Getting fueled up for the holidays with the origin of Zeke’s Coffee in Lauraville

When the Maryland Crab Cake Tour hits a city neighborhood, we usually invite the whole block. This time, Ricig and Marcella Knight of Koco’s Pub get caffeinated for the holidays with Thomas Rhodes of Zeke’s talking coffee, spiked egg nog and what makes a perfect dark roast.

Nestor Aparicio and his co-host, Mike Ricigliano, discuss the history and culture of Zeke’s Coffee with founder Thomas Rhodes. They highlight the coffee mafia gathering at Zeke’s every Friday, which includes diverse conversations and sports talk. Thomas shares the origins of Zeke’s Coffee, including the use of civet coffee beans and the challenges faced during the pandemic. They also discuss the unique coffee blends, such as the dark roast and the Italian roast, and the process of roasting coffee. Additionally, they mention upcoming events at Cocos Pub, including a coffee burger and a holiday survival kit. Nestor Aparicio and his guests discuss local businesses and holiday promotions. Koco’s Pub offers shipping for crab cakes, with gift cards available for convenience. Zeke’s Coffee promotes their coffee, recommending dark roast. The Maryland Lottery and other sponsors are mentioned, with listeners encouraged to participate in various promotions. Koco’s Pub also extends a free 10-ounce coffee offer to listeners who mention WNST. The conversation includes light-hearted banter about personal preferences, such as temperature and coffee choices, and a brief mention of a Maryland crab cake tour.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

coffee mafia, Zeke’s Coffee, holiday events, coffee education, dark roast, coffee process, local coffee, coffee blends, coffee history, coffee tasting, coffee brewing, coffee gifts, coffee rub, coffee collaboration, coffee shop, local shop, shipping gift cards, crab cakes, coffee rub, Maryland crab cake tour, free ticket, holiday spirits, dark roast, football discussion, water clean, anniversary celebration, free coffee, light roast, crackers pack, WNST mention

SPEAKERS

Marcella Knight, Nestor Aparicio, Thomas Rhodes, Mike Ricigliano

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Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S T toss Baltimore. Am 1570 we are alive at Cocos for the holidays. They turn the holiday music down, just a little bit for us, but the holidays are turned up. We got our Raven scratch offs giveaway, our Maryland crab cake tour, brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Conjunction with our friends at Jiffy Lube multi Care. Today is the first of many, many, eggnogs, crab cakes, friends, conversations, colleagues, local people. It’s already off to a great start. I haven’t even had any eggnog in my coffee yet, but I will. That’s what I need. I need eggnog in a coffee. Marcello. We’re out here Cocos, in laraville, and there’s friends residents. Reci has been my friend for 40 years. He lives three blocks away. He is my co host with a K recig. Lives in the neighborhood and frequents Zeke’s coffee. Zeke’s coffee has a long history with my station and show, having served coffee at all of our road trips before we sent bus trips off to New York and Pittsburgh and playoff games and all that. Thomas Rhodes is here. He’s a founder. Last I was with you, I think you had little animals that were civets that were eating beans, that they were pooping. It’s a long story. We’ll get to that in a couple of minutes, but that was about 15 years ago. And rag you have this coffee mafia that you gather with every Friday Correct? I

Mike Ricigliano  01:26

mean, it’s not, I’m just a an attendee to this great kind of table that Thomas and Dave Pugh kind of run every Friday morning at Zeke’s. It’s awesome. It’s open. It’s great conversation, great sports talk, great music talk, what outcome? Some politics, little bit of politics creeps in. Yes, some some pools that we run, that occasionally in there which are fun to never as

Nestor Aparicio  01:55

an inducement, the wager, man, happy coffee to you. Thanks for so I’m an idiot. I hit you sick. It’s me, and I wanted to get Nick out. And I had a guest that I lost today, so I had to fill a little bit recig was coming out. I had a friend that’s had a family issue, couldn’t make it up here right now. And loves Cocos, by the way, about I’m not gonna ask this person, but so like, couple days, I’m like, I gotta get some more people out from the neighborhood. And she’s doing the Santa thing here. And I said they were saying and I missed your coffee thing last week. I see puts a picture up at like, 11 o’clock every Friday, and I’m like, God, why don’t you tell me it’s 7am or the night before a coffee?

Mike Ricigliano  02:32

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Right? I often remember it at the last minute myself. So well, I

Nestor Aparicio  02:37

want to come have coffee. So me what this thing is? It? By the way, it’s good to see you.

Thomas Rhodes  02:41

So a couple of of my customers that have become close friends, one of them is my garage mate with our our motorcycle habit, okay, Bob kleinschmid and Dave Pugh and I used to do it prior to the pandemic, but that screwed everything up, so we sort of put it on hiatus, and we finally got back to it when everyone could get their schedules right. We used to do it on Thursday, but it didn’t work out. So we did it Friday morning. Friday feels right. It really works. Well, start the weekend, you know, start the weekend, and wind down, complain about the work week.

Nestor Aparicio  03:16

I love coffee, dude. So you don’t tell me, you know. I mean, like, you know, I promote royal farms. Royal farms coffee is the one for me that’s better than he’s kicking lately. But nonetheless, yes, by the way, he doesn’t drink royal farms. Just just, I see him whenever he’s pictured with fans. He’s not drinking. Drives me crazy. On behalf of royal farms, I do drink royal farms coffee, but I have the fuel by Zeke’s thing. I know of it from being a city resident who attended the farmers market every Sunday. Yep, and I think that’s the first time I saw you or became aware of you fueled by Zeke’s. Yeah, my friend Emily worked for you down on the stand there 20 years ago. And this is when 17, but, well, this is sort of when, like bougie coffee was, like Starbucks, it kind of happened. And the coffee bean in like this, even even like the book, pour your heart into it, I had read and all that. So I my coming to it was the Starbucks Gucci vacation of what a dark roast was, because I never drank coffee as a kid. I’m pretty caffeinated. We’re sick. Would tell you, he’s never, since I was 15, yeah, I was pretty caffeinated from birth. I mean, I get this naturally, just the way I’m born. So the coffee thing, doing this thing with the shaky shake, I have to go half decaf half. So whenever I make it at home, I’m half and half because I love, I love, love, love coffee. I love dark roast and I love coffee that tastes like coffee. Fantastic. Here he is. Look at this tell tale, dark holiday roast. Well, how do I know what the hell these are? Well,

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Thomas Rhodes  04:57

on our one pound bags, they have the script. Questions, like, Can

Mike Ricigliano  05:02

you grab that? Oh, yeah, yeah, I

Nestor Aparicio  05:03

need a little card with it. Well, see, this

Thomas Rhodes  05:05

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is that special thing. We don’t really do have pounds anymore, but like, on our other bags, it’s described. Hold

Nestor Aparicio  05:09

on, what is the Coco’s plan that because I came in here, I made the mistake yesterday texting you. And I’m like, you know, Marcella, right? I’m like, Duh, like, I knew your shack was at the end of the street, or I didn’t, realize what an operation it’s become, because I remember your original homestead was on the other end of this block.

Thomas Rhodes  05:26

Yeah, still is, yeah, that’s the wholesale side,

Nestor Aparicio  05:28

but that was way smaller when I knew you 15 years ago, right? Oh, yeah, it was a little one cubicle. Yeah, you were a little place, the whole warehouse, and I know of your cafe, which isn’t there, but it’s more like a mile up the road. They left four tenths of four blocks. Okay, I knew she poured your coffee when I was the idiot and text you and thought, Duh, of course. I’ve seen her with the cup here, with your Zeke cup, and she’s gonna bring me a couple. What is the Coco’s house blend like if you were to do a nasty Nestor blend? What I’d say this to my cannabis partners at curio, when we have a nasty Nestor strain, do I get to come out and cultivate? What do I do here? Because I would love to have my own blend. What you know, what we

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Thomas Rhodes  06:10

built was a coffee for what this place is. Okay, so it’s not specifically a dark roast, and it’s not specifically our light roast. It’s a South American and an African coffee that we blend together. It’s more diet. I don’t want to say die, I don’t want to insult Cocos, but it’s sort of diner coffee. No, it’s better than that’s it’s more like it works with going out to eat. Okay, gotcha, okay, probably a better way to say, Okay, it’s an after dinner coffee, yes, yes.

