can cook them. And then the same week on TV. You see the consumer reporters doing the black lights in the kitchens. Don’t touch your kitchen, don’t touch your refrigerator. Don’t put your oven in and get salmonella. Don’t rinse it in the sink. It’s going to splatter. Like I can’t afford to go to urgent care and Thanksgiving dinner on the table. The couple

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Nestor J. Aparicio  17:04

of times that I’ve gone out like when a basket brigade and serve Thanksgiving food. There were more of us servers than there were folks showing up right? Because everybody has a food kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. What happens the Wednesday after Thanksgiving Day. And that’s where the food bank came in for me that I did cup of Super Bowl in February, out of the magnanimous nature of chat steel in the Baltimore Ravens affording me that opportunity. And it turns out it’s the most food insecure month of the year in February because everybody gives a Christmas and then it goes away six weeks later. We don’t have it anymore. So first off, thank you for doing Oh, no, no, no, it’s my it’s so my duty. So when

Mark Bucher  17:41

COVID was announced, and they said if you’re over the age of 70 are your immune compromised, you needed to separate yourself from societies before we were acquired. Sure. My father who died at 84, my CIO, if you were home alone, right now, he didn’t have Instacart he didn’t have DoorDash on his phone didn’t have a smartphone he would starve, right? So I put a tweet out that night. And I said if anyone knows of anyone in this situation, medium rare will deliver a free steak

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:04

dinner. This isn’t 2020 In the middle of the mess,

Mark Bucher  18:07

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march 3 Before the mess. Oh, okay. All right, where the mess, okay. And we started doing 1000s of meals and volunteers delivering them and making sure people had food. And then and then went back to school came that August, if you remember, it was very politicized, who’s in person who’s virtual who’s in person? Right? DC was the first to say we’re virtual. Because we’ve been giving away meals. I met lots of people. And I said, What’s, what’s the plan for school lunch? I mean, some of these families, they rely on this. We don’t have a plan. We’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to do this stuff. DC Parks and Rec. went and did hotspots kids can do the virtual school there. I went and borrowed refrigerators in the Washington Nationals because they had all these refrigerators around the concourses but no fans because they were shut there was no right. No no baseball right? No baseball gave me the free fridges we went and we started delivering medium or meals to the fridges. 100 of them a day per fridge so just kids had meals to take home. Then we realized

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:59

giving Thank you potatoes are no All right. Oh, yeah. Okay,

Mark Bucher  19:02

full full of dignified restaurant. You’re okay. All right. Yeah, we didn’t do the fries. We did right salad. That was that was better in a refrigerator. So anyway, we learned that if you give someone a ready to eat ready to eat meal that is nutritionally right for them eight ounces of protein, equal carb equal vegetable. They’re not gonna be hungry for eight hours. Because the protein keeps them full. So we started raising money. We started buying meals from restaurants to put in the fridges that we were designed to keep people fed. And now we’ve been doing this thing for four and a half years. We’re really seeing some incredible data. When you put these refrigerators in markets, teenage pregnancy is down. school attendance is up. High school graduation rates are up. The big note could you hit on the head. Three Christmases ago, a mom and two kids was walking up to when we have a Smithsonian Museum. There was a TV crew from Canada that followed our delivery drivers around to the fridges saw this mom and kids Hey, can we ask you a question? She was well dressed. She was No, no, no, we’re good kids run, get their meals, she gets her meal. They run back and she goes, alright, I’ll take your question. And they go, the question we never thought of, what does this mean to you? Okay, now she’s like, you know, I have a full time job. I got a car, my kids clean clothes. I have no money after rent and utilities for food. I have none. I’m a I’m a legal assistant at a big law firm. But there’s just not enough. So she goes now I come home from work. I don’t need to grab my kids wait in line in a soup kitchen. We go wait in line and soup kitchen. There’s drug users homelessness, there’s mental health issues. We’re 20th in line. They run on a mac and cheese. My kids got to go home hungry and now I got to sit with them in the house a new food. Now. We all come grab our meals. And we have dinner together at our dining room table every night, the family unit, the family unit every night and that’s the difference. And we’ve learned and we were working on working with politicians. I’m working with mayors. I’m working with governors, I’m working with USDA and ag I’m saying people need the tools to cook they all want to cook. They need the utensils the pots and pans. The cheap stuff is available. It’s on Amazon. But you need two things a fixed address and a credit card. Right? What are we doing? So that’s what we do feed the fridge and

