Without ruffling feathers, our friend and Koco’s Pub proprietor Marcella Knight told Nestor tales of the beautiful stories of Savannah Jane, her red macau that was a life lesson in love, care and aviary freedom on “A Cup Of Soup Or Bowl Week” in Lauraville for the Maryland Food Bank. And true lore of the late, great Harvey Myers, potty parties and NFL games at the Emerald Tavern before the Ravens came to Baltimore.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
crab cake, today, parent, harvey, coco, luke, bar, place, day, food bank, people, give, maggie, maryland, talk, savannah, eggnog, donation, bird, soup
SPEAKERS
Marcella Knight, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:02
Welcome home we are home and law reveal we’re at Coco’s pub come on down places getting like crowded in here. We’ve got like boxes of Scott Norton just walked in with a whole bunch Campbell’s Soup, some saltines some sugar. Nobody’s sweeter than Marcela who is here. She is our hosts for host with the most and the 11 ounce crabcakes Luke Jones has walked in wearing his Baltimore positive sweatshirt. He’s staring at me. At the bar, pretend it’s five o’clock and you’re in Vegas. And the ravens are in a Super Bowl. And drinks are free because they are at least for you today. So we’re out here. We’re doing it for the Maryland Food Bank. Luke in receipt. You’re gonna be here all afternoon, Scott Norton just walked in was rush sweatshirt. We’re going to talk to baseball. Maurice has got information from a local sister neighborhood place that Maggie’s kitchen. It’s donated Maryland Food Bank. Come on. It is a couple of Super Bowl. We’re here until five today, but they’re here all night. I’m in state fair all day tomorrow, beginning in the morning with Carmen del Cueto from the food bank. John rollos coming tomorrow now I found that out. Friday, we’re at Pappus. All day beginning at nine to five. We’re going to be the back room and Cockeysville don’t go to the wrong look. Don’t go to Bel Air. Don’t go to Glen Burnie. Don’t go to Parkville meet us up in Cockeysville. ample free parking there as well. People are bringing stuff here. Maurice love this idea. I think you were the first one that I told about the idea to do this because I was here during the show getting to crabcake or I was
Marcella Knight 01:28
you were here with your wife. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:29
think I was I I’ve had a thing with fried shrimp lately, man. Like I’ve been craving it and I I’ll run the Costas and get those dusted up once I come over here and get your raspberry Kona nobody doesn’t like you. I mean, like I swear like nobody does them. Well, yeah. Where did you steal that recipe? Is that some Jimmy Buffett thing? What’s going on with that?
Marcella Knight 01:51
Their labor of love. That’s what? Trey’s coming in. Yeah, so we do. We do them all from hand right here. So that’s why they’re good. They’re exactly, exactly.
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:00
People. I mean, crabcake, cranky, cranky. Shrimp. Yeah, we’ve
Marcella Knight 02:08
got a lot of other things on our menu. We’ve got fantastic ribs. We have people that drive ribs, drive here from Sykesville to get our ribs they’ll call me to make sure we have today
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:19
they can get them you can give them any day. Okay.
Marcella Knight 02:23
So many of them because we’re not known for our ribs. We’re known for our crab cakes. So when they’re out they’re out. But what you should be known for your
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:30
coconut shrimp and I
Marcella Knight 02:32
think we’re getting known for our coconut shrimp.
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:34
I’m trying to get hydrated here. Tell me what’s going on. Oh my god we got drops out.
Marcella Knight 02:41
How are you? Good to see you.
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:44
You know Luke judges usually it’s a super but the big. The big game. He’s usually at the big game, you know, so we got Oriole fans here. Yeah, a new and improved Orioles. You know, what was here was summertime every time an Orioles new owners who? Like this is going to be a beautiful thing. Yes,
Marcella Knight 03:00
yes, it is our babies form you want to Okay, cool. Yeah. So Maggie’s Farm. Their head bartender is sitting at our bar right now having lunch and I told him that today we are doing this fundraiser. And in addition to food donations, that we’re doing cash, receiving cash donations, and anyone that does a cash donation. We will match up to $25 and a gift card to Coco’s. So if you give a $50 donation, you’re gonna get a $25 gift card to Coco’s to us at a future time. So that’s something we’re doing and then the bartender heard me say it and he was like, cool, and he went in his pocket and he whipped out 25 bucks, and I already sold my first gift card.
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:46
I’m gonna put Luke to work because my kid yesterday was the intern here. Luke, we were giving away lottery tickets here. I forgot this part. We got lottery tickets to Oh, yeah, I want your guy from Maggie’s Farm to get
Marcella Knight 03:56
one with Absolutely. I’m gonna get him up here.