Nestor Aparicio  06:39

What’s funny here this it says right on here, it may be five o’clock somewhere, but not here and not now. And the funny thing is, as I think about was it five o’clock coffees? That was called eight o’clock. Eight o’clock coffee was Acme Acne

Thomas Rhodes  06:53

at the counter at the

Nestor Aparicio  06:57

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eight o’clock coffee, eight o’clock in

Mike Ricigliano  06:59

the morning, eight o’clock in the morning. Yeah, oh, okay, and

Thomas Rhodes  07:03

every grocery store at the end of the register had the grinder. I do remember

Nestor Aparicio  07:07

this when I was a kid. AP, yeah. AP, AP, how does a dude get into coffee? Like, what I would say to you, I really didn’t drink coffee, other than late night driving on the turnpike. You know what I mean? Like, that kind of coffee, like, to your point, and I didn’t drink coffee for pleasure the way I’m about to, because Marcel is bringing me a this is, see, when you want coffee for pleasure, this is what you do. You know, she put something’s creamy in here. I don’t know what it is, eggnog.

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Mike Ricigliano  07:35

Might be some eggnog. No, that’s not eggnog. I

Nestor Aparicio  07:39

know what that is. That’s got something that’s got a little Kicky Kick in little Kicky Kick in it. I think it’s got like, Kalu or something in it. But what do you recommend in your coffee? Nothing, right? See, I knew you were gonna be all bougie about this couple. Tell me why I screwed your coffee all

Thomas Rhodes  07:52

up. Go ahead. You’re not tasting good coffee. The bottom line is, it tastes pretty damn good to me. It’s sure, but it tastes better without it. This

Nestor Aparicio  07:58

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is a little sweet. She put Kalu in this. She’s got some nippy nip in here, something

Thomas Rhodes  08:02

someday, someday, I want you to just have a black cup of coffee and let it get a little tears.

Nestor Aparicio  08:06

I’m gonna do, I’m gonna come to your coffee mafia thing, and on that day, I’m gonna drink whatever you put in front of me, same way, whatever someone has put

Mike Ricigliano  08:15

trust in the Thomas, yes,

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Thomas Rhodes  08:16

we have Nitro Cold Brew, like pores, like a Guinness. It’s this cold coffee. It’s made from cold, cold brew concentrate, so when you pour it, I

Nestor Aparicio  08:26

don’t like cold coffee, okay, yet, yet. I don’t like dark coffee, yet. I’m, you know, like black coffee, right? Well, there’s a great song, black coffee in bed. But I did.

Thomas Rhodes  08:34

I learned to drink coffee in the army, and when you’re in the army, you have to put hot chocolate, sugar and milk, because it’s garbage, right? Well, yeah, it’s bad cough. And then I came out of the army, I just kept doing it, and I got into the business when I started at another roastery before I started seats. So

Nestor Aparicio  08:52

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you started at a roastery to become a roaster to say, I’m trying to get a profile flavor of a bean Correct. I started

Thomas Rhodes  08:59

at another company i So how I got into coffee is delicious, by the way, I know what you think of it. I was working in the theater building sets, hanging lights, okay, stuff like that. And I wasn’t really making a lot of money, so my buddy was working at the daily grind in Fells Point. Okay? He says, You want to shift you to free pound of coffee. I’m like, bingo. Okay, so I started doing it.

Nestor Aparicio  09:23

I talk about a real coffee whore. Just work for free. Work for free coffee. Well, we actually,

Thomas Rhodes  09:27

yeah, we got great tips down there. It was, I had coffee

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Nestor Aparicio  09:31

there often because I had a client that worked on the street down there, on the cobblestone, sure,

Thomas Rhodes  09:36

right? So, I mean, that’s where I started and then, but what did you know

Nestor Aparicio  09:39

about coffee that I know Jack. I asked this about, like, literally, I asked this about people who are in the whiskey or in the wine or in the weed, who are into food, wake that, where’s the Genesis, where you say, I like coffee so much that I’m going to learn about it, learn how to be it, because that’s a real different i. That was sports in my life, right? Like it went from being something that was a hobby to something I don’t hate it now, but I don’t love it like you love coffee you can wear out on it.

Thomas Rhodes  10:08

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I’ll give you the Cliff Notes. My wife and I were not together, but we were hanging out, right? We got pregnant, and my boss said, you want a job with benefits. I’m like, yes. So I went to the roasting side. And then a couple years later, he made a decision to Mike, here you go. He made a decision to sell his company. And I, I personally, think was good idea. It was an oh four when Buy Local was the buzzer, sure. And he sold it from the broom factory down in, I don’t want to say the name, it’s fine to Ray Virginia, which fell out of the buy local. Sure. So we there’s some other things that happened. But basically, at the end, I had we had no money, and I talked to my wife, I said I just checked with the bank to find out about escrow. I wasn’t big into finances back then, and I found out what escrow my house was, and I’m like, Oh, can I have it? And they said, Yes. So I took a second mortgage out of my house to open Zeke’s

Nestor Aparicio  11:09

a true entrepreneur. What a guy, you know, risk taker, and

Thomas Rhodes  11:13

I What’s really cool is we got $32,000 and I don’t use 23 so

Nestor Aparicio  11:17

you got to keep a little bought a motorcycle, put

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Thomas Rhodes  11:20

it back. Probably, yeah, but anyhow, that’s how we open Zeke’s. We were, we were going through the process of starting it, and my father passed, and my father called a Zeke as a nickname. He called the boys Zeke. And when our family got big, he decided to feminize and call the girl Zeke. Is okay. So I said to my wife, we were going through names, and I said, Charm City Coffee Roasters, because we’re involved, sure, yeah, yeah. And she said, Zeke’s coffee. And we went back and forth. And I said, Why not Charm City Coffee Roasters? And she said, a dime a dozen. I’m like, You’re right. Charm City cakes. Charm City this Charm City that she said Zeke’s is going to be good. It’s going to be a great name for him. Look, you don’t have to say Zeke’s coffee anymore. That’s right, I’m getting my Zeke’s Well, what’s

Nestor Aparicio  12:04

interesting to me as 33 years of doing this is people like you, and I would put Hugh Sisson into this too, sure, yo Hugh did beer. And I remember going down and drinking his beer, and I always say it was always flat, it was always warm, you know. So it was supposed to be, you know. And we argue about it now, he’s got this thing. And I think anybody that follows a passion, right, that they’re into something and years later can make it, can make it work, you know, and especially when you’re a first mover in a place, because I would think with coffee 2000 and whenever pick any time in this century, Starbucks has sort of dominated it, right? Sure, McDonald’s was trying to, you know, other places are trying to be that other thing. And then there’s all of these places I go where coffee has been regionalized now, in places like Portland, in Asheville, North and hippie community in hippie community, Missoula, Montana, rock stars own coffee. Think that’s same thing with cannabis. Same thing with with with weird, with beer, rye with whiskey, tequila, you know, all of these brands and different things. But the coffee thing that I would say locally for you here, people know what you are, and they know you’re local, and you’ve been doing, you’ve done a great job of getting that. I was in Minneapolis for the Super Bowl, like, six, seven years ago. That’s the only place I’ve ever been where the coffee they refuse to drink. Starbucks. There they have, like, a it’s called northern whatever it has. But they are ubiquitous. They’re like, when you go there, it’s sort of like Starbucks got thrown out, you know, wow. And I want to say you could displace them here, but they never had a presence here to say they were going to be local. And I can’t think of anybody else doing local coffee the way you found the spot. You found the spot where people drink us every day. We’re

Thomas Rhodes  13:56

every every man coffee. I mean, we do it for everybody. We do quality coffee that is pretty much affordable for everyone. I mean, obviously, with the pandemic and pricing, it’s going up, and we can’t stop that. It’s just a thing that’s happening. But still, we have fairly reasonable prices on our coffee. Our drinks at the shop are good price wise. Yeah. I mean, when we started, z there was only two Starbucks in Baltimore, right? And I can’t remember where they were. There’s a ton now, yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  14:28

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But I would also think that there’s a point where you find that angle of being local. And to your point, we are a town of neighborhoods. I mean, sure, nobody ever comes, nobody ever leaves. Baltimore came, never left, right? But that’s a point of pride and reference. I think you could have been Charm City coffee, right? I mean, like Charm City cakes, right? You know, whatever. But taking this on Union brewing, when I talk to, like, other the beer companies, these local people with these visions, that’s just something in this century, I don’t think we talk enough about. That, especially in this country, talk about politics and just how Walmarts have taken over there. Coffee is still a place where Starbucks can run it in certain spots, but there’s a lane everywhere I go to see local companies like you doing this, because you do it better

Thomas Rhodes  15:16

every time we go somewhere, I’m always looking for Zeke’s of Philadelphia, Zeke’s of Boston. Somebody

Nestor Aparicio  15:23

sent me to a Gucci spot in Miami.

