Racing to Timonium to see the new Costas Inn

The new Costas Inn above the grandstand at the Timonium Racetrack and Fairgrounds is now open and thriving. Pete and Christine tell Nestor the incredible story of their family working to open a second location while mourning the loss of their father and patriarch. Let them tell you why having crabs wasn’t possible at the new location and why they want you to (still) come and see them in Dundalk, too!

Pete and Christine Triantafilos discussed the opening of Costas Timonium, a new kitchen honoring their late father. The restaurant, located in the grandstand of the Timonium racetrack, has been open for five weeks, offering great lunches and dinners. Despite initial challenges, they have received positive feedback and hosted events. The kitchen underwent extensive renovations, including electrical and plumbing work. They emphasized their commitment to quality, mentioning they sold a $20,000 lottery winner in three weeks. The menu features crab cakes, steakhouse sandwiches, and specialty items like the California chicken sandwich. They plan to balance operations between Timonium and their original location in Dundalk.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Costas Timonium, Maryland crab cake, family business, racetrack, kitchen renovation, crab cakes, specialty sandwiches, local community, horse owner, restaurant expansion, customer service, menu items, crab Imperial, spinach pita dip, Maryland lottery.

SPEAKERS

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Christine, Nestor Aparicio, Pete Triantafilos

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, G, am 1570 tasks in Baltimore as I get the frog Mother, you know what? I have crab soup and and I have some some crackers stuck here where cost this we’re doing the Maryland crab cake to this all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery, sort of an impromptu visit here after the fourth of July. Johnny, oh, had to move his schedule. He’s a congressman, so he said I can do Monday. So I’m doing Monday, and I’m coming back on Thursday to do Steve Rouse, amongst others. Todd Schuler is going to be joining us on Thursday. It is all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. The Back to the Future scratch offs. I’ve got Christine, I’ve got Pete, and this is limited time. You’re like major Timonium celebrities here, because you’re running a new kitchen. And I’m in here, and I came in early, and you’re like, it’s empty now, but it will not be empty long. And I came in, I’m like, I worry that people know where to get here, then how to get here, or whatever you guys are telling me, everybody knows how to get here. We’re

Christine  00:53

having great lunches. You have a little break in between, and then we have some really nice dinner sometimes it’s a scavenger hunt to find us, so that’s fun. But everyone knows we’re in the grandstand now, and they’re they, they’re loving

Nestor Aparicio  01:05

it. I’ve been here a bunch, right? Because I’ve been here. What was next? I’ve actually done the show right over there a couple times. The OTB, you know, I’ve been out here for the Baltimore County Beverage Association. Has a big kicker. I think I’ve seen you out here, right?

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Pete Triantafilos  01:18

We’re doing that again this year. All right? He’ll be out again this year. And yeah, like Christine said, everything’s been fantastic. We’ve been open for five weeks now. Lunches have been great. Dinners, we’ve been hosting some events, and everything’s fantastic. And once people get here, they finally now have to find our way to the second floor of the grandstand, but we have signage all around the front of the building. On East Side, the west side,

Nestor Aparicio  01:41

you’re gonna smell the crab cakes. It’s crab cake Monday.

Christine  01:46

Crab cake night.

Nestor Aparicio  01:47

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You guys so long. I don’t know how long I’ve known you. Christine’s always. She’s stage fright. Your dad wouldn’t come on because of his Greek thing. And I don’t know, like

Christine  01:57

he thought his accent was too hard for people to understand. And I kept telling him, no, no,

Nestor Aparicio  02:01

you’re fine. So give me the whole story, Pete, about dad comes home a year ago. You come home, Fran the racetrack. How did this happen? I mean, and because you called me, it’s between Christmas and New Year’s, and my phone went off, and I was a little worried, because you’re like, you called me. I’m like, Hey, Pete, here’s everything, all right? And you’re like, Yeah, I just wanna let you know we’re moving into timonian. Don’t tell anybody yet. And I’m like, Well, I’m a journalist. Who would I tell? No one listens and but where did this start from, like in the beginning, to when I got the call in December, and now we’re sitting here in July, and it feels like it took forever to get it open and all that. But you’re here in your function, you’ve been open a month. It always takes longer than you think when you’re in it. You obviously had a family tragedy in the middle of all of this, but I sure did, I don’t know, because I was waiting to get you on the show and saying, What’s a nice guy like you doing up here Timonium? What’s a Dundalk guy doing moving to Timonium? But you really aren’t done. Dog people. Your dad had a business there. You’ve lived in this area, all of you, all the brother, sister, everybody’s lived up in this area for a long