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:58
I gotta give you one, two. Okay, friends, window nation and GQ. Gladding plug our sponsors. You’re one of them. You know? Yes, we’re giving these away. We had a $10 winner the other day. Luke. Here you go man. Have some lottery tickets. Give them out to some people man looks looks hanging out. He’s gonna be doing radio and rest of the day. He’s been wearing some since Baltimore. positive people. Yeah, he’s a he’s a paid representative. He came prepared. Absolutely. I’m giving you crabcake dude, it’s gonna be big as your head. Tell everybody about the 11 ounce crabcake because loose never had a crabcake I’ve been telling him. You can come down to Coco’s one today’s the day and we’re gonna talk sports today. The new and improved Orioles today. All of that. The Legend of your crab cake for people that don’t know about it.
Marcella Knight 04:42
It’s never had it. Okay. So my mom is the original crab cake maker as you know. She always made everything big and always made everything fresh. She was fresh, obsessed. And you know, we started selling crab cakes. Back in 1985 when we open, but back then we only sold a couple a week. You know, we weren’t known for our food. We were more of a bar back then. There was a pool table sitting right? Oh, yeah, we had pool tables and poker machines and bar and what do you call the shuffle bowl tables. So we had all that kind of stuff. But then you know, we turn more into a restaurant and food is taken off. And so the crab cake is a recipe that my mom came up with from working at different establishments when she was growing up and in business. And there are 11 ounces because that was the size that she made with her hands. She never weighed them back then. But when she was teaching me how to make crab cakes, I said, well, I need to make them just like you and our hands are different. So we need to weigh these. So we started weighing all the ingredients because she did it all by hand. She never weighed anything, she just whipped it all up. And so that’s how it came about.
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:57
I’ve washed your staff here from the beginning of the day and I want to give you a whole staff look, I came in the door at 730 I hooked everything up we’ve been on the air for for you know but all kidding aside I mean I came here early this morning and and I would say this about my first sponsors because it really all this is reminding me sir 25th anniversary run the reason I’m doing this and it’s old school and I’m live again. Maria came up losing the neighborhood brought Ken she’s like, I’m so glad you’re alive is makeup like don’t get used to it. You know, like it’s, you know, I’m good at it. And it’s but it’s stressful and I’m not as friendly during the breaks and I gotta pee and hydrate. I don’t get to drink anything. I eat anything.
Marcella Knight 06:34
Give me Give me you know how it feels to work in a restaurant.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:38
I got here in the morning. It’s live when
Marcella Knight 06:40
you’re working. You don’t get the string.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:45
There’s there’s, there’s hoses, there’s this there’s moving things I need to spoon. Like all this happens. And this happens with people and you have to scrape people on the board.
Marcella Knight 06:55
I mean, we do we have amazing crew here. I’m such good people. It’s I think it’s magnetic energy. Nice people allow me nice. Well, loud. Exactly.
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:10
Marcella Knight is the proprietor and her mom got together 39 years ago. So this is where we get a little you know, misty eyed to tell a story. It’s first off right Bachmann just text me and said did Harvey die? And I’m like yeah, Harvey died. I want to fix your mic is beep it’s getting louder. Every nose keep them off like you stay on my Harley Meyers was a glue between you and I I wrote a tribute to Harvey Harvey’s son in law. Greg Landry was on the show Monday with Baltimore outreach services. And he’s Towson transfers. Harvey at a bar called the Emerald tavern. And you the first time I met you, you and your mom used to watch football? Yeah, with me and everybody else at the
Marcella Knight 07:53
party spot for football. And there was
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:57
no gambling going on in that pain. Yeah, I mean, none of that was going on. With Carmen and those guys out front. But you and I met there and Harvey did this YMCA thing and this party party. And I wrote about and I thought, Man, that’s a great story that he literally would lock the doors to the bar and say free beer until someone piece right and
Marcella Knight 08:22
yet too skinny side crazy was so much fun.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:26
And he would go around the bar and he had this way about how he danced. He had this big old white guy dancing. Teddy bears are big teams are big. And he loved the YMCA. So for those of you miss John, holy, how is it that I invited the YMCA guy here
Marcella Knight 08:45
today? Isn’t that crazy? As you were saying that I was like, what? Come on wife
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:51
that. And I just went through it like John holy from the white. And then he sat down and I’m like, oh my god, I’m wearing a village Alpbachtal to honor heart. Everything you were saying about Harvey because I think of you as being this little dynamo and person. And you have this incredible business here. And I think people would underestimate you, right? I mean, in regard to running a restaurant, and in regard to you and your mom and turning something that nobody would have turned into this legendary place. But you bought beer and food and buffet, you were a customer in places before you were a proprietor, what you liked and what you didn’t like, and your mom and you liked the Emerald Tavern in New York. I mean, it was a great place for you to hang and then you got your own place. And I’m thinking you always say to me cook at our place. We got crab cakes and I did but Harvey had a reason we went and he had satellite dishes. Yeah,
Marcella Knight 09:48
well you know what’s funny is that the first day we went there, my mom and I were out shopping and we’re like, oh let’s stop by and you know, get a bite to eat and get get a drink before we had her him, and we went in there and it was like, wow. And then we went every Sunday. Every Sunday. That was our thing. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:07
know. I mean, it was football and it was so much fun. I wear my oils. It was a good time. I loved Harvey so Harvey, we loved you. For sure. Of
Marcella Knight 10:15
your party and up there and the parties in heaven.
