Pouring East Baltimore love into the ingredients and Essex community at Pizza John’s

Yes, they’ll put pineapple on it for you at Pizza John’s but traditions – new and old – are still waiting for you on Back River Neck Road in Essex. Brett Steall of Pizza John’s and Leonard Raskin join Nestor on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to discuss this venerable and established-in-1966, family-owned treasure known for its consistent pizza quality and local community ties. Oh, and that memorable pepperoni…

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Essex sub shop, Pizza John’s, family history, pepperoni pizza, Northern Lights, crab cake, local sponsors, community ties, pizza traditions, food quality, customer stories, birthday celebration, menu variety, local connections, pizza experience

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Leonard Raskin, Brett Steall

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

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Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, Dallas, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. I I’m in the homeland of Essex. I mean, Dundalk is really my homeland, but my parents homeland is here in Essex. My parents were married about a mile away from here at Mount Carmel church, still there in Eastern Avenue, between Eastern and old Eastern Avenue the Thunderbird. My parents lived at Joe’s and Anne’s corner, right here, three blocks away at Mars estates, and they were here when pizza John’s was established back in 1966 that’s before I was established in 1968 it is my birthday. They have brought me. I have renamed this pizza Brett Steele’s here. What’s your official title here? Vice President, Vice President, Vice

Brett Steall  00:42

President, Vice President, charge of pizza. Charge of everything. Pizza, pasta,

Nestor Aparicio  00:45

subs. Leonard Raskin, has never been you’ve been to Essex, but you’ve never been to John. Never been to pizza, John. And this is the thing. And Brett called me this summer. He’s like, we got to get back on the air. But you reach people that you know on the other side of town. And I’m like, everybody on this side of town knows about this place or has been here. It’s question of coming back, what you find when you come back. This is literally the birthday room, is what I would call it. There’s like kids games there. When I come on Saturdays, always families in here, running around screaming. I said it’s, it’s a little bit like Chuck E Cheese, except the pizza’s good. So I said a little bit like that. But pizza John’s is always here. So this is we’re gonna rename this the Venezuelan Dundalk Hawaiian pizza. And I’m just making this up. I’m gonna tell people, but nobody knows anything about Venezuelans. I’ll say, in Venezuela we put the pepperoni on the pizza with the Hammond. We don’t. But I just want to say that, because my wife came in here two weeks ago on a raven game day. She called in the order we had discussed this, and she called and said, I’ll have the Hawaiian, and the pizza came home. No pepperoni on That’s right, so I got, we got to find a name for this. So, because this is my favorite, am I the only guy in the world that orders a Hawaiian with pepperoni?

Brett Steall  01:58

No, you, but usually it’s bacon, not pepperoni. Oh, which is sweet, salty, Smokey. I have

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Nestor Aparicio  02:05

never had a piece of bacon at Pizza John’s in my life. It’s honestly

Brett Steall  02:09

the best comes from one of the oldest smokehouses in the country. It’s amazing.

Nestor Aparicio  02:14

This is so you think Cisco pulls up back and it is throat. No, no, no. Tell him, Alfred, like you make videos and when you’ve done Food Network stuff, I mean, you’re a legitimate I mean, Mr. John Peter, the people that have owned this the family for 5060, well, 50, how many years? 5858 because I’m 56 this week, I’m doing the math. There you go. Little little younger than you, a little older to me, right? Um, these are the recipes. When you come here and get this pizza, this pizza taste exactly like the pizza I have when I was a boy in 1973 7475 when I came

Brett Steall  02:50

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minus the pineapple. That’s that’s a new arrival. This century has 10 years, 1010, years. The past decade or so

Leonard Raskin  02:56

people have been into

Brett Steall  02:58

we hold off. Yes, we hope we’ve how we hold off on all these different things.

Nestor Aparicio  03:02

This is Essex. He’s a conservative people. He’s this is my conservative friend. This

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Leonard Raskin  03:06

is Democrat. You don’t go exotic to the pepperoni till the last 10 years. We don’t

Brett Steall  03:10

have anything fancy over here. Okay, you’re gonna get your basics, and it’s always gonna be the same. And good, great, great.

Nestor Aparicio  03:17

Don’t call it good. I

Brett Steall  03:18

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don’t want to, I don’t want to set the bar.

Nestor Aparicio  03:19

I’ll call it great. I could call it great. You know, I love your place. They could call that the Nestor. I love this place. Long before you guys were sponsors, like I used to come in here all the time begging you guys to sponsor me back in the 90s, when nobody had ever heard of me. I’m 34 years in now, and Brett called me this summer and said, We want to be on Baltimore. Positive you have a crab cake here. So when I say I’m doing a crab cake Tor, pizza, John’s, they what you added that a number of years ago? Right? Yeah,

Brett Steall  03:45

right around 2020, 2019, we had it, but now we make it in house. We used to buy, you know, frozen just, you know, it’s not our thing. But then I kind of stumbled across it because I hired a chef from somewhere else, and he kind of taught us the recipe. And, you know, now we have a crab cake, which I put up against anyone’s crab cake, beautiful. He’s gonna put it on. I, honestly, I will, and honestly, I think it’s that good. It’s all jumbo X, very little filler.

Nestor Aparicio  04:14

It’s from California. You didn’t know about a crab cake,

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Brett Steall  04:17

absolutely not. Where are you from? I’m from Long Island, Oyster Bay, Long Island, Long Island.

04:21

How do you wind up here?