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:23

a mobile device to order it and a mobile device order it right literally feed

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Mark Bucher  21:27

the fridge right now is putting in about 3800 meals a day. We deliver another 150,000 meals over the holidays Thanksgiving Christmas

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:36

this this is a medium Rebecca but you’re not serving steak. These are we this is chicken sandwiches. You know white bread,

Mark Bucher  21:44

the white bread white bread, no fried food, no sugar. All right. So these are meals that we buy from restaurants like like in, in in DC we’re buying from Charlie Palmer steak. We’re buying from kava we’re buying from Rusia Indian foods. Sure. Number one was delicious chicken tikka masala every Wednesday is the number one most popular item in our fridge. That’s good. Get it right now, as we get by, and people get to experience different cuisines. That’s

Nestor J. Aparicio  22:13

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Barack Obama’s favorite Indian restaurant, best

Mark Bucher  22:16

in the world. But that’s what we put in the fridges in there dignified meals nice and no questions.

Nestor J. Aparicio  22:23

To find all this if they want to support you in some way for the bridge, feed the fridge shot I said feeding my poetry feed the fridge.org.org Is it

Mark Bucher  22:32

and then medium rare is the fuel that allows us to do this medium rare, puts out, you know, three 400 meals a day. Just for part of these fridges or emergency response or the bridge. The bridge went down here. Medium rare, in fact, was the first food on the scene as the responders were there and making sure they were fed that night. That is fact that’s how fast we move.

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Nestor J. Aparicio  22:52

Well, Mark, I appreciate you coming in. So you drive in. You’re a DC sort of guy from Philly, the Baltimore part of this sort of standalone operation, run me through this and then your mother’s day promotion because 23 and me is involved. So I’ll give them a plug on this. But my wife is a DNA twin. My wife had a bone marrow transplant. She got leukemia at 911 She was a first responder 911 She got leukemia 14 Again, and 15 is a guy in Germany that saved her life twice. So they are legitimately twins. If she leaves her blood at the scene of a crime, it’s his blood. So we always kid him like any crime in America, we’re coming to find you in Germany. But the genetic testing and I I was not an orphan child but could have been I was adopted by family. i There’s a documentary that came out this week on my life. I hope everybody checks it out. But the DNA part of giving up a child I was a 15 year old parent, I was a 15 year old with a pregnant girlfriend whose family probably would have preferred choose a different route than we have in my son’s in my house at 39 years of age now, and living in Dundalk. But the genetic match and giving up a child and this story is such a Mother’s Day. It’s not the reason you’re here, but it’s a hell of a reason. have you here,

Mark Bucher  24:13

you know so, so 30,000 feet down. I lost my mother at 17. So Mother’s Day is a big deal to me. Okay, in COVID in 2020 to 2021 when they when we can start going back to restaurants. We did a thing and said look if you haven’t seen your mother in a year, tell us why and we’ll reunite you and your mother and you’ll come in for and that can be any reason right? We’re coming from Mother’s Day brunch. So COVID kept a lot of people away. Okay, turns out we got an answer from someone who said I found my mom with DNA testing during COVID. So he said well you got it first meeting at medium rare so we did that years ago. All right. All right. So now fast forward to where we are today mother’s this is

Nestor J. Aparicio  24:54

going on every day people you know every day somebody Jim Palmer talked about finding his family last You’re on a rocket. I mean, it’s happening every day.

Mark Bucher  25:02

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It’s incredible. We’re using that testing in a positive way is incredible. So this year, Mother’s Day because I say, You know what, we had the new restaurant in Baltimore. Let’s do it again. And let’s go find a family with a story. And see we can pull together. So we went out and we first thing we do, you know, everyone’s really private about their stuff. We reached out to 23andme. And so we want to find a family that’s got a great story that can’t necessarily afford to get together see each other. There’s something else there. Let’s do good. They said we’re down. So we talked a couple families, one came forward, Mom gave up but a son at 15. Never really there was no question. She couldn’t keep it or parents wouldn’t let her and they became reunite. They became reunited. There’s a sister in New York, the biological mom. And the adoptive mom and the biological sister are all coming to meet him or Baltimore Sun and