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:20
You know, I see Harvey laying at the beach somewhere and, you know, up in the good place, Marcellus here. We’re doing this for, really for the Maryland Food Bank and food insecurity. When I said to you doing this thing you you said I hate to think of people going to bed hungry. Oh,
Marcella Knight 10:39
I just can’t imagine because I know how I feel when I’m hungry. Right? I get hangry I get terribly angry. I can’t think straight. I’m just i My heart goes out to people that are hungry. I can’t imagine. So I’m really really happy to know what you do 20 To do this to get here. So yeah, so um, if you get here by five o’clock and you want to I think I already said this. But if you don’t have vegetables in your back pocket and you come in and you want to do a cash donation, we’re accepting cash donations. And in return, we’re gonna give you $25 gift card to Coco’s if you if you give a $25 cash donation. If you give a $50 cash donation, you still get a $25 gift to me, so you get you get something back and you can come back to Coco’s with us. And then obviously, we you know, we’re doing the food donations and then I think you said today that the Maryland Food Bank unfortunately wasn’t able to pick up today like your other location we’re gonna Yeah, so we call down to our local church St. Francis of Assisi and they’re gonna send someone up today at five o’clock to pick up the food donations for their food pantry, Chesterfield Park. Chad says Chesterfield in Harford right
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:59
but Chesterfield Park man I know, I used to go there cover games back in the day, right here. Yeah,
Marcella Knight 12:05
we up we do a lot with St. Francis, a lot of our customers come from there. Their kids go to the school and their church. And so they’re important part of our community
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:14
or your important part of the community what’s going on around here you do specials and do different things other than ordering a crab cake and and I would always say to people like you curbside crab cakes, because this is all you got. Right? And you’re not expanding. And on a Friday night at seven o’clock. If you’re hankering one, and you don’t want to wait or this or that. You click and like pick them up. Right, literally right. They told me I wasn’t allowed to use the tables in front because you use that for for carry out all day long. Right? Planks changed a lot of businesses, right? I mean, in some way awful at that time. But it’s made people change habits in some way. Right? It’s absolutely in your biggest businesses bigger now than it was five years ago.
Marcella Knight 12:53
Oh, yeah, absolutely. We, you know, during COVID, we only did carry out and we did that for almost a whole year and a half. COVID started in Yeah, it started in March of 2020. And we didn’t open for business until the end of June of 2021. For indoor dining, I mean, we did a phenomenal carry out. Yeah. And then we had to change everything to make it available for carry out once we opened back up inside, because we didn’t have the space or the you know, the refrigeration space or the ability to do both. So we used to have a little kitty corner, which is now our host area and pickup area for carry out. So unfortunately, we don’t have the kiddy corner anymore, but most of the kids grew up already. So the new ones don’t even know it ever existed. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:44
nice. Well, we’ve been telling stories here the whole time. And St. Francis of Assisi. Is there any charity you want to talk about a little bit here is
Marcella Knight 13:52
because this is something different and talk to you about oh, I know. I know. So I was really excited. Our logo is a scarlet McCall. And her name is Savannah Jean. And she is a parent that I had for 17 years.
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:08
I never I wore the shirt for your parents. Oh, because I have a parrot over here and everything and you’re so colorful. And this morning. I’m like I’m gonna wear my colorful shirt. Yeah, and I had my Coco’s logo on but I’m trying to I knew the door be open and it was chilly today. Yeah.
Marcella Knight 14:24
You don’t want to I just got back from Florida. So it’s quite chilly.