Brett Steall  04:22

I met my wife in college and never looked back. I went to Mount St Mary’s up in Emmitsburg. There you go. And we started dating. I don’t know she was 19. I was 20 Baltimore. Girl, she is Towson, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  04:33

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Towson. Girl, yeah, that’s it. I feel like I’ve known you forever. You’ve been a pizza John’s a long time, since 1995

Brett Steall  04:38

when I graduated from the mount. There you go, going on

Nestor Aparicio  04:42

30 years. Well, I mean, Sharon was here, right? I jj, jj, was here, and he’s been here 22 years, right? Running your kitchen up in the front, the pizza side. I mean, when you come here, you see the same people. You see families. This is, I mean, Michelle’s been here since 2009 15 years. Or she runs the business with you and and when I come in here, I walked in here at 1145 and it was kind of quiet pre lunch, and I walked in and I made a right turn to go to the bathroom, and an older gentleman, you know, little older than you, Leonard, little 64 had a ball cap on. He’s like, hi, Nestor, like, I walk in and, you know, like, this is sold home, baby, sold home, absolutely. Brett Steele is here a letter asking, I promise to tell a Northern Light story on the way back into this thing. And did you see the Northern Lights? Brett, I did not. I’m wondering percentage why you missed it. You were asleep, right? No,