Thomas Rhodes  15:25

I love Miami coffee, yeah, somebody

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Nestor Aparicio  15:27

saw those you want to Cubano was like, it was a, it was in, what’s that? What’s the Winwood? But somebody said, dude, like, I interviewed a guest 2010, years ago. He said, you like coffee? I’m like, Yeah, I love coffee. You gotta go to this place and like destination coffee, you know what makes your process small batch brewing? Because I see royal blue. I see telltale trying them, of course. But what are you trying to accomplish? I ask this with the beer. People can say, Yeah, consistency, but your flavor palette, we but we go all over. Okay, I

Thomas Rhodes  16:04

like dark coffee, I like light coffee, I like them all. But my favorites, dark telltale, this is one of my favorites. This royal

Nestor Aparicio  16:13

blue. What makes it your favorite? What is, what is your flavor profile? I mean,

Thomas Rhodes  16:17

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I don’t want to sound weird, but it tastes like coffee.

Nestor Aparicio  16:20

I like that. Okay, that’s good.

Thomas Rhodes  16:21

I mean, it really just has that coffee taste. This is, this has a smoky taste because it’s got an Italian roast in it, and it’s got a Guatemalan and it gives it a little bit of a sweet taste, not sweet. But,

Nestor Aparicio  16:34

see, I spent a lot of time in Jamaica, so the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee one of the most expensive coffees in the world, I get it. Sometimes I’m disappointed by it. Sometimes I’ve gotten it, it’s been a little stale when I’ve gotten it in Jamaica from like, the source, and it’s expensive as hell, twice as expensive after they had, like, a rotting thing in the hills there. But that, to me, tastes like coffee,

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Thomas Rhodes  16:54

the Guana, the backwana that fertilizes the trees, correct? Yeah. So good news Clydesdale farm. I think it’s Clydesdale. Jamaican Blue Mountain the top, yes, farm is we got it back. We haven’t had it for a long time. We haven’t had access to

Nestor Aparicio  17:11

it. You have Jamaican Blue Mountain in your place. We just got it so I can come get a pound of

Thomas Rhodes  17:15

right? Not Not this week, next week for Christmas. Even better, the bags just came in. My wife’s leaving town next week, I’ll

Nestor Aparicio  17:21

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have it all to myself.

Thomas Rhodes  17:23

We got, we got a top top

Nestor Aparicio  17:26

I think it’s from that’s what I’m drinking. We

Thomas Rhodes  17:29

got a nice Maui coffee too.

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Nestor Aparicio  17:30

What is it about the exotic part of saying, like the girls are pretty there in the beaches, nights at the make the coffee good? It’s about hills and mountains. And I don’t know enough about the science of this in the way that, like good grapes are grown in Sonoma Valley, right? Do

Thomas Rhodes  17:45

you know the tropic Capricorn and tropic cancer? Yes, anything in between there is the coffee zone. Coffee zone. You can’t really grow it outside of it. We don’t grow it in America, except Hawaii, okay? Hawaiian coffee is basically Ethiopian. Most all, a coffee is said to be Ethiopian. There’s a there’s a long story. The bean originates from there. Yeah, dancing goat was a cowdies. He was a shepherd, and his goat would eat the coffee beans and get all jittery. And that’s how they, sort of, legend says it that they’ve sorted. There’s a bunch of Legends. But if you ever look at the east coast of Africa and Yemen, okay, it’s because the Yemenis claimed they found were the founders of coffee. But back in the day, they were together, and they see

Nestor Aparicio  18:33

we were kids, it was always Juan Valdez in Colombia, right? We thought, you know, that’s it. Didn’t he run COVID But, but the difference, I think he did at a Medellin, if I’m not saying, right? But the coffee part of saying, this is from Colombia. This is from the high mountains of Jamaica. This is from Indonesia, Java, right? We said, I have a cup of java. Java’s a place, right? Like, so what makes the beans different there and and give this to me in like, coffee 101, because you had to learn this when you started doing beers, right?

Thomas Rhodes  19:06

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So all coffee originated in the same area, and then it was distributed out and different cultivations in different areas. In Indonesia, it’s got a lot of ash from volcanoes, so you have, okay, that generates different tastes. African coffees are sweeter. They use a lot of the coffee’s a cherry. It’s not a bean,

19:29

huh? We’re

Thomas Rhodes  19:31

six learning and totally and when you when they take it like they still pretty much de pulp them most of the coffee. We get small batch, not like these big Fauci Yeah, they’re big this. They still do a lot by hand, okay? Or water spending the mills. And basically it’s two pieces of Dow wood. And they put the cherries through, and it squirts the splits, it Okay, squirts the seeds out, okay? And they take all that meat and put it back. In the trees. That’s fertilization. So that’s it, that’s traditionally and now it’s being done a lot of other places. Was done in Africa, Kenya,

Nestor Aparicio  20:09

it’s amazing what goes into a cup of coffee, right? I mean, crazy a place, why

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Mike Ricigliano  20:13

don’t they call it cherries? If they are cherries, because they’re coffee beans. Okay?

Nestor Aparicio  20:20

So when a bean comes to you, is it like green, green and raw? Like? Is it considered a raw bean?

Thomas Rhodes  20:27

Yep. And if you were to put that bean through a coffee grinder, it would break the burrs, because it’s hard, pliable too, so it would squeeze in, but then go. But what we do is we burn it. Okay? Everybody burns coffee. A certain big company with a mermaid, burns it too much. Okay, there’s a certain level, like we this Italian roast. This here is a double smell.

Nestor Aparicio  20:55

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Some coffee on the Shall we on the show. Thomas Rhodes is here, seeks coffee. He’s giving me a coffee, education. Coffee 101, received is here. He is my co host. We are at Coco’s pub. I’m holding the house blend. This is also, um, this is already a ground I guess. Don’t I grind fresh every morning. Yeah, I gotta have fresh kids, yes.

Thomas Rhodes  21:14

So this, so let’s do this first. We’re

Nestor Aparicio  21:17

doing a whole thing here. Go ahead. This is a Scotty here too, from Dara Bucha total

Thomas Rhodes  21:21

educated. This is, this is a lighter roast.

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Nestor Aparicio  21:25

So I am not a light roast dude. I mean, I like to smell it. It smells like coffee that

Thomas Rhodes  21:31

has a little buttery smell. So it’s a lot. It’s a little lighter.

Nestor Aparicio  21:34

It smells like popcorn, almost, yeah. Now this, this is coffee here. This

Thomas Rhodes  21:38

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is, that’s Italian roast. That’s like twice roasted.

Nestor Aparicio  21:41

We Yeah, this is, this is my lane. That’s that smokey. This is my lane right here, yeah.

Thomas Rhodes  21:46

And what we get to do that a lot of big companies with mermaids can’t do, is we can buy specialty grade coffee. They buy good coffee, but because they need so much,

Nestor Aparicio  21:58

right? You’re getting a more specialized, small batch. I got you,

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Thomas Rhodes  22:02

and that was always been our business motto. Now that’s why it’s better. We always buy the best, and when it becomes more expensive than we just raise the price. We don’t hack heckle over pricing. When my broker says it’s this, he is my man in the field. He they their whole company to go out to origin being, yes,

Nestor Aparicio  22:22

source and beans is a thing, right? They have a little suitcases

Thomas Rhodes  22:25

that are coffee roasters that will heat the water once they roast it. And they’re insane, but cool, because that’s what we get.

Nestor Aparicio  22:33

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So how often do you do this sort of research at Zeke’s to walk a farm and get on a plane and go somewhere and see how this is done. And I would think a lot of it can be done video and whatever, to see where this stuff’s coming from. You want to know where your beans are coming from,

Thomas Rhodes  22:48

right? Sure. So my guy, he’s in Jersey now, he was in New York. I talked to him. I used to talk to him like every week. It’s not as much now, because you know what you’re getting, right? Well, and my so my nephews run the whole wholesale side. So dates, they’re doing that stuff now. Okay, so I don’t have to do it as much.