Nestor J. Aparicio  26:00

they’ve never met fresh. No, Sunday. But I’ve been a part of this because I’ll get crazy telling this. But the man who saved my wife’s life, we found him a year and a half later, and he had saved her life a second time, and didn’t get the thank you note she wrote the first time so too crazy, right? So he saved her life again. 19 months after the first time, he got a call and said she’s still alive. She needs you saved your life again. She lives. We had to ask because a two year rule with certain countries, some countries you never know. I think France is one of them. If he were French, it would be anonymity guaranteed, right? But if you sign check the box and say I want to know my donor and they check the box. They’ll put you together. We got his email address on the second anniversary of the first transplant because we thought we’re gonna have to wait another year and a half. No, no, no. So she was just getting better. And we flew over to Germany did not FaceTime did not talk only email because they wanted to meet. They met in a Courtyard by Marriott in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in the lobby. I’m holding the camera. We don’t know what it this is an incredible thing. It’s going to happen at your restaurant. Right? Super cool. And you’ve witnessed this several times? Well,

Mark Bucher  27:18

we did it two years ago,

Nestor J. Aparicio  27:19

I’ve only been a part of one my own.

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Mark Bucher  27:22

I’m in I’m in this business. I’m in happiness business, right? Some people are in the restaurant business. All they know. And they want to do that. Sure. We provide spaces for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, reunions, good positive stuff in life, people come to our restaurant and

Nestor J. Aparicio  27:39

don’t order the chicken or the salmon because he ain’t got it. Right. So we want to crabcake come here.

Mark Bucher  27:43

We want to we love being these creating these positive memories. It’s one of the things me and my business partners do nice. And this is it aligned. We did it before we will do it again. Do it on a bigger scale. What better way to to be impactful in Baltimore than to have Baltimore be the center of this? This coming weekend? We’ve got major networks covering it. So most people

Nestor J. Aparicio  28:03

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are gonna hear this afterwards. So I would encourage them, it’s going to be on your website. Where is it? We got a little media on this. Well, we’ll we’ll

Mark Bucher  28:10

put it out on our social media mirror restaurant. We’ll put it out on our social pages for sure. And you know, all the networks are going to be covered this week. And it’s big, it’s big news, big positive story. We’ve had lots of non positive stuff happening so the timing is right to do it. Right for the city. right for everybody.

Nestor J. Aparicio  28:28

I’m gonna come many times, right i i saw the picture on the website after I got the medium or anything and I saw the the french fries there and little gravy and then what’s the next special gravy other pepper

Mark Bucher  28:38

sauce. I’ll give you the recipe. You ready? Write down? Go ahead. Can we do it? Your battery died. Hurry, hurry up.

Nestor J. Aparicio  28:46

And it’s like Nancy’s crab cake recipe. I know it’s got mustard in it. But that’s all I know. I don’t know what kind of monster but it’s special Gordon’s powder. I’m gonna call you mark boo Shea for the French here and the holiday this week and Happy Mother’s Day to everybody out there celebrating. I lost my mom six years ago, my mom would be all down with a steak and potatoes over medium rare. If you haven’t experienced the lay relay experiences I call in Paris or New York, you could check it out at the rotunda I’ve been talking about it promising my wife like on some Wednesday night we’re gonna go down there and we’re really in the mood for seconds because you gotta get the seconds you know, but I can almost taste that sort of pepper corny sort of gravy thing that’s so delicious. We’ll sell it today. Oh, yeah. All right. Salad fries, steak. Come see the man. It’s medium rare. And of course you can find them out on the other web as well. I’m in families were Oh, courtesy. My friends at the Maryland lottery got to Pac Man scratches. I had some winners here earlier. People taking selfies. We had a good time. Good luck, man. Thanks for coming up here right now that I know your ravens guy don’t feel seen. And the Phillies guy that Philly. Got it. It’s a Ravens guy. Next time we get together we’ll talk Philadelphia radio and Tommy Caldwell and young Rumblers deal. Oh, hey, Tommy. That’s my man. That’s my dude. He sees my boy. Yeah, I am Nestor. We’re here at fade leaves We’re having a Maryland crab cake tour with other cool restaurant chairs in the Baltimore area get out see them and get some steak potatoes like I’m gonna be doing here real soon