Leonard Raskin  05:37

I was coming back into town. I missed it. Well, I

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Nestor Aparicio  05:39

want to tell this story, because I don’t have so I’m obsessed with the Northern Lights. Okay, last 10 or 15 years since my wife’s illness, like 2014 I’ve been to Iceland a couple of times, I’m sure. As a younger man, I flew somewhere and the Southwest pilot said, if you look off to the right, you might see the northern lights. And I didn’t think anything of it in my 20s, my 30s, you know what I mean. But really, the last 15 years, you’re the American dream guy. He manages money, and he talks about save your money so you can do something you really want to do with it, whether it’s take the kids to Disney World, whether it’s by a boat, whatever it is, right? I spent a lot of my money on travel and experiential things. You know that concerts the greatest memories, places to go. I’ve been all over the world. I mean, you know, I don’t brag. I’ve been to Africa. My wife, her thing is, the is the Safari, that’s what she wants to do. And I said to her, I’m absolutely into going to South Africa. Almost went no six for no 1010. Was the World Cup. A bunch of friends and I in the market crashed in nine. They all got broke. We didn’t go to Africa for the World Cup. Turned out to be terrible for the US. The weather was fine that I didn’t go, but she wants to go. I’m the bucket list thing for me, of the Northern Lights, well, her thing you can actually do, right? You want to go to the Seychelles, if that’s on your bucket list, if it’s on your bucket list, to go to Phuket, if it’s seeing the Taj Mahal, if it’s going to Moscow, you wherever you want to do you can do it the Northern Lights. You got a cat? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s like crabs. You got to catch them. You know what? I mean, you got to you got to go get them. They don’t come out of the water. So the last couple of years, we have learned that the forecast is available, right? That the N, O, A, A forecast exists. So now, in the modern era, when the Northern Lights are gonna happen, you see it on your timeline, on Facebook or whatever. So the last couple five years, we have been plot, really 10 years. There’s a place in Upper Finland. It’s called caucus Lawton, K, a, U, k, s, l, a, U, T, E, N, coxlaut, and you can look it up. It’s, they have the igloos, the over, you know, the clear igloos, and they have the mush dogs. And it’s your thing, like, you freeze your ass off. Like, I know this going in, I’m gonna freeze my ass off, but my wife’s there. There’s a fire pit. It’s very beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s very Nordic. All that they have the mush dogs, you can do things during the day. They have activities skiing, which nobody can. I did that one time in Norway. Killed it. Killed I went from here. I didn’t make it to the ice cream bar. Brett. I’m like, did these things off me? Actually, I did it. Took a picture. I went cross country skiing, and I didn’t ski from here to the restroom, but I was gonna do that, and it’s gonna be cold. And still, you can spend name, your number three, grand, five, grand, 10 grand, whatever it is. If you go to Africa and you stay on Oprah’s resort, you’re gonna see elements. You’re gonna see the big five. Yep, that’s good. Yep. You could go to Finland and spend 10 days there and speed up all night because the Northern Lights happen. You have to stay awake. All right. Fast forward to this year, and we’ve been seeing that they’ve been happening more in this on this continent, kind of bizarre on this continent, right, right? And I never really thought to go to Northern Canada, like, which would like, you could drive north of Quebec, probably, you know, and experience it, if you, if you wanted to do it back in I want to say it was April. I can look exactly up, you know, when it was March or April. There was a breakout. Remember, everybody saw it was in April. Okay, that night that it happened. I knew it was happening because timelines were like, Hey, you have a chance to see the Northern Lights in Maryland, right? That night, people in Rocky gap and out in Deep Creek had vivid, vivid Northern Lights experience. Nobody around here saw because it was cloudy, right? If it’s cloudy, you can’t see it. So that middle of that night, about four in the morning, I woke up, and I went out and back, and I looked and I saw some pink, and I woke my wife up. I think I said the Northern Lights are active. Maybe this is it. She came out. She’s like, Hey, you’re full of shit. I’m going back to bed. So, like, I think it might have been now that I’ve seen the real Northern Lights, because I did see this on Thursday night. Yeah. So on that morning we woke up and all of the stories that was a Saturday we were my wife was off. Was a Saturday morning. And all day long, it said tonight’s going to be another explosion, like, like, what happened last night’s going to happen again tonight. And I said to her, let’s go. We got points. Let’s go north. Let’s go up to your family’s place in New Hampshire, because my wife had just seen the the Eclipse, okay? And she cried like my wife saw the Eclipse at the Canadian border in New Hampshire with her sister and her father, and said it was she cried telling me about it. She she talked to you about it. Now she would. She was just that emotional for her so and she didn’t know she wanted she did the solar eclipse thing thinking, like it was gonna be cool and all that. But then we became, like, two weeks later, this eclipse thing happened, and I said to her, Look, we can fly. And we did the weather forecast for Buffalo, cloudy, New Hampshire, Portland, Maine, cloudy places it would only been a couple 1000 points to get to, or whatever. And then I started looking at Minneapolis, further north. And if you start to look at where, how our country sits, what North is, versus like where Chicago is, versus where like Seattle is, it’s much further north, right? So I started looking at destinations, and we had points, and I didn’t have a companion pass anymore. We have points. So we used about 800 $900 worth of points of white, my points out, you know, 80,000 points. I mean that whatever it was to chase the Northern Lights, and we flew to Spokane, Washington on and, I mean, an hour’s notice. My wife was out at 1130 12 o’clock in the afternoon, and I called her, I said, we can get to Spokane through Denver one stop. Will be in Spokane at 9:30pm perfect. And we’re in Spokane. It’s the northernmost place by far southwest airlines flies. We had been to Spokane before, so I knew, you know, like, I’m like, let’s sleep. You know, we’re off tomorrow. We’ll fly back tomorrow and get a flight tomorrow back. Let’s just go and because we we’re not gonna go to Norway. You know, this isn’t really costing us money, other than a rental car in a room. We spent a couple 100 bucks and our points, and we flew out there’s romantic as hell, like she came home, we packed the bag, fed the cat, off to the airport. Three o’clock Flight to Denver. Connected in Denver. We land in Spokane. We went to a plug your waffle machine and your ice cream. We went to like a Dairy Queen in Spokane, got a little 10 o’clock Dairy Queen, and we drove to a place called loon lake. I picked it out on a map because I thought, if I’m gonna see the northern light spot 30 miles north of Spokane, toward the Canadian border in northern Washington, very close to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, near the skinny part loon Lake, lo and like lunacy, right around the corner from your loon lake. We drove in a rental car. We got up at 11 o’clock, and we sat in the car, in a rental car, and looked up and we looked out the window at this beautiful lake, and it was and I took an hour, and I took an hour and she took an hour, and I took an hour and she took an hour. We landed in Denver. I have the picture of the map. The map was this giant red blob all the way down to like New Mexico, like it was just gonna happen. But the map every 30 minutes, it updates the solar Geo, g5, g4, g3, g2 when we were in Denver, it was g5 and I thought we might see the in the on the flight right. We sat on the right side of the plane, right to maybe be able to see it. Didn’t see it. Spent the whole night. Sad story short, all night, up all night, no lights. Five in the morning. I’m checking we had good Wi Fi, and it just disappeared, like you could see on the G like it wasn’t happening. About 515 in the morning, Jen looks at me, and I looked at her, we’re in a rental car with a couple bottles of water, some dairy queen in our stomach, and I’m like, Well, this sucks. Drove back in the city six o’clock. We went to bed in our little hotel. We had a hotel we had a hotel right next to the airport. Went to bed, get up at 10 in the morning, and when we enjoyed Spokane, we wrote the cable cars right went down, had a sandwich, went to a Guy Fieri joint, flew home, but that was like I said to her. We flown to Denver and gotten our asses kicked. As Raven fans, you’re wearing your ring. We’ve flown to California and gotten our asses kicked. We’ve flown to Seattle. We flew to London, dropped five grand and flew back. I said, just consider it a football game we lost. Just consider it like or they didn’t play like that game in Philadelphia when a turf happened. And I haven’t been on the geo map in a couple of months, on Thursday afternoon at about two o’clock, it showed up on my timeline, again on my social media, tonight’s the night g5 possible. So Thursday afternoon. So at 430 she was getting off work. Five o’clock, she went out to wise markets do some shopping. She didn’t pick up any pizza. Pizza John’s, because I was here today, so she came home for the game. The game started six o’clock, the baseball game, and about 605 she settled in, and we had some crab soup left over from your party. And I said, there are where we we’re gonna have to do something. Is it? G5 here? It’s Thursday night. I might be really sleepy and broken down at Pizza John’s. You might not get home till seven. Gotta see it. But see it, but we’re gonna do something tonight that I said, I think, God, I don’t want to be awake. I’m tired. All you think about is how hard it was to stay awake all night trying to wait for it, something that didn’t happen in Spokane at Luton lake. And it’s 615 we broke a Google map out, and I’m like, All right, where are we going? She’s like, let’s go to parked and let’s go to Hampstead. Let’s go to somewhere. Let’s, let’s try to Frederick. Too much light in Frederick. I’m like, But if we’re there all my I got a great bakery at 6am bake shop, so we can least get some cookies. We go after Carroll County. We’re gonna get Frederick camp them, you know, double dipping. Just they say, so 630 I’m like, Look, here’s my recommendation. We’re gonna drive 795 we’ll get in the car at nine o’clock. We’ll drive baseball game. Have the baseball game on charge battery. We can watch the baseball game. Yep, right. Let’s drive out past Westminster to Emmetsburg. Okay, right, right. Like that would be perfect, right? Because everything to the north Chambersburg and Greensburg, all those, they’re not lit. You need a northern exposure, and preferably for me, loon Lake had water. I wanted the reflection off the water for the pictures, right? I’m thinking, right, thinking, right? So at 630 we’re thinking about it. And I said, Look, one of us has to stay sober. Let’s start with that somebody’s gonna have to drive be up. I said, Why don’t you pack a cooler with some waters and some food, some fruit, whatever you want to add with us. You know, think it feed the cat. Let’s figure this out. 630 we’re doing this baseball games on I put up right away. I’m like, who’s crazy and wants to drive to Rocky or Deep Creek Lake with me tonight. That’s what my status said. And people started saying tonight, this is the big one. Guy, Chuck, click on my this is the big one. This is the one. We’re gonna get it. We’re getting it. It’s unbelievable. We’re gonna get it. This is at 640 at 705, and I really want to plug this person, because this is a listener that I have now. This is a person I need to be friends with. I have 1000s of people try to friend me, and I can’t friend them, yeah, because I’m at a friend request, right? This is a person I need to be friends with, because this is what a real friend would do. So I tweeted out Phil Jackman’s death. Love you, Phil. All right, who wants to jump in a car and drive the Deep Creek Lake tonight? LFG? You know what LFG stands for? Let’s freaking go.

Leonard Raskin  17:39

I got it so

Brett Steall  17:40

I didn’t know that. Okay, it’s a different word, but

Nestor Aparicio  17:43

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it’s there, yeah, so, um, at 711 last night, and that’s not a plug, because I’m, you know, you know I’m, I’m Royal farms bear. Stiffler put a picture up that said, right now, in Towson. Right now. In Towson. This is the picture that bear Stiffler put on as a visitor to my Facebook. And my wife is in the love sack watching the game. I’m at my desk. Let’s go. I put my shoes on. I went right outside. I had a short sleeve shirt and a little a little mock on, and I went out with my phone, and I looked up and I saw the pink. And then I started, I opened my phone, and I started shooting pictures. That is the first picture I

Leonard Raskin  18:27

shot. There you go.