Nestor Aparicio  23:08

What do you do? Run the shop. Manage, managers. Okay, good enough, because you were willing to meet me for a coffee at Zeke’s. I know you who

Mike Ricigliano  23:16

does the marketing, because the marketing is so great for Zeke’s to, like, all these, all this great gear that you could get, and it’s very status in the neighborhood to where Zeke’s gear I’m telling you. Well,

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Thomas Rhodes  23:25

I meant me, yeah, my wife, I see your

Nestor Aparicio  23:29

bumper stickers along. I do. That’s a good story. Powered by Zeke, fueled

Thomas Rhodes  23:33

by z fuel, busy. Sorry. I was coming home from delivering to Eddie’s when they were on St Paul, and I was listening to NPR, and that day they had a story about pit crew guys, which I thought was really strange.

Nestor Aparicio  23:47

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And they’re talking to the guy pick crew, the guys change the tires, yeah, yeah, NASCAR. And

Thomas Rhodes  23:51

he’s, you know, he was talking into southern drawl, and he kept going on. He goes, Yeah, we keep him fueled up. I’m like, so do I. And I went home, went to the warehouse and wrote fuel by Zeke’s fuel.

Nestor Aparicio  24:00

Okay, that’s

Thomas Rhodes  24:02

I give you. I’m giving you way

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Mike Ricigliano  24:04

more credit. Now that’s

Nestor Aparicio  24:05

really, that was the story she doesn’t tell on the Friday, I don’t know, Friday morning. So I can learn things about you guys. You just talk

Mike Ricigliano  24:14

football, you know, baseball or baseball or basketball.

Nestor Aparicio  24:18

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I love this is more fun than football right now it is for me, it’s really, I’m a Penn State fan, so now, yeah, I grew up in Harrisburg. That’s all right. I like Harrisburg. Harrisburg is nice. I was

Thomas Rhodes  24:28

telling receipt here about the sub shops up there use pizza dough for their sub roles. Dandy. Really, you should make a trip.

Nestor Aparicio  24:36

Oh, I have a little Italian restaurant up there that I love in downtown Harrisburg, my wife and I just a little place. It’s our place up there we sneak off to. So yeah, they have, they have fresh Spumoni there. They serve real spoomoni.

Mike Ricigliano  24:50

What is it? Because if we go up to I’m

8

Nestor Aparicio  24:53

gonna hold on a second. You’re gonna make me it’s a family name. It’s a man’s name. I just don’t want to get his name wrong. It’s. Sammy. I think it’s Sammy. Hold on. Let me make sure

Thomas Rhodes  25:01

it’s right. Okay, maybe make sure it’s right. Do you spend the night or you come back to Baltimore?

Nestor Aparicio  25:05

Sammy’s authentic Italian restaurant in doubt. Free, free. Plug for you, Sam because you’re good man, and your boys a good, good man too. He and his son, small. It’s local street. It’s, uh, it’s on Third Street, okay, right in front of the cap, where our friends right on the it’s right where our friend lives. Yeah, what happened was, and this would speak to the internet, if I find a damn picture, I will show it to you, because when I find a picture, you’re gonna be like, I gotta eat at that place, because it was outside and there was a fresh Spumoni. And when I saw the fresh Spumoni, they make it in house. So they make spoomonie in house. I’m an ice cream guy. Everybody knows that. So I’m like, we got to go to that place. And then I looked at the rest of it, and they’re doing, like, you know, legit pasta. This is a real there’s Sammy, right there. There he is. All right, Sammy, you’re a good man. Harrisburg, PA, there you go. All right. So free local, just like this. We’re Cocos, by the way. We’re doing a Maryland crab cake where, I don’t think he has a crab cake there they don’t have a crab cake at a me cheese, but we’re gonna be there anyway two weeks from now. Also gonna be a caucus on the 18th faith leaves on the 12th. 12th Thursday, where Gertrude in the BMA. I’m gonna get artistic with Dan Rodricks. Today, I’m learning about telltale dark moziques. Thomas Rhodes is our guest with SIG. Is our co host as well. And so if I like Jamaican coffee, yes, and I like, let’s say Costa Rican or something like that. Like when I’ve tried coffees from other parts of the world, I think I have a profile that is more central American than it than it is Indonesian or African. The African stuff tastes like dirt to me a little bit. It has a earthy quality to it. I think

Thomas Rhodes  26:37

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I meant I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t say that most of the African coffee we carry, excuse me, are sweeter, sweeter because of the process. I told you about, the fertilization. I

Nestor Aparicio  26:50

don’t understand science. I mean, come I’m just drinking coffee. They’re

Thomas Rhodes  26:53

putting, they’re putting the leftovers of the product back in the soil to refertalize the soil, yeah. So it becomes a little sweeter. And also the there’s processes that can make coffee sweeter. One you can have the palm civid Eat it, and when the palm civid eats it, it digests, and the digestive juices ferment. We’re in

Nestor Aparicio  27:12

a restaurant. Let’s not talk about this here. Don’t do this in front of Marcello. Yeah. It sort of squirts it out. See, did

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Thomas Rhodes  27:21

you ever see it? No, I

Nestor Aparicio  27:23

don’t want to see it. I got you offered it last time I site. I avoided you for 15 years because of this.

Thomas Rhodes  27:28

It looks like a Baby Ruth,

Nestor Aparicio  27:30

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I thought you were weirdo, and then I meet you now. He might be weird, but

Mike Ricigliano  27:34

like the thing they use in the Rodney Dangerfield movie that was a big we’re in

Nestor Aparicio  27:40

a restaurant. Nobody’s eating here. Tell it. Tell everybody what. Go ahead, tell them what a Civic. So, Civic is a creature. It’s like, a little like, almost like a monkey, right? A little bit, rat, monkey,

Thomas Rhodes  27:49

squirrel, type of combo, something, creature. It’s, it’s from cute Sumatra, mostly. Then that Indonesia, okay? And they literally, so it’s it’s nocturnal, and it buys it.

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Nestor Aparicio  28:06

IT shops at nighty loop, also known as civic coffee, is a coffee to consist of, partially digested. You paid attention. This receiver, I am coffee chairs which have been eaten. And big word begins with the D, E, F, E, C, A, T, E, D, poop. Yeah, stool. Let’s

Thomas Rhodes  28:29

go with a better word, like a payday. Um, that probably ruin pay days for

Nestor Aparicio  28:34

you. Anybody that wants to get grossed out if you’re driving around Google, K, o, p, i, l, u, w, a, k, and realize this guy here at Zeke’s is at his mind now, but this is apparently, like, this is like the filet mignon of the coffee world, right? This is the Chateau brill.

Thomas Rhodes  28:50

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So these, these animals are nocturnal. They’re blind, and they go through the poor little guys. They go through the orchards, and they say, you make me want to eat their

Nestor Aparicio  29:02

poop. Don’t eat it. Okay, go ahead. You’re all right. Go ahead. Oh, you know, I’m gonna put you on why don’t you grab a chair and come over here so, you know, jump in here. Next I’m trying to get you. Go ahead. Keep telling me the story about the civid So

Thomas Rhodes  29:14

at Mars lake, so it it, it can’t see, so it eats the ripest cherries on the tree by smell. Okay? So you can’t, so it’s only going to eat the really ripe. And you can’t force feed them. They won’t eat them until they’re the right. You know, you can’t do this in a cage, and people try, but it’s not legit. They put logs in the orchards. For some reason, these animals like to go to on the log. That’s how they harvest it, because it’s all sort of, who

Nestor Aparicio  29:42

comes up with this. I

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Thomas Rhodes  29:43

have no idea, but who thought

Nestor Aparicio  29:45

this was an idea? Whoever ate the first oyster? No, very brave man. That’s what I would say,

Thomas Rhodes  29:52

right? Exactly, great

29:53

8

point.

Thomas Rhodes  29:53

If I were walking, if I were a farmer of coffee and I saw that, I’d be like, well, there’s my product at that. Creature eight. I wonder what it’s like. I would have been curious. I think, Wow.