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:26
But this this shirt was to honor your parents realized so
Marcella Knight 14:30
so my parents can live to be like 80 years old, your parents still alive. She’s still alive. But we were talking. I don’t have her anymore because at age 17 I gave her to a parent sanctuary. Okay, so when I got her I knew very little about taking care of a parent and learned on the go. And because fins were my my x fins and so we We got the parrot when when we had fins, fins
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:03
was a bar in, in Upper Canton or lower
Marcella Knight 15:07
point. And then we moved to Ocean City. It was registry from Kissling.
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:11
And it had a whole buffet. The theme was
Marcella Knight 15:15
a great place. Great. Great. played everything. Yeah. So, so anyway, I had Savannah gene for 17 years, and then she started with me. I know that’s why we named her because I always said if I got a blue and gold I would name it Delaney because that’s his son’s name. So the rubble pair feathers parents sanctuary is in Crescent City, Florida. And it started here in Hampstead. When I placed Savannah Jane with the sanctuary there, it was very small, had a couple of outdoor aviaries she maybe had 20 Birds or something. Now they are on like 165 acres in Florida GooglePlus. Savannah J lives there. And she’s able to they have aviaries as large as our entire establishment here. And she’s able to fly from one end to the other. She’s with all kinds of other birds like herself. Because what happens is they start to they have a human lifespan, they start to want to meet, she started plucking out all her feathers, because she was stressed and hormonal. And she really needed another parent. And one was plenty for me. So I did a lot of research and I found her the right home. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:43
have a friend of mine who has a relatives in Texas. She explained this to me a couple months ago. She relatives in Texas and they have a bird, right. And this bird has a shine to her when she goes home for the holidays. The bird wants to be with her right? And she said that she’s eventually going to be the parent for the bird, right? It’s like 40 years old, and she’s like the bird is gonna live another 30 years. Exactly. So whenever I get it, you have to right right. So but she’s like, I’m visiting my parent for the holidays. She told me this. And she was telling me this story. She’s like, eventually when you know when they surrender the bird, I’m gonna take the bird, right because the bird loves me and I love the bird and that’s that’s,
Marcella Knight 17:21
that’s beautiful. Yeah, but
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:23
she’s waiting to do it because she realizes what you maybe didn’t realize when you got the parent, right, like literally right, right.
Marcella Knight 17:31
I mean, they really shouldn’t be look at
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:33
this ruffled feathers. Like Jackie today. Learned. Yeah, bird. Feathers. Yeah, Bird Rescue surrender. One simple phone call and a rapid response team helps.
Marcella Knight 17:44
They were right there. They came and picked her up right away. Well, they came and saw her and I needed to think about it. And then a couple of days later, I took her there and I visited her a few times when she was in Hampstead. Unfortunately, I haven’t been to the Florida location yet, but it looks absolutely amazing. Like if there’s a parent heaven, it’s ruffled feathers parent sanctuary, all right. And it’s a complete nonprofit. They run on donations and volunteers and hopefully whenever I get to retire maybe I can go down there and and visit or you want to take her volunteer and have the freedom she Oh no, no, no, I would never do that. She’s She’s found her true home. They really parents really shouldn’t be in characters at mastic paths. Yeah. Unfortunately a lot of people get them and don’t know just like I didn’t but I feel good that I at least found her a really good home to live in. Now. I know that and that’s why I used to actually bring her in to work sometimes and the kids would love it. When I would tell him that we know we were bringing we’re playing it like a couple of weeks in advance and have her here and so many people would flock and see your
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:57
walking here for the remainder is
Marcella Knight 18:59
the story of Savannah Jane and ruffled feathers. Parrot sanctuary in Florida. If you’re looking for something special to donate to. It’s a wonderful, wonderful program.
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:11
I told Jim when I dreamed this thing up my kid was the one that came up with a couple of Super Bowl because he said to me that all your places have merit. You do crab cakes. They should do crab soup. It’s February. It’s called the soup org super Maryland crab soup and then I thought up this crazy wacky thing. It’s crazy. We
Marcella Knight 19:29
used to do a thing with soup. Do you remember?