Nestor Aparicio  18:29

So now I’m out at home. I’m out in front in my backyard, looking, you can see the stars, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was so early. I thought 715 it’s not even like dark, you know, not dark enough. My

Leonard Raskin  18:42

sisters posted it so 720

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Nestor Aparicio  18:45

to 740 it was vivid, sparkling purple. My wife moved further away from the light. We had neighbors that had porch lights on were like, God, call Marissa, tell her to turn the porch lights off. Yes, you know, because that’s would kill it, right? My wife got further away, and the Greens came to life in her picture. And I want to tell you, like, we spent a little bit of money going out to Spokane. I would have at we were gonna, in August, go it, because it’s summer. Brian Adams was playing Inuit tribe events, in festivals up in northern Quebec. And I thought, We’re not gonna get the northern because not dark, it’s gonna be light. It’s going to be light till midnight. It’s summer in this continent. Bad. Northern Lights. Cold. You want to do it? Cold, dark, dark, cold, north, Northern Exposure. And, I mean, we got very emotional. We came in the house and had these pictures and everybody, first thing I did was call my son. I called him out. I got off the phone taking pictures like, go outside. Go outside. Right now, right now, right now. He went out right in front of my house. He has pictures of Northern Lights in my parents family house on Bank Street and Dundalk. So I’m like, I can’t believe I emotional talking about it was crazy. And I came in today, and being here, my money manager, this is where I’ll you know I was wrong. Mike. Know, I went there at 830 this morning. I said, see how much money we saved having the Northern Lights show up here, right,

Leonard Raskin  20:05

right? It’s magnificent. Saving money in your car insurance.

Nestor Aparicio  20:09

There you go, like that. Raskin manages money that you did not see it, but you’re not, you’re now, you’re gonna spend 1000s of dollars to see. Well, we’re gonna,

Leonard Raskin  20:17

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we’re gonna spend money to go on a trip. And we had played in Ireland the trip, the trip is going to happen. So we were just, we’re going to meet in Iceland. Are you prepared

Nestor Aparicio  20:25

to be up all night, multiple nights, and not see it? No, well, that’s why Thursday, it was a

Leonard Raskin  20:34

miracle. I’m prepared to be up to see it. It was but I’m going, I’m not going for that. I’m just going, and that’s in Iceland. They say it’s there, so I’m not going to see it. I’m just hoping that when we’re there, we will, well,

Nestor Aparicio  20:48

I am, you know, I’m emotional thinking it’s my birthday week. We lost Phil Jackman, and we’re burying him on my birthday on Monday, and I’m here Pete Johnson, my and it’s my birthday pizza, and it’s your first visit, Brett. Tell everybody. Tell somebody like Leonard, who’s west side of Baltimore, guy who’s ever heard of pizza, John, everybody’s heard of it. They it’s not like right on the beltway. You know, you have to come to it a little bit. Allison and Steve Elliott and Elliott chiropractic. They live in Bel Air. And Allison told me when I came over, she’s been here a handful of times because her boys, when they were little boys, there men now, when they were little boys, playing sports. You sports, everybody in the area, when they would have a game anywhere near here. And this is a true story. This is a nice plug for liberty, pure solutions. My Water friends and oyster tour. I know of them because Matt Stover the Ravens kick Yeah, called me 10 years ago and said, You need to meet Doug work. And he’s a good guy. He’s gonna be a sponsor yours. He you know, he wants to get his business out. You guys are like, he’s Republican too. So see, I keep friends. I’m friends with everybody with you. So Liberty pure solutions. Liberty pure solutions, and Bruce. Bruce Stover is my other Republican friend. Matt Stover introduced me to liberty, pure solutions and and Matt when he was the kicker for the Ravens many years ago. I mean, he left an oh eight, right? So we’re talking probably, I knew him real well by then. So probably four or 567, whenever his boys were boys playing Pop Warner Football, they were playing football. They had a football or soccer match at stemmers run, and he was in the locker room with me back when I was a real media member. And Matt pulls me up, hey, man, my kids got whatever little league soccer over in Essex. He said, I want to do something nice for the good kids. And I’m, you know, matched over and like, I’m the celebrity thing. I gotta do something nice, John. I said you’re gonna take into peach at John’s, and I’m gonna and I sent him over to you guys. I remember. You do remember

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Brett Steall  22:52

this? I remember it wasn’t the first time he was here. He came back, he came back again. Absolutely he had to take his says, and

Nestor Aparicio  22:59

you didn’t know that. Do you know that I sent him here? But no, okay, all right. But the Fed, I gave him your number,

Brett Steall  23:05

yeah, yes. And he went to the taxidermy up the street on Eastern Avenue. He’s been back. You know, I haven’t seen him in a while. We doesn’t live in the area anymore, yeah, Texas. Now, there you go. That’s why I haven’t seen Yeah, but here there’s a taxidermy he that he goes and used to get his stuff stuffed

Nestor Aparicio  23:19

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that this is how friendships work. This is how, like, that’s, right, I’ve known Matt my whole life. From the first day he was here, I sent a guy from Louisiana via Texas who’s living in Owings Mills, and who’s, you know, wealthy, and got, you know, other side of the world looking for something over here. And I sent him here, and he comes back when he you know what I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s Baltimore positive, and that’s what I’m all

Brett Steall  23:42

about. And he’s been back, I mean, at least 678, times that I know of over those years when he was in town and I sent him here with a bunch of kids to feed him. These kids, yeah, of course. And Liberty pure is another one that I do business with, with Doug with Liberty pure, sure,

Nestor Aparicio  23:56

you said Doug Workman, yes,

Brett Steall  23:58

I got you. Okay. I deal with his the guy that runs it over there, that’s fine. I don’t know what his name is anyway. Yes, well,

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Nestor Aparicio  24:06

you look so healthy. Yeah, we

Brett Steall  24:07

have a great system over here that they put in. Actually, it makes our water even

Nestor Aparicio  24:11

better. Anybody would tell you in New York pizza would say the water makes the pizza in New York, the water makes the pretzels in Philly, right? It’s