Nestor Aparicio  30:04

But well, you’re in a different part of Indonesia than me. At this point. I probably been at Bali on the beach. Have you

Marcella Knight  30:09

seen the movie that this was in bucket list, the bucket list. Have you seen the bucket list? No, oh, it’s a great movie. Jack Nicholson,

8

30:18

Morgan Freeman. Morgan Freeman, they

Nestor Aparicio  30:20

drink this coffee. That’s what you have to do. You stock this coffee all the time. No, we

Thomas Rhodes  30:25

lost our provider. We got we had, so we had six DC. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but my nephew runs three shops down there now, and he wrote his own down there. Okay? And we were doing the event, and we sort of got, for lack of a better word, attacked by some

Nestor Aparicio  30:42

8

animal activists, no, yeah, yeah, but you weren’t hurting the civets, right? No,

Thomas Rhodes  30:46

and that’s the thing. They’re just pooping. We got a letter from them, and then I forwarded that letter to my lawyer, my lawyers, you know, like he responded that we bought, we buy properly sourced, humanely sourced, coffee. It’s not in a cage. They they are free range. And the guy on the other side said, Yeah, well, other people, are doing it, so we’re going to protest you. And then, of course, I’ll tell you, this is coffee any good? Yes, it’s the best

Marcella Knight  31:10

coffee I’ve ever had. It’s supposed to be the best coffee in the world. If you watch the movie, you’ll find out. So

Thomas Rhodes  31:16

all coffee fermented your event,

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Nestor Aparicio  31:17

you had that? What makes it good? Okay? So all said, You’ve had I haven’t.

Thomas Rhodes  31:21

All coffee is fermented. Okay, one way or the other. Sometimes they let coffee just rot, the cherry meat rot, and that’s a fermentation process. Most people do it in water for a day or two. They just let it sit and it mellows it out. Okay? This stomach thing that the animal has is the best way to do it. And it’s fast, it’s only it’s only a day process or leaving that it, tell it. When I first drank it, I was doing this because I was thinking about a cat box, because I just couldn’t get out of my head. But I finally drank it, and I’m like, oh, and I’m like, Did I put cream in that? It was so smooth. I didn’t put cream in it. I don’t put anything in it. You don’t it was, it was insane. We’ll try to find it again, because wolf we’re

Nestor Aparicio  32:07

I just remember was a story. Yeah, they’re cute little guys, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody’s hurting them. That’s the good news. So, oh well, yeah, they had some problems with that as well. Thomas Rhodes is here for sick. Is here Marsh is here the Hollies. Let’s talk about the neighborhood a little bit, because I asked him if he knew you, and you’re like, Yeah, I served the coffee. And you, you’ve been here 40 years. You’ve been here almost 20 years on the same block in this community. And I you live in the community we had. You know, this is many people stay and they they don’t leave.

Mike Ricigliano  32:45

8

Well, I’d let me just say the Cocos and Zeke’s are two of the great gathering places in in our in our neighborhood right here. That probably the two greatest, the two great, yeah, the two greatest, really, in in the neighborhood. And they’re both there. They’re both places that, you know, are welcoming to everyone with great product too. So I encourage everyone in neighborhood, and not in the neighborhood, to get over here and get in on it. You

Thomas Rhodes  33:13

got the best crab cakes in town, no doubt, without doubt, and then the best coffee. It’s out seven teams Baltimore’s best in the world, you know? So

Nestor Aparicio  33:23

you actually, when I came in and she’s like, do I know Thomas? I have my own plan. That’s kind of pimpy, right? I mean, I’m thinking about,

Mike Ricigliano  33:33

do you have your own brand crab cakes? Then you haven’t done that yet? No,

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Thomas Rhodes  33:39

but what is it? What are you doing? Come on, you told me about it earlier.

Nestor Aparicio  33:44

Well, I have a whole list of

Marcella Knight  33:47

Yeah. So we’re gonna start carrying some of the coffee here, the coffee burger. Oh, the coffee burger. Sorry, at the brunch this coming Saturday, the one with the real sand, we are doing a coffee burger,

Thomas Rhodes  34:00

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which might carry over. I’m sure

Marcella Knight  34:03

what we doing? Burger special night, they’re doing a rub, coffee rub.

Nestor Aparicio  34:08

I learned love coffee rub steaks.

Thomas Rhodes  34:11

We I bet not to plug anyone else but blue pit. We partner with them. Sure. Okay, okay. And they do the Zeke. Yeah, they do the Zeke’s. I can’t remember what their meat product is, but, and then they sell, they do the rub, they sell it. We sell it. I

8

Nestor Aparicio  34:25

am. I had a coffee rub recipe steak like 15 years ago. So good, and it’s, it’s one of my favorite things to like, I’d use an espresso roast when I do that. Is that, right? Or what would you what would you use for a I would

Thomas Rhodes  34:39

use a dark roast. There’s no such thing as an espresso roast, okay, espresso generally is not dark okay. There’s no such thing as an espresso bean, okay, they’re all coffee beans, okay. The difference is, you build a blend like our 1812 blend that we use for espresso is a five bean blend when we do it for all different reasons. One, the. The more concentrated. Well, the brew process is it’s fine and it’s a little bitter, but we use monsoon Malabar. This is a coffee from India. And essentially, they have these big warehouses, and during the monsoon season, they open the the sides up, and they let the monsoon wash the beans, and they they sort of rot, they get bigger, but they make crema really nicely for our for our blend. It’s so much fun to do. I just

Nestor Aparicio  35:30

whole world. It’s like when I talk about beers and like, why do you brew an IPA? Or, why is this a stout? Or why is this an ale? Or, I just think the the science of it, and it’s so specialized, you can be a fan of it and say, I want to taste it, but I’m never gonna be a guy roasting it. You know, that is still a very you can, okay, but you’re gonna do it

35:54

8

better though.

Thomas Rhodes  35:55

We’re gonna bring something back, yeah?

Nestor Aparicio  35:58

But, I mean, I can go right now to Safeway by crab me and go make a crab cake. It ain’t gonna be yours. You know what? I mean, what I mean, right? I mean, it’s just not and but

Thomas Rhodes  36:04

you can buy especially great coffee from Sweet Maria’s online, and if you have a West Bend hot air popcorn popper, you can roast it on your porch. Because let me give you this story. Art we have civid roasters, not the animal. Just happens to be Michael civid from Corvallis, Oregon. That’s

8

Mike Ricigliano  36:22

amazing coincidence. Go ahead, he, he

Thomas Rhodes  36:25

designed a flu event roaster, which 95% of the roasters are drum, and they spin. I’ve seen those before. It’s mostly what everybody uses, right? So they spin over the heat source, where the heat source, it’s a tear drop our chamber a tear drop, and the flame from our burner goes through the air handler wheel. Essentially, it’s built off of the Granger shelf and shot up into the chamber. So the heat is what agitates the bees, so it’s cleaner. You know what? Chaff is? Chaff? Chaff is like the peanut skin, right? Okay, but that comes off in drum roasters. They burn it off, which I think, I think, you know, there’s not much difference between drum and air roasted. I mean, I like air roasted better, but, but they, they have to let the the chaff disintegrate, where ours goes out right away. So

Nestor Aparicio  37:16

you really do have a different process than the way most and one

Thomas Rhodes  37:19

8

time, you know when you’re you know if you, let’s say you make it to a Friday table. Well, we’ll run down and I’ll show you. Okay, it’s pretty damn cool. I’m gonna

Nestor Aparicio  37:28

make it to a Friday table for SIG is here. He’s been my life, a friend, our artist and cartoonist to the stars, and has been inviting me for years, not years, but a couple of for a year. You know, it feels like, if you’ve been inviting me for,

Thomas Rhodes  37:41

yeah, a year.

Mike Ricigliano  37:43

I met rece Thomas. Thomas, it was, it

8

Nestor Aparicio  37:47

feels like you’ve been coming here for, like, a couple of years. I’ve been doing the show here. You’re always like, you’re gonna come to zcoda, come to Zeke’s. So I brought seeks to here. I think it’s great. I think awesome, really. And there’s not even a real Zeke. It turns out it’s a Tom, not a Zeke.

Thomas Rhodes  38:00

I love that story. Yeah, it’s all good. That was all my brothers and sisters.

Nestor Aparicio  38:04

Well, I will get up to your place for some breakfast. I come down to Laravel all the time. Marcellus, here, we’re doing a Santa here on Saturday. We’re having all sorts of shopping things going on here as well. You can ship

Marcella Knight  38:16

8

burger from Zeke’s, or a cup of coffee or a cup of coffee with your

Thomas Rhodes  38:19

coffee red burger. Yes, absolutely.