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:34
I know St. Vincent’s was with Ed blocks I but I don’t know about it. Yeah,
Marcella Knight 19:37
they used to do a thing where you you brought you made a bowl or you brought a bowl and they fill they fed a hungry person. I can’t recall exactly how it worked. But it was a really neat program. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:50
we got to the program here. Come on by we’re sporting the Maryland Food Bank. Give it away 10 times the cash the Maggie’s Farm people be your Lucas here running around Have a look at that lottery tickets talking baseball football which he loves to do stop by see Luke receipt will be here around two. I’m really looking forward to doing two o’clock to three o’clock received and I and Luke are gonna is going to talk about football baseball for an hour. So we’re going to do some sports today. He want me to grab baggies for him. I do that next while they’re eating a crab cake and I you know, bartenders eating crab cakes. I’m not getting my hand bitten
Marcella Knight 20:22
off. He’s actually eating chicken tenders today because he comes here a couple times a week. tenders we have really good everything. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:32
think if I’ve had your chicken tenders, I don’t know that I have.
Marcella Knight 20:35
They’re delicious. You know why everything’s so good. Our kitchens really tiny. Everything is fresh totally. And as soon as it’s made, it’s in the window and in front of you. It doesn’t sit under heat lamps, waiting for somebody to pick it up. Mm hmm. Everything literally comes right out of the fryer and right in front of you and it’s fresh, hot and delicious. Don’t
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:54
get a cheeseburger in paradise in Lara Ville. I’m watching Liz back there slinging it right now in the kitchen. I have loose cam over my camera. I have crab cake cam. I’ve got carry out can I can see everything with the bar behind me and I hope nobody’s giving me rabid weird. We are filling up. It’s lunchtime here. We’re Coco’s Bob It’s 1220 in real time and support the parents support cocoa support the Maryland Food Bank come on out it’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I have the wacky hat from window nation 8669 You nation by to get you free or excuse me? No, it’s 0% financing. Don’t let me give the wrong promotion 0% financing for five years 8669 I got my Windows already. I need doors now. I got like the light crack coming in. So 2024 I’m gonna open the doors to the new and improved Orioles as well. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care. Morris love you appreciate you. All right. One the best crab cake by the way. You want the best crab cake thing at the crab cake festival. Ross was our first guest in the Maryland lottery was spinning a lottery wheel there that day. And you want to say that was an amazing thing. Right?
Marcella Knight 22:00
It was incredible. We were so over the moon excited. It was crazy. We were happy to just do do the festival because and sell out a crab cake because it was something that we’re you know, we’re we don’t usually do festivals because we’re so small. So my kitchen manager Eric came to me and asked if we could do it. And I was like, Okay, we’ll do it. We’ll see. Exactly, yeah, right. So we did it. And the furthest thing from our mind was winning the Best crabcake we were just excited to be there and be part of it. And then we want it and that was just it was so exciting. I can’t tell you. And we got some free advertising because we want that was the package. It was $10,000 in free advertising with 100.7 the bay. And look
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:44
how many people are listening to the bay? Yeah, no. I mean, I would just say this for you. I mean, everything you guys have done here, but you took last week off, right?
Marcella Knight 22:53
Yeah, we close twice a year for vacation. A week in the winter and a week in the summer and everyone goes away, gets a break and the whole team comes back fresh and ready. smiles on their face. They put
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:05
it back on the menu for me. I got eggnog. Are you 12 month eggnog join?
Marcella Knight 23:10
No, we’re not nuts. What
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:12
do they what do we have it today? It said it on the right behind my head.
Marcella Knight 23:16
I think you’re seeing a mule. But it’s awesome. The cranberry mule is amazing. Dog. Oh, it’s not eggnog season.
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:27
When I came here this morning and said eggnog for so way I swear to you, it said mold for five bucks and eggnog for seven bucks, whatever five bucks.
Marcella Knight 23:42
I don’t know.
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:45
Alright, so I’m gonna make you laugh because you and I are old enough to be off color. This is this is the last original seat cushion from who has a seat cushion? Yeah, honestly, I had this get nasty book. So if anybody remembers the Monty Python song that I used to play underneath of this. This is the last one and I’m sitting on it because my back’s no good. So my wife thought it was funny that I’m sitting on my face today. So you like that? I know you’d like that. I’m Nestor we are WASD we’re back for more Come on.
Marcella Knight 24:18
Groceries with your come in with your vegetables and and any perishable food item you’d like to donate and you can get a cup of Maryland, or cream or crab or 5050 or 5050 I want to talk to you don’t have the vegetables in your pocket. Well, you can donate cash. When
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:36
Maggie’s Farm comes up. We’re going to talk about 5050 soup. All right, Marcel is gonna stay for one more segment then Luke’s gonna hang out. We’re gonna do Maggie’s Farm. We’ll take a quick break. It’s it’s the crab cake, bro. I knew I was gonna get out of hand with live radio back for more right after this.