Pete Triantafilos  03:07

time. We are we. We are local. Up here in this in this area, we came, you know, then that’s our home, because we spent 99% of our time at the restaurant. Your

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Nestor Aparicio  03:17

wheels. Know how to get from door to Dundalk,

Christine  03:20

yeah, I was 10 minutes away. I

Pete Triantafilos  03:21

can be, I could be from Timonium to North Point 18 minutes. I got it down packed, but 18 is not 10, okay. But yeah, we’re all local up in this area. We went to Loch Raven. We got a lot of local folks that you know, our friends and family that live up this way, but

Nestor Aparicio  03:40

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nobody ever said you do. I have to come to Dundalk, don’t they better not say that Dundalk is home. That is home. And

Christine  03:45

they’re all coming to visit us now, and they love it. They’ll come from here, go, come here, and then go right back there.

Nestor Aparicio  03:50

It’s a great golf course is here too. So, I mean, you guys always benefited from the golf course down there and everything else point, yeah. I mean, I don’t know how people find you anymore. You were bragging me a little while ago, some baseball players order crabs and they come into town. I sent crack the sky into Dundalk

Speaker 1  04:06

on Saturday. Brian Smith, man, also, great time. Everybody

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Nestor Aparicio  04:11

knows that. But like, the Timonium part of this, like I didn’t know you were thinking about expanding, or your dad or your family, give me the whole background, because I’m sure at some point in your dad’s life, somebody said, you have to have a Costas in Glen burn. You have to have a cost us, in case, all of you whom I know, the loonies guys, skunee, before he died, everybody I’ve ever known who’s been a local restaurant here says, All right, I can expand from here to Bel Air, from here to the libertories guy. I mean, I’ve known all of you all my life. It felt to me like Costa Dundalk wasn’t. It was always going to be one. I didn’t. So when you called me, I’m like, well, good for you. I mean,

Christine  04:52

54, years, just one, right?

Pete Triantafilos  04:53

You know, North Point is just such a big operation, so it’s all hands on. So it’s not like we. Were looking for anything else. And we’ve always had our eyes open if something comes up, you know, but we’ve been just content doing what we were doing family business 54 years. But, you know, we had some conversation with MSF, you know, Andy Cashman and Fran burns and Dave Gordon and all those folks, you know, we had some conversation. There’s

Nestor Aparicio  05:20

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already a location here. There’s an OTB, yeah, and Nick’s was here. But I mean, and I knew Tommy well from the days of sushi down at the Cross Street, did the show with him. There wasn’t a operation behind here. And the amount of money and investment that you made, that is made here, and I been in that kitchen before you during I haven’t been back there since you got your line together, but I was here during the process. This is a major build out in a structure that, what is this structure 80 years old, 100 years old, and goes back to the early 50s. I mean, 80 years old. Okay, it’s been here a long time. Everybody has driven past this location, I know because digging into here and doing what we’ve been doing. My dad and I started this. We did 35 weeks of renovations, you know, the contractors

Pete Triantafilos  06:06

and the plumbers and electricity, electrical contractors, and so is

Nestor Aparicio  06:10

anything you’re functioning, besides the walls and the electricity. We got it everything you’re right. I mean, you went to scratch right from refrigeration. So people don’t know about, which is, they just see the they see the soup come out here in a place. They don’t see the kitchen back here, and the cleanliness, the size, the operation, the refrigeration. And when I tell people you don’t have crabs here, they’re like, whoa. And I’m like, well, first off, my family’s friends told me this the only wild harvested animal in the world. So it’s not like you just click fingers and Cisco brings you crabs in the back. Crabs

Pete Triantafilos  06:47

are a different animal. Crabs are very difficult. If you can do crabs, you can do anything. And you know, for us the volume we do crabs to satisfy our clientele, like Father’s Day down at North Point. Do

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Nestor Aparicio  06:58

you ever run out? Is there ever a point at nine o’clock on a Saturday.