Nestor Aparicio  38:21

The coffee rub burger. Really sounds like not a lot of people are doing that. They should

Marcella Knight  38:25

just we were on Sunday brunch segment this past Sunday channel, on W, b, a, l, okay, and making it well. They, they talked about, okay, you know, talked about serving it this Sunday. So it was a really nice piece. So you should try to go listen to it. They gave you a lot of good which we promote, which,

8

Thomas Rhodes  38:41

which. What’s a Peabody did? We did a collaboration with Peabody. Oh, Pete, Betty brewery, Mr. Trash, real beer. Oh, okay.

Mike Ricigliano  38:50

Oh, we love Mr. Trash. Well, we

Thomas Rhodes  38:52

did a, we do it. We’re do an ongoing fundraiser. We do it for, W, E, T, A, we do it for, we have a bunch that we donate $1 per bag. But for every pound of Mr. Trash, will you buy? We give $1 to Mr. Trash. Oh, that’s wonderful. And then they, they reached out to the Peabody, reached out to the two of us. I mean, we did a beer, nice. But unfortunately,

Nestor Aparicio  39:15

8

is it a coffee stout or, like,

Thomas Rhodes  39:16

I think it’s a coffee so I

Nestor Aparicio  39:17

haven’t. I love coffee stouts too. I love coffee I mean, I do you know, so we can tell, yeah,

Mike Ricigliano  39:23

he says, I’m not a coffee guy, by the way.

8

Nestor Aparicio  39:29

Did you serve me full test?

39:31

It’s full wife,

Nestor Aparicio  39:32

when I get out of here tonight, tell everybody about shipping crab cakes Marcella, because we’re we talked about a couple hours ago we got here, but the cutoff is not december 23 Don’t be calling her and saying, I want to ship crab cakes to California tomorrow. A little bit of planning goes a long way. But if you’re in the neighborhood, they can certainly stop by and buy crab cakes at the door on the 21st one second leading up to Christmas in the area, right here at the door, you come in and grab. Go and you

Marcella Knight  40:00

8

love that. Yes, we sell uncooked crab cakes every day. A lot of people come and get them, especially if they’re traveling. That’s how I like to do it. Yeah? And then if you’re having a party, you can reshape them smaller size and to serve more people. See, I

Nestor Aparicio  40:15

thought you would think that’s blasphemous, to reshape the 11 ounce crab. She’s

Thomas Rhodes  40:18

a smart woman, as

Marcella Knight  40:19

long as I don’t have to do the reshaping.

8

Nestor Aparicio  40:23

I told her, I take it home. I cut it in third. I would probably, I would probably shape it

Mike Ricigliano  40:28

into a like, you know, famous person.

Thomas Rhodes  40:35

Yeah, you all ever do the Holy Cross Church down on Broadway? No, the Polish church?

Nestor Aparicio  40:40

8

No, what about it?

Thomas Rhodes  40:41

I’ve been there. We Well, they did the Polish Thanksgiving last weekend before Thanksgiving, and I went down and got pierogi, Hulu, key, boss of sauerkraut, doing it up, right? They sell you froze and stuff you can, you know, do it and they sell fresh. And they’re not plugging them, they’re doing it again.

Nestor Aparicio  40:58

Well, my wife’s polish, she’ll be damned. They’re so damn good. Yeah, really good. Yeah?

Marcella Knight  41:03

Shipping, yes. Last day that we are shipping is the 17th of December, which is a Tuesday, so you have to have your order in by Monday, December 16. That’s the ship in time

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Nestor Aparicio  41:16

for Christmas. Plan ahead. If you love your family, you know you’re gonna send them COVID right now.

Marcella Knight  41:20

You can go ahead and do it right now. The earlier, the better, because we are gonna be swapped. Yes. Well, I

Nestor Aparicio  41:26

hope you have a beautiful holiday. Thank This is the kickoff for me and our eggnog classic. They do have eggnog at the bar here as well as delicious margaritas, and they serve Zeke’s coffee

Marcella Knight  41:35

8

here at Coco’s today. You love her eggnog.

Nestor Aparicio  41:38

I didn’t turn it down. I thought when it came, when the coffee came, not black, that’s going to anger Thomas here. Well, I mean, I heard it say that cream behind the bar. You know, special cream.

Thomas Rhodes  41:53

I think I said bourbon, but I don’t know if you’re

Nestor Aparicio  41:55

not Irish, it’s sold the afternoon we’re seeing Happy Holidays. Grandkid recigs. Are they running around here for Christmas, or

8

Mike Ricigliano  42:07

we’re going to be up there. They live in Brooklyn, New York, and we’re going to be up there with our two identical twin boys grandkids. So we’re

Nestor Aparicio  42:15

excited for pizza. Forgot about exactly.

Thomas Rhodes  42:17

I heard a great story that when he took his wedding vows with Terry, they said, Do you restrict take Terry? Is that true?

Mike Ricigliano  42:26

8

Yes. Everyone calls him that story, Terry, when we read the right, right, right, right.

Nestor Aparicio  42:35

I’ve known her six since I was 15 years old. I’m 56

Marcella Knight  42:39

do the math on his name, nasty Nestor,

Mike Ricigliano  42:42

his children, my not grandchildren, but my children. Yes, named it short

8

Nestor Aparicio  42:46

story long because somebody in the audience doesn’t know this, I lost a baseball bet with her SIG at the paper one night, I had gone to Philadelphia, and a bunch of guys hit home runs off these Phillies relievers. And I said, I’ll babysit your kids if you can tell me the first names of these guys. And he won the bet on the late great who became a friend of mine, Todd frog. He got Todd. He got froward. Don’t

Mike Ricigliano  43:07

write me that. Now I would never

Nestor Aparicio  43:10

and I as a good man, as a man of honor that I am, and you’ve known me to be, yes, I make good on the deal to go babysit his kids. This is in 1989 in the fall of 89 so your kids were what, seven and 886, whatever. My kid was like, five. My kids a little younger than this kids. So I had three sub 10 year old boys over on Eastwood drive in 1989 I was 21 years old and single, and I had a date that night. And I took these kids and I said, you’re going to bed early, all of you. And when I sent him a bed early that night, they started calling me instead. They called me uncle Nestor in the beginning, because it was kind of funny. Like, like, you know, at his family, then they started calling me nasty Nestor. Like, exactly, sure, yeah. So they so nasty Nestor became my name in 1989 I got a radio show in 1991 and I’m like, hi, you’re listening to my show. My name is Nestor. And so I just started using this nasty Nestor another

Mike Ricigliano  44:08

8

origin story. There it is. Got an origin story from all three of

Nestor Aparicio  44:12

you. Nothing as good as a civic being. Where that

Mike Ricigliano  44:16

originable origin story? Yeah, yeah. So

Thomas Rhodes  44:19

can I plug a couple things for Zeke’s. 1,000,000% Yes.

8

Nestor Aparicio  44:22

Cool.

Thomas Rhodes  44:23

So the holidays are coming up. We got lots of gifts and stuff. Bag of stuff is what he’s got. We got t shirts you can get at the at the cafe smells like coffee. These are evil T

Marcella Knight  44:33

shirts, chalk now, this

Nestor Aparicio  44:35

8

is my angle, chocolate covered espresso beans. Yes, yes. We

Thomas Rhodes  44:39

got all kinds of things. We’re doing gift boxes. We’re doing a holiday survival kit. It’s going to look like it’s shipped from the warehouse, but it’s going to have a six pack of holiday beer, holiday roast and a bag of those. So everything

Nestor Aparicio  44:52

you need to get through the first snowstorm, sure,

Marcella Knight  44:55

or at least through Christmas, or

8

Thomas Rhodes  44:56

wrapping gifts or whatever, because this will help you wrap gifts and. Yeah, yes, we have normal like other gift baskets with travel mugs, and you can build your own, is essentially what

Nestor Aparicio  45:08

I’m saying. How amped up would I be if I eat chocolate covered espresso beans? If

Thomas Rhodes  45:12

you stick around for you be good.

Nestor Aparicio  45:14

8

I mean, I just, I love coffee. I love what it does. What

Mike Ricigliano  45:17

if you eat that whole bag of those?