Brett Steall  24:20

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true. And I am from New York, but I can make pizza the same here with the water that we have. We’ve been doing it for 58 years, not just because liberty. Are they healthy? This

Nestor Aparicio  24:29

isn’t gonna help me if I tell them, you know, New York water, in essence,

Brett Steall  24:34

quarter, but, but, but it all New York style. Our equipment lasts longer with their system. Everybody says New York style, New York style pizza. It’s, this is kind of New York style pizza thing. It’s, it’s a normal, yeah, it’s a normal thin pizza, not a thick crust. It’s pizza when New York’s not thick cross Sicilian would be right, which we have, which is square, not right, coming out now,

Leonard Raskin  24:56

Islanders, man,

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Brett Steall  24:56

I am. He’s an Islanders, I

Nestor Aparicio  24:59

wasn’t. Barry Trotz coached them. Who trots was there?

Brett Steall  25:03

I’m going back. I go back to the 80s. Yeah, where they want, yeah. Mike, bossy and Bobby nice

Nestor Aparicio  25:10

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to show. Three weeks ago, Leonard came out the pre birthday show. We did a whole capital center retrospective. Nice, because we had the guy at the first hockey game I went to was to drag my family down to see the islanders when they were the island. Wow. 1982 it was Al Arbor, bossy, trachea, Potvin. Dennis Potvin sucks. I promise you that the Rangers fans were right. I met him once. Well, right. The Rangers hated Dennis pod.

Brett Steall  25:34

Yeah. We, yeah, we, absolutely, yeah, number I think Potvin was number five, yeah, from the if I’m like, You’re right, I think I am. Yeah, if you listen close again, your podcast sucks. And the only reason I know because I went to the New York Islanders hockey camp as a kid. Oh yeah, all right, oh yeah. And, like, Bobby Nystrom actually came in, and Mike bossy showed up one day. And then that other guy, LaFontaine, Yeah, that guy, he like, I

Nestor Aparicio  25:58

remember middle night wrecked in Easter for me, and Phil Jackson back in 87 Brett Steele is here. He runs Pete John’s Leonard. Tell everybody about people coming here, because I gave you a matt Stover story, but this is his first time, and this is really why, you know, why I’m a loudmouth on the radio, eating good pizza and great cheese steaks as well. But people come here, they come back, and people that have been here, you’re like, I want to get my people back. People move to Harford County, and when they come back to this part of the world for whatever funeral loved one, fishing, the beach, whatever it is tournaments,

Brett Steall  26:31

we still get those, those groups constantly. Every weekend we have sports teams in here. This is a great place to go, plays, oh yeah, we is there anything better than a hot pizza

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Nestor Aparicio  26:40

comes to your table and everybody pulls a everybody pulls a slice, all you know, that’s family, right? And

Brett Steall  26:44

we give the, you know, all the local organizations, schools, churches, whatever you know, we take care of everybody around here, and they keep coming back, even if they move away to fill the, you know, Pennsylvania, a lot of people right over that line over there, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  26:58

I got a guy, BelAir, you’re gonna pass the baton. We’re gonna let Leonard get on it. Just his birthday tomorrow,

Brett Steall  27:03

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right? Happy birthday. Turned 21 on Tuesday. Peter Steele, he’s down at college, Charleston, all right, yeah, go. So there’s a little plug. He turned 21 from Tuesday. So the 15th. That’s Jim Thomas, no, no, no. Go back this past, last week. Okay, this though, like two days ago, three days ago.

Nestor Aparicio  27:20

Thomas Dolby, the musician science, thank you, my friend. Thomas Dolby, this is a strange It happened today, so I have to tell the story, because it literally happened four hours ago. Thomas Dobies, my friend for years. Johns Hopkins, I went on tour with him this summer in Cleveland, right the last night of his American tour. I met him in Cleveland, and I saw Van Halen Sammy Hagar with my buddy Bernard McKinney. So I drove out to Cleveland on a whim, literally, Sunday afternoon. It was the last night his tour. I text him and said, I’m coming out. He’s like, come on. I’ll give you passes with it. So I’m back at his bus. And it was like a picnic. It’s like backstage at Merriweather, all the busses they have, they have tables out and bonfires, and they’re all the bands, men without hats, modern English. It was just a whole bunch of bands. It was a 80s, yeah, totally tubular. So I got to meet all these Wang Chung. Everybody had fun tonight. They were all backstage, and Thomas says to me, he’s a la, he’s the headliners. You don’t last, but it’s 630 I’m back having a beer at his boss, and he’s like, Hey, you going back to Baltimore? I’m like, yeah. He’s like, you mind taking a box for me? And I’m like, Sure, man, you know, whatever you want, come back after the show. I’ll unpack things up. I’m going to Europe, and I just want to send this home, and you put on your trunk of your car. I’m like, Yeah, my car’s in the lot, no problem. She gives me this big box of thing, and it’s chaos ensued after that. But I brought the box back, and the box had been sitting in my house for two and a half, three months. This is August, and he went to Europe his tour, and this and that he came since this morning, he texts me, like, Hey, can I stop get my box today? And I’m like, yeah, man, stop by. She stops by, and it’s at the station. See the box at the station. He comes in, pack it up for him. And we get to talking, and I said, Yeah, I’m doing my birthday show Pete Johns today. He’s like, when’s your birthday? I said, I looked at him and I’m like, Oh my God. I knew we had the same birthday, because when I was a kid and I would look up celebrities or birthdays, Dwight Eisenhower, John Wooden Thomas, Dolby, Stacy, Keebler of overly almost Essex, I’m Dundalk. I want to claim her but, but it’s her birthday too, on Monday, so all of us, good people for late Libras, we have here your kid, Leonard, so you said Pennsylvania, and people coming here, and I want to drop the mic on this guy. Want to do a whole segment with you on your food and a crab cake. Luke Jones is my longtime, 15 year insider reporter. He’s the credentialed one of the two of us. He’s the legitimate one. He lives in Shrewsbury. Up in pencil, tucky did not have the Northern Lights on Thursday night, which is really just I would have gone to his house thinking I would have gotten the Northern Lights pizza. John’s is his favorite restaurant, probably on Earth, right? Literally, his family’s an Essex family, but he never was a part of that. His family grew up here. He’s grown up pennsylvan. Mania. Most of his adult I think he was here when he’s 345, like that. He’ll tell the story. But when I tell him we’re pizza John’s, or that there’s a peach, he will drive down here to pick up pizza to take home, like his brother, mother, sister, all of them tonight are getting pizza, and they’re jacked up. I mean, you know, like they know he’s coming down here. They put their orders in because they live in Pennsylvania, and the pizza is an hour away for a little more than an hour away for them.

Brett Steall  30:27

But we do sell it. New Freedom roasting, really? Yeah, it’s up there in New Freedom. Do the show that’s part of our wholesale they bought. We sell. You’re in wise

Nestor Aparicio  30:37

markets. You’re in a lot of places. Yeah, we are, but we’ll get that.

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Brett Steall  30:41

Um,

Nestor Aparicio  30:42

I came in today and I got order my pizza, my pineapple, ham and pepperoni. Don’t forget the pepperoni. Don’t just call and get a wine pizza. Say, Nestor told me to order wine pizza, and it’s planned. Needs pepperoni on it. Put pepperoni on it so or

Brett Steall  30:59

bacon. I’m starting to think that he makes the mistakes ordering the food and not make

Leonard Raskin  31:02

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There you go. Hmm, remember a couple weeks now, that was

Nestor Aparicio  31:06

not me. It was not me. I ordered a pizza and I got, I literally got the wrong pizza, and he’ll be embarrassed, but I got home, he was so upset that I got the wrong pizza, and I got home and I opened it, and it was just a giant pepperoni pizza, and it was like, What’s better? Like, don’t be sad. It was delicious. It was

Brett Steall  31:27

missing the tropics.

Nestor Aparicio  31:28

It went where we’re supposed to go. That part is somebody got mine well, and that person’s Prop was this, was this? Somebody went home and had pineapple on their pizza. And I may have been

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Leonard Raskin  31:42

happy. They may not 15% I don’t know if they were happy. I don’t know about that. People

Nestor Aparicio  31:46

are gonna eat pineapple on the pizza. 15% probably less,

Brett Steall  31:50

maybe less, my thing, but that was good, but put some bacon on there. It’ll be better.

Nestor Aparicio  31:54

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He calls me and he’s, you gotta come back. I’m like, Dude, I’m in town, so next time, I swear we’ll make it right. I’ll sponsor the show. I’ll do it. And I’m like, no, no, no. Worry about the poor sobs that went home and pineapple. Sorry about me. I’m good

Leonard Raskin  32:11

for children in Africa starving. You’re worried about your pineapple, mommy,

Nestor Aparicio  32:14

this pizza is the most delicious. Please don’t eat the pizza. Don’t eat the Pineapple. Pineapple pizza is delicious. You couldn’t

Leonard Raskin  32:20

it was good. Stuff. I was telling Nestor earlier, my nephew, his wife, so my niece, she lives out here. Her family lives out here. And I told him I was coming out here, and he goes, Oh my God, it’s the best pepperoni pizza in the world. He said. He said, you get a pizza covered with pepperoni. And every pepperoni has, this

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Nestor Aparicio  32:40

is a little cold.

Brett Steall  32:42

It’s cup. Yeah, no,

Nestor Aparicio  32:43

it’s not. I called it imported Italian olive oil that sits

Leonard Raskin  32:48

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he called my nephew. Said it’s the best grease in the world. You wanted Italian import. He said, When you eat this pizza, you will never go anywhere else for pizza. Where’s

Nestor Aparicio  32:59

your ham? Imported from? I say, Dundalk. I know that wrong.

Brett Steall  33:01

You talking about Parma, yeah. What is no, no. That’s Rosa grande Hormel pepperoni. It’s a Hormel product. But what about the what about the hand? The important thing, the him, I don’t know, come somewhere important.

Nestor Aparicio  33:12

It says important. Probably done big,

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Leonard Raskin  33:14

dead pig. It’s Yes, you know what the difference is between a pig and a chicken at breakfast, right?

Nestor Aparicio  33:20

Once committed. And go ahead, right? This is a billy punchline.

Leonard Raskin  33:23

That’s it. That’s it. The chicken is involved, involved.

Nestor Aparicio  33:27

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The Picnic is committed. Is

Brett Steall  33:29

committed. There. Bill looks right behind you on the wall. You know, Jamie Costello, Dean,

Nestor Aparicio  33:33

you know, Dean, Dean from the neighborhood here. Eats here five days a week. He came and had a beer mean and charmed me on the way in with JJ his neighbor, and he remembers that they Billick was here. He was telling me he’s like, I’m sitting here having a cheese steak rice. Brian Billick walked by with you, you know. So, yeah, so

Brett Steall  33:50

sure enough, Billick is on the wall, and I’ll give a Republican a plug. Republican, yes, good man. Hogan, who was here, saw july 26 of 2014 because my son was born that day. However, remember my son, Cody, my youngest, and July 26 he was here. Mother’s birthday. No kidding, yeah, Cody turned 10 this year, and he sat right over here. I gave him the room. Rick Metzger, another local, and he comes here all the time, and he brought him in here with a bunch of people because he was running for governor. And he ended up winning and

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Nestor Aparicio  34:24

polling it 12% at that time. So I

Leonard Raskin  34:26

don’t even know what it was, but he had a he had a good run against a candidate. It is

Nestor Aparicio  34:29

amazing, like it just political sense. Wes Moore was polling at like, 4% and one. Larry Hogan was polling at nothing, and a Republican in a democratic state and won twice. Yeah, one, twice. So, I mean, anything’s possible. You know, Sharon was here, and Sharon always takes great care of me and you. When I came in here and I said to Sharon, you want to come on the show, and she’s here talking about hot dogs off, she won’t get on Mike. So if you can get Sharon, you pull it your boss. You could pull her over here and tell some stories. I’d love to have her tell some stories, because she wanted to. She. He did, but she said, You gotta talk about our waffle coach. Once they start, they smell, oh my god. Whole place smells like what she said, That’s Brett’s baby. And I’m like, I didn’t even know you had waffle they’re

Brett Steall  35:10

8

so damn good.