Pete Triantafilos  07:03

You do sell out. Do sell out? But if we do, if we get more than we than we have, we sell carry out. And we just, you know, they the crabs go either way.

Nestor Aparicio  07:10

I have never been at a cost is where it said sold out. I mean not literally. There’s never been a time

Christine  07:15

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when the month a season, you know? Well, we like November,

Nestor Aparicio  07:20

December, where there have been points where, like, we don’t have crabs this week because we get storms in the where golf that happens. I understand that, but I don’t think people understand, and I don’t understand, and I want you to express to them the difference between having the volume of crabs, physical crabs, and quality that we do, and the quality of the crab that has to come out of the water and has to live long enough to get to you

Pete Triantafilos  07:46

what was called today in the Gulf. We’ll have here tomorrow. So they’re transported 24 hours to the restaurant. So these crabs are not, you know, you know, sitting around. They’re coming in Live. We’re sorting them. We hand sort every single crab that we steam. And it’s a big operation. You have live boxes, you have boilers, you have steam, 18 steam pots. And you got a dozen people back there creating this, you know, from out the Gulf water to the table. You can’t do that here. This place is not set up for that. It’s simply not set out. You know, for that, we did 11,800 dozen crabs on Father’s Day down at North Point. It was packed. You couldn’t do 11 crabs out of here, because it’s just not set up. The infrastructure is not there. And for us, we do have crabs. We do offer crabs. We offer them at North Point. And we just appreciate folks that travel down to go there for crabs. And up here, we’re just doing some of the finer things. Other things that we’ve been doing crab, they’ve shrimp, oysters, clams, specialty sandwiches, steaks, lasagna. We do

Nestor Aparicio  08:53

a lot of sandwiches up here, because you got this OTB, you’re gonna do a lunch business in here. We do that’s gonna be different than the Dundalk lunch business. It is.

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Pete Triantafilos  09:01

We got a great Derby burger, which, what’s better than that previous burger, you know, Turkey, the Kentucky club. You know, it’s just a lot of

Christine  09:10

things. Local businesses around here, they’re bringing their staff here to eat.

Nestor Aparicio  09:14

I would say this I walked in here. It’s 100 degrees today. We’re taping this. By the way, Pete is here. He’s off camera because he’s leaning in on me, so I’m trying to make everybody lean back. That’s all right. You think we’re on real television. Here we go. Timonium, the sign, there’s the sign on the wall behind me. I have to get out of the sign. The thing for me is, I walk in today and I go up to the bar, and the first guy sitting there, and I’ve got these lottery tickets, and a guy looks at me. He’s like, hey, the food’s pretty good here? No, you didn’t know why. You don’t know why. And I’m thinking, Yeah, I bet it is pretty good here, you know? But well,

Pete Triantafilos  09:47

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here’s another thing. We’ve already sold a $20,000 lottery winner in three weeks. Big Game right here? No Mega Millions, yeah? Oh. $20,000 winners. I guess somebody had five out of six numbers up 54 years at North port. We haven’t done that. We sold a half million dollar winner, but that was a scratch ticket, but we sold a $20,000 winner, off the bat in three weeks. I think it’s a good omen. My dad is just part of this. You know, even he’s here, he’s looking at me right over there. Best Picture, but this is, this is such a great chapter for him, because he was a horseman. He owned horses for 30 years. He was horse owner of the year with Dale Capuano. They were such a team. We bought horses at the sale here. We probably won 30 races on this track with blue carrot, 38 carat. And we bought horses at the sale. So this was just a perfect fit for him. This is his legacy. This is for him.

Christine  10:40

He like, felt it was something about it, that he was like, Yeah, do it. And I’m like, what? How

Nestor Aparicio  10:45

this times did people come to your dad or your family you’re aware of, and say, cost us? I have property. I have property in Bel Air at property in Carroll, cave problems all the time. I mean, every, every, for every family in this town that’s Greek or does business, whether it’s Pappas, all these places that expanded, that was a family decision for fade least is doing it now out in Catonsville, which had been like your family been in a place for 150 years, and their family lives in Ellicott City, and they wanted to get