Thomas Rhodes  45:19

I made the mistake when when we first did this, these are our beans that we send up to coppers chocolate. Who invented the chocolate covered coffee bean?

Nestor Aparicio  45:27

Wow, dark chocolate by copper’s, chocolatiers of New York City.

8

Thomas Rhodes  45:31

Yeah, that’s that chocolate, is it? So it’s 11 to one, is what we chose, the ratio. But when they first came in, we had a like a half a pallet. I’m like, Whoa. And it was six o’clock. We were wrapping up, and I started eating them.

Nestor Aparicio  45:42

Next thing, you know, it’s 3am

Thomas Rhodes  45:43

I couldn’t sleep. I got a drink, smoked. I could not fall asleep.

Nestor Aparicio  45:47

8

This is a pre noon chocolate bean. Or

Mike Ricigliano  45:51

if you’re wrapping gifts late, or if you’re doing the Zika THON, you just take four or five of those and you can make the whole, yeah, the whole marathon.

Thomas Rhodes  45:58

That’s another thing. We got a Zika THON. We got a couple of our what is a Zika THON? To me. I mean, I don’t want to insult Dave or Joe, but it’s a Seinfeld thing. They just, they’re just hanging out. Okay? They said it’s a, it’s a friendship thing. So I’m gonna go with that too, but it’s just

Mike Ricigliano  46:13

the length of the day. You know? They sit from seven to six, yeah, and so people come in and out. It really was fun last year. What days were doing this Friday the 13th, 13th, which

8

Thomas Rhodes  46:22

is followed up by our we get to have Harford road happy hour that day that, oh, that’s

Marcella Knight  46:27

nice to the events up at the lot,

Thomas Rhodes  46:30

yeah, the lot that the Christmas tree. Christmas tree lighting. I can’t remember holiday on our holidays on

Nestor Aparicio  46:36

8

Harvey, holidays on harford.com I promoted this

Marcella Knight  46:39

earlier. Yeah, we did all that earlier.

Thomas Rhodes  46:40

And if you want to order any of our coffees, you can go to Zeke’s coffee.com there’s two options. Pick the warehouse option, because that’s the one we ship pounds of coffee. The other one is our cafe, which you can pre order your stuff and come pick up nice

Nestor Aparicio  46:56

as you need, as I’m going to do on the 13 for Zeke a THON. Nice, nice. You

8

Thomas Rhodes  47:00

order there, I’m

Nestor Aparicio  47:01

sure. Yeah, yeah, muffins. I like, I’m a muffin. Man.

Thomas Rhodes  47:03

Oh, do we have muffins? So we’re gonna have signature stuff, right? I hope we can maybe run it short on time. Yeah, it’s okay. We have a baker in house. Now

Nestor Aparicio  47:12

8

I’m a muffin. Oh, nice. So make me a good muffin. I’ll come have coffee with you. 90

Thomas Rhodes  47:16

95% of the stuff that you eat at Zeke’s coffee is scratch made in house. Nice. We don’t make English muffins because they’re a little hard to make. Yes, we go through so many of them and wraps. Joe, our chef is two time Baltimore, best chef. What’s

Nestor Aparicio  47:32

the best thing on your menu? Food? No offense to her, crab cake, but the best thing here is the cocoa shrimp. I mean, the shrimp are my thing here, you know, I

Thomas Rhodes  47:41

bet the crab cakes best thing. I

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Nestor Aparicio  47:42

know that, but I’m promoting coconut shrimp.

Thomas Rhodes  47:44

The burgers, good. I love the burger. Burger. I love the fish and chips too. The fish and chips are awesome here. I

Nestor Aparicio  47:49

haven’t had the fish also

Thomas Rhodes  47:51

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good. But what do I like to eat the most? I like a breakfast sandwich, basically on, you know, wheat sausage. He blends his own sausage. See that? That’s why we learn I get a hash brown on it and cheddar cheese. All right, I’m

Nestor Aparicio  48:06

coming. I’m there. I’m in for Zika THON. Wait lucky the 13th.

Thomas Rhodes  48:10

Wait till you see the pastry case. Yeah. The best part is, we

Nestor Aparicio  48:13

tape this. If I come on the 13th, the Ravens can’t lose between now and now. That’s, can’t miss any kicks, can’t have any problems, you know? I mean, that’s a

8

Mike Ricigliano  48:20

great point. Yeah,

Thomas Rhodes  48:21

I just don’t understand. He’s kicking him long enough, he’s in his head. It’s in his head. He’s in his head. Sorry, totally.

Nestor Aparicio  48:27

I’ve already offered, you know, the Royal farms commercial, where he’s the psychologist. I’ve already offered to be that psychologist for him. Yeah, that’s right. Well, if he had your coffee, he’d be fine. He needs to be fueled by Zeke’s. Is what he needs.

Mike Ricigliano  48:42

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We need something we need. We need him for the playoffs, man, we just

Nestor Aparicio  48:49

need. Hey, look, thanks for coming by and thanks for all you did for me years ago. I don’t know that I’ve ever said thanks, but you guys would come out and make coffee for our listeners on our trips. As a getaway, everybody had to pee when I got on the bus. Might have been the beer. Might have been the beer or the Chick fil A. I remember that was there too usually the mornings, too little biscuits. Mars is here. We are here in the place we love to come. It’s Coco’s. We have begun our holiday trek here. I’m gonna try to not gain too much weight, drink too much coffee, eat too much holiday goodies. Guys handed me chocolate. Dara bungen came by and made me biscotti to go home with my coffee. Marsh is gonna send me out of here. Crab cakes you recommend for me, royal blue as you think, is the blend I’m

Thomas Rhodes  49:34

gonna like. If you say you like Italian roast and stuff, you can drink this. That’s the darkest we have, all right, but this is my favorite. Now,

Marcella Knight  49:42

is it true that dark coffee has less caffeine? It is true. Okay, so that’s what I need to stick with, because

8

Thomas Rhodes  49:47

caffeine makes me totally I like it. It’s richer and smokier. I sort of, you know, it’s

Nestor Aparicio  49:51

more coffee ish,

Thomas Rhodes  49:52

well, I mean, I’m gonna say no to that a little bit, because I think, like the lighter rose that are from Central America are what. I smelled when my mom was making eight o’clock coffee. But

Nestor Aparicio  50:02

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I can never make them taste rich enough for me. I can never make like that lighter roast. I can use five times the amount of beans, less water,

Thomas Rhodes  50:12

filter water. It’s just a proper brewing, proper grind, fresh, too thin for me. It’s not you can do it. I have faith in you. Nestor, how do you how do you brew your coffee? What’s your what’s your machine? Um,

Nestor Aparicio  50:25

cousin art, okay,

Thomas Rhodes  50:26

so when you stop it at Zeke a thon at Z’s coffee on Friday the 13th, there we go. Lucky. Grab a Melita single cup Brewer, uh huh, and a small pack of number two filters, and play with it. You’ll find you’ll make and soon as that tea kettle makes its noise, start brewing, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll see what I’m you’ll see what I’m talking about. If

8

Nestor Aparicio  50:47

he only knew that, I wake up every morning at like, 3am and it’s like Nestor. The lights are out. My wife’s asleep. Sometimes the kitty’s asleep between my legs, and I leave her there, and I go down, and it’s my little thing, you know, in the morning, grind it.

Thomas Rhodes  51:05

Everybody wakes up, grind it. And then I Oh, you gotta get a better grinder,

Nestor Aparicio  51:09

nice and quiet, you know, if my wife put in there, and then I hear, beep, beep, beep. And that means, and I hear, and

51:19

8

I know it’s done good sound effects, and

Nestor Aparicio  51:21

then about 328, in the morning.

Thomas Rhodes  51:25

Can you imagine what time I get up in the coffee industry?

Nestor Aparicio  51:27

I don’t know. You probably don’t sleep. I

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Thomas Rhodes  51:29

love sleeping. I’m asleep. Your next investment will be a burr coffee grinder instead of a spice mill.