Nestor Aparicio  35:11

I swear to God, I’ve walked past the ice cream here. I’ve never ordered an ice cream anything here. I’m a carry out guy here, right? I could take ice cream home and any

Brett Steall  35:19

here, sometimes, though, you did. You know you did. I gave you a nice table during the pandemic. I

Nestor Aparicio  35:24

don’t know if this is, well, I don’t know if this is, um, the right thing to say or not, but when I come here and eat here, it always tastes better here, right? Because what he says, because it is, because it is in French fries and stuff like that, we get, you get support, like, whatever it is, like, the pizza is now cold. It’s fine. I have an Oast take an open toaster. It’s delicious. We have a stone at home if we’re gonna reheat things to get that crispy so it doesn’t get soggy. Especially, we get a lot of toppings, because I get a lot of toppings on my pizza. But I am a creature of habit. Our next segment, what I really want to talk about the things like crab cake, things that you have fried shrimp, you have haddock, you have things on here that I’m like, I don’t know what the hell. Because I come here and they get pizza and they get cheesesteaks, sometimes a meatball sub, but, but not often. I prefer your cheesesteak, your cheese takes the best. All the

8

Leonard Raskin  36:07

meatballs up on the screen looked really

Nestor Aparicio  36:12

I mean, you do regular. I’ve never made

Brett Steall  36:14

in house. It’s all made right here in house, from scratch. Everything you’re seeing we put his hands,

Nestor Aparicio  36:19

8

he’s got, these. Got these. I have to come back on his hands,

Brett Steall  36:25

these things. Real chef. Everything is made from scratch. And are we make bread overnight. We literally bake wild all through the night, all of our severals and our Italian breads, it’s all made here, every bit of it. Peter,

Nestor Aparicio  36:35

one time that two years ago, I was in here and just talk. He was in here, and I was talking to him, and I think I had acquired some fresh pursuit at home or something, needed bread, and I didn’t have any bread, and I was here just ordering something. And I said, Can I just buy, like, a roll? There’s some something I wanted to put in a sandwich. My wife’s probably out of town. I’m in here just grabbing some food. And he said, you wait one minute. I’ll be back. He comes back with three rolls and a thing he said, Now, listen, you must eat these fresh or you freeze right now, because this is not the no preservatives, sure enough, two days later, it’s green because, like,

Brett Steall  37:17

there’s, there is nothing in that bread bad. I mean white people? He warned me, you know, you have to have some some good stuff. Why

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Nestor Aparicio  37:24

would you jump at the waffle maker? I’ve never had ice cream here, and I would say, like I had that pizza out of the oven and when I had the first bite of it, even taking it in the car and going home, it’s just not the same. I really

Brett Steall  37:37

disagree with you on that. I like my pizza a little bit cooler. I don’t mind the boxy taste. Oh,

Nestor Aparicio  37:43

I want that. I want to pull it up. I want to pull the cheese. Being from New York, we’re

Brett Steall  37:47

8

used to it because everything was in a box when we were kids. You take it home, the box that burns your legs, you know, the right, while you’re holding it on the car, burn the heck out of you and fog your glasses off, right? Yeah, absolutely. That’s the best to me, and it’s just me personally. So our carryout is just as good as eating guys. No, I

Nestor Aparicio  38:04

carry out all the time. I’m just saying, like, I know, if you have time, sit down here and eat the sub, because when you wrap it up, take it home, it just changes it. That’s all it’s better here. That’s all fresh right here. But I’m the worst guy. I eat, I take it home 85% of the time, 90%

Leonard Raskin  38:21

simple of the American dream, how, that’s what, that’s his slow, that’s your story. We’re all about helping people achieve the American dream. So they come to John, yeah, so they can do the thing and get the supreme if they want put their kids through college, go away, go to Iceland, do it.

Brett Steall  38:36

I just, I just got back from France. There you go. Was there? What? Two weeks ago? Where were you? We were in Nice and Monaco and cons game. Wait, was No, actually, I did it wrong. No, no, I walked. I walked so much my wife’s 50th birthday. So supposed to say that so she doesn’t care. Okay, good. She looks like she’s 25 Excellent, excellent. If that like my wife? Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, we just had a great time. Stayed at a couple of really great hotels. And just, you know, we just had a really good, I don’t know anybody

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Nestor Aparicio  39:06

works harder than, like, every time I’m in here, you’re here. Your people are here. This is a real family location. This is what makes Baltimore great. This is what makes America great. This was makes our neighborhoods great. It’s what makes the East Side Great. Guy from the west side coming to the east side and having people. John’s for the very first time. Leonard, how much you get out of here? I’m gonna bring Brett back. Gonna bring Brett back, and we’re gonna try to talk Sharon in a comment. Anybody that wants to come by and tell story, I feel like I know so many people here, but there are things I don’t know about here, because here’s where I am. I come in here, and I’ll begin my next segment and say, when I order I order the works. And here’s important. I don’t love onions on my pizza. My wife doesn’t love green but my wife does not like green pepper, so we get half white half green, and we have to find the creative way to say that. Every time I call it like, give me the works, minus onions on one side and minus green pepper on the other side. And

Brett Steall  39:54

that’s how, but half of them will screw it up. How do I have to say it? I. First of all, you could place your order online, which would be much.

Nestor Aparicio  40:02

I would never do that everyone

Brett Steall  40:05

8

else, because I’m trying to direct everybody there to keep prices down, guys. But now he’s

Nestor Aparicio  40:10

talking now, yeah, exactly. Financial Advisor, he doesn’t want me spending a quarter more on a pizza than I have no right? No,

Brett Steall  40:16

yeah, no. But anyway, you order that. You say I would like a large works. I want it to be half no green pepper, half No. That’s what my wife tells me to send. That’s the way to say. And that’s what the computer when you have

Nestor Aparicio  40:27

never gotten my order wrong. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never, ever i Because I always say now, like half of it’s gonna be white and half of it’s gonna be green, just so you understand where I am. And then that’s now I get no meat sauce either. Your meat sauce is little spice to it, yeah,

8

Brett Steall  40:42

well, spicy. It has a little bit has garlic and it has salt and it has black pepper in it. It had, it’s a little spice. Is no hot in there, just the black pepper. And we cook 400 500 pounds a week that we grind ourselves. We take away Chuck, we grind it.

Nestor Aparicio  41:00

They toured in the kitchen here I’m here, sax potatoes back there. It’s crazy. So I get the works pizza. We usually get a small because we’re small people, and eight, eight slices enough, then I get a cheesesteak. I get cheat, and I’ve learned to do this recently. It’s because I take it home. This is because I’m smart, and to what we talked about, I don’t want mushy lettuce and tomatoes in my sub especially, you live up, you know, where you live, a little further north, little further away. So what I have them do now is I have the sides lettuce, tomato on the side. Sometimes in the summer, I have my own tomatoes, and I throw those on, I get the onions on the side, and you have those delicious fried onions. And what I do is I get double Provolone because I’m doing okay in the market, because of Leonard, I can afford the extra. So I get double Pro. Double provolone, and I take it home that way, and I get it dry. And again, you make your fixins, and then I, yeah, do fixings bar at home, and that makes the bread hold up better for me when I take it home. But I I’m trying to think of anything. I got a chef salad here two weeks ago, and it was delicious. Oh, they’re great, because the imported Ham was great, right? And the cheese, the genoa salami, too. I get the french fries when I eat in, only when I eat in and gravy. And I’m getting that thrown that we’re gonna eat, crinkle cut, crinkle caught, just like at the bowling all gravy. That’s what I’m hearing, just like at the bowling alley, the way they’re supposed to be. They’re amazing. This menu. How many items in your menu? 8070, 90.

Brett Steall  42:18

It’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s a lot. I

Nestor Aparicio  42:20

8

just told you everything I’ve ever had here in my life. Wow, five things that’s incredible. I’m your spokesperson. You better figure this out. Better educate. We

Brett Steall  42:28

have hot dog subs. Guys, hot dog subs, and they’re really good. What the heck is that? Foot long? But now we call it a hot dog just to make it right, you know, a little better. Cold cut

Nestor Aparicio  42:38

turkey breast, tuna salad filet, of fish, fried shrimp, chicken, filet, veal. Patrick told me that I need to get the chicken parm, the chicken arms, really

Brett Steall  42:48

good. I have not leave him with spaghetti or rigatoni. You can get it as a dinner.

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Nestor Aparicio  42:52

Who comes to a pasta joint orders pasta? I get pizza. When I’m here,

Brett Steall  42:57

it’s all great. It’s all cooked in house. You know, the sauce is all made. Everything’s made in house. I

Nestor Aparicio  43:02

don’t want to be that guy that just gets pizza. Try other

Brett Steall  43:05

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things, right? I

Nestor Aparicio  43:06

can’t. I mean, you’ll

Brett Steall  43:07

start. I don’t want

Leonard Raskin  43:08

to, I don’t want to mention another restaurant. But there is a restaurant in Hunt Valley that’s got pizza in their name, a little bit of West Coast. You might know who. Okay, which one? California? Oh,

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Brett Steall  43:19

California Pizza Kitchen, yeah,

Leonard Raskin  43:20

so on their menu at the bottom, I don’t know, I won’t get it exactly right, but it says, Don’t order the same thing you always order. Oh, try something new, and if you don’t like it, we’ll give you the same stuff you always order. Yeah, we’re not doing that. No, they want people to try something else

Brett Steall  43:41

too. But that’s why I have registered flags and I advertise it on these TVs. When I want to promote something, well,

Nestor Aparicio  43:46

8

you wonder why I don’t get a waffle cone. I’m telling you why I don’t get a waffle code. So stinking good. Okay, well, we’re gonna do that work. We’re gonna have a tasting here next. It’s gonna begin with this critical car french fries and gravy, because that’s what I’m into. We are here on behalf of our friends at the Maryland lottery. Letter raskins here from Raskin global. Brett Steele’s here from Pete Johns. We are in the beautiful part of as I say it right, just like my mother did. Also brought to you by friends at Liberty, pure solutions. I had a bottle of water here. I’ve already promoted Doug one 800 clean water. Our oyster tours out on the road. It’s gonna be out at Baltimore positive this week. Also Curia wellness at far and daughter putting us out on the road for the oyster tour. And soon Luke Jones will arrive. I’m not gonna order ahead for him. I’m gonna let him get piping hot pizza. He won’t eat the pineapple. I mean, he’s no Well, we’re gonna order a fresh he’s from Pennsylvania. He’s picky. So what movie this is? It’s Luke’s favorite place. It’s my birthday. It’s Leonard’s birthday. It’s Thomas dolby’s birthday. It’s Jim Palmer’s birthday. It’s Sammy hagar’s birthday this weekend, and Luke’s birthday was last week. So we’re gonna celebrate by having pizza with our friends from the Maryland lottery. Everybody here is getting the Raven scratch offs. Brett’s gonna come back. We’re gonna have some visitors from Essex. I’m gonna let Leonard order. What are you gonna order?

Leonard Raskin  44:56

I don’t know yet. I gotta check out that your friends have the best pepperoni pizza pepper in my. Ask for. You said the best pepperoni and your pepperoni, I love it.

Nestor Aparicio  45:02

I love it. Pepperoni pizza. If you could order a pizza with anything you want to know, but would you get pepperoni? That’s it. That’s it. I’m good. You wouldn’t get sausage. You wouldn’t get green pepper. No, I like pure pepperoni.

Brett Steall  45:12

And a little bit of onion gives a little bit of sweetness. I like that. And

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Nestor Aparicio  45:16

that glisten that you see in the little cups there. It is imported, extra virgin Italian olive oil. I’m just coming up Essex olive oil. Essex

Leonard Raskin  45:24

olive oil. I’m

Nestor Aparicio  45:26

back for more. We’re in Essex. We’re pizza Johns. We’re talking pizza and fun and football. Soon.