Nestor Aparicio  51:35

You’re gonna make me bougie. You’re gonna make me I’m gonna lose my Dundalk card. If I keep this up, you

Thomas Rhodes  51:40

can keep it. Dunduk, people can drink good cause I’m

Nestor Aparicio  51:43

8

allowed. I’m allowed royal blue or the gunpowder espresso Italian roast. One of these is gonna be renamed the nasty Nestor blend, once I figured out. Thomas Roach is here for sing. Is my co host. Marcella is here, all of her group here, Eric Liz baz, everybody’s been running around here today, treating people right for the holidays, come on in um, you tell me it’s going to be a winter wonderland in

Marcella Knight  52:06

your own Saturday, it is so much fun. You really should come by. It’s not just for kids. Rest tomorrow be open. Rest in peace, Bill. Um, yes, rest

Thomas Rhodes  52:16

in peace. But I miss our old

Marcella Knight  52:17

Santa. Oh, Santa, for all the events, he also looked like Jerry Garcia.

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Nestor Aparicio  52:23

What a wonderful life it is for anyone who plays the role of Santa, right? He

Thomas Rhodes  52:28

did a great job on a sidecar. He would drive a sidecar and his wife dressed up as an elf. They were badass. You know, I

Nestor Aparicio  52:34

used to say this to Billick all the time, as my partner. When he partnered with us 15 years ago, I would go out with him like two, three times a year. And we walk. We walk places. Like pocos was a sponsor. We would stop by middle of day, take a picture, go in the kitchen, do all that. It was like being with Santa Claus, you know, whenever I was with him, because he’s six foot seven, and he was so famous, you know, and he’s so good with everyone, always. But I would always say to him, we get in the car somewhere, because we would just stop to pee somewhere. We just be out on the road, like, Hey, I gotta go the bathroom. We’d stop, go in. Hey coach, hey coach, hey coach. And I’m like, it’s like being with Santa Claus hanging out. Because people see him, and they would just smile. They

Mike Ricigliano  53:11

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would I wish, I wish I could have tagged along with him, because I enjoyed him. So, oh, he’s such a cartoonist. I really, oh, my god, great to draw great, interesting coach, you know, no, so, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  53:25

you could draw a hard ball for however long he’s here. He’s got a job for life, apparently, right? Apparently, yeah, now next week’s program, we’ll talk football. I love being here at Cocos. I love giving out our Raven scratch offs. I’m going to give them everyone in the bar. We’re going to be at Gertrude at the BMA on Thursday. We’re going to be at failies at Lexington market next Wednesday. Matt Gallagher signed it to be a victim on that show on two or Tuesday the 17th, were to meet you’s a little Italy. They don’t have a crab cake, but we’re going to make it up. We’re going to get a Connie Rotunda

Marcella Knight  53:53

stop in there. That way, we’re going to be to meet

Nestor Aparicio  53:57

you’s on the 17 there. Oh,

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Thomas Rhodes  54:00

so

Mike Ricigliano  54:02

restaurant, yeah, well, they

Thomas Rhodes  54:03

make the best chicken parm, if you ask me, okay,

Nestor Aparicio  54:06

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thank you for saying that. I would say this, I pimp your coconut shrimp and Dara Bucha. I want to give her some love, because she came on. She’s the food enthusiast from J Moore. She spent an hour here talking about her corn pudding that she added to my Thanksgiving the whole notion of like doing this and talking about food and getting people together, she said to me, I didn’t know her until she sat down next to me a little while ago, but she was texting me yesterday, and I said to her, the coconut trip. Have you ever had? She loves your crab cake. And she said, no happiness. It’s top five thing in the city that you don’t know about, that you need to get. And she’s like, Ooh, you know, she’s a foodie, foodie, whatever I would say if I’m making a list of things, the meatball at a meat cheese, if you get the meatballs appetizer, and you get the bread, the cheese bread that’s in the oven, and you combine, you put the meatball on the. I call that the nasty Nestor sandwich because it’s not on their menu. You got to order the cheese bread and then order the meatballs and put it together like a meatball sub, right? And it has something to do with the garlic toast and the cheese with the meatball. That’s a winner. And I would say the other if I top five, not the number one thing in the city for me. No offense to you, or any crab cake or anything else, the tempura broccoli at Eco bin is my favorite thing. That is also great, like that is

Mike Ricigliano  55:25

a top five in my top

Nestor Aparicio  55:29

Yeah. So the coconut shrimp, to me, is one of those things, but the meatball to me, cheese and I and listen to chicken parm the Pawnee Rotunda was their crab cake, right? Everybody gets that. That’s their thing. It’s a shrimp scampi and a bread bowl. Phenomenal. Everybody will get that. Get the meatballs. Don’t sleep on the red sauce at a beach. So maybe I see the next two things, I think the Berea quesadilla at Nacho mamas and to Allison, Whoo, that’s good, you know? So I’m just trying to think of things I love.

Thomas Rhodes  55:54

This is, um, this is a season for either Masta loans or deep Ellies meatball sub, of course. Oh yeah, that’s a killer. Yeah,

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Nestor Aparicio  56:02

I like that. Sunday

Thomas Rhodes  56:04

is Saturday afternoon, watching another ball and sleep another

Marcella Knight  56:09

all local, big enough for, like, a party. It’s

Thomas Rhodes  56:12

8

I used to eat it. I used to eat it by myself. I don’t I can’t do it anymore. I used to eat your what I’m getting for dinner by myself. I can’t do it. Yeah? No, I just can’t eat as much anymore.

Nestor Aparicio  56:21

I know You expected me to plug the meatballs at a Kia, but I’m not gonna do that. My son loves that. All right. Bye, local shop, local get out the Cocos. Come by, see the parrots and have Margarita and have some spiked eggnog with Marcella. I am Nestor. My thanks to rasig, who left his wife at home because she froze here the last time. But I really

Mike Ricigliano  56:41

need to talk about No, no.

Marcella Knight  56:42

I know they you know, I’m the only one that’s cold around here. Everyone else says it’s too hot in here, and if I turn the heat up, I get

8

Mike Ricigliano  56:50

yelling my wife, you know, you can’t if it was 75 in here, it would be too cold for Terry. So yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  56:56

I am the biggest wimp on a 25 degree day you’ve ever seen in

Marcella Knight  57:01

your life. I’m sitting here freezing now, feeling Thomas

Mike Ricigliano  57:03

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was at the Penn State game and 15 degree weather last week.

Marcella Knight  57:07

Windshield. Forget to to give you our website for shipping. Good. We talked about it. What is it? It is Cocos, pub.com, click on the shipping and it’ll take you right to our shipping section where you can place your order, super easy. We also now have shipping gift cards, so you can purchase a gift card for crab cakes, if you like. You want to, you know, send crab cakes to someone, but you don’t know when they’re going to be home. You can purchase, we

Nestor Aparicio  57:35

went through this earlier. When you ship crab cakes, it’s not a surprise, right? Tell the people you

Marcella Knight  57:41

can get a gift card, and they can get a gift card and this place, and then place the order right through the website with that shipping gift

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Nestor Aparicio  57:47

card. And then you can eat them on Valentine’s day if you want, or eat them whenever you get them fresh, when

Thomas Rhodes  57:52

you want. And when you’re done ordering your crab cakes, you can go to zcoffy.com and order yourself a couple pounds. There you go for the morning coffee

Marcella Knight  57:59

and crab cake. Man. Brewing

58:00

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there.

Nestor Aparicio  58:04

I’m thinking about, no idea about the coffee rubbed burger. Now you got me like Jones. All right, I gotta take a break. We’re gonna come back talk some football. Luke’s been running around bye week. We are doing the Maryland crab cake tour everywhere. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. Yeah, I feel like Oprah, when I you get a ticket, you get a ticket. Everybody gets a free ticket. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care also want to give a shout out to curio wellness, foreign daughter, as well as Liberty pure solutions. One 800 clean water for keeping my water clean and making the the holiday and spirits bright as well. Big appreciation for the oyster tour and what they’ve done for our 26th anniversary.

Thomas Rhodes  58:40

One more thing, though, we would like to offer to your listeners, if they mentioned wnsc at the shop, a free 10 ounce cup of coffee. Oh, man, dark roast. Any light, light medium, darker kneecap. Don’t

Nestor Aparicio  58:52

get the light roast. Get the dark. Get real coffee. If you’re going to love to do that

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Marcella Knight  58:55

for a crab cake, but

Thomas Rhodes  58:59

a little bit different, pack of crackers. Maybe pack your crackers.

Nestor Aparicio  59:02

I knew we were going to talk about that civic when you came by Nestor, we are W N S T A and 1570 Towson, Baltimore, we are back for more w n s d stay with us. Man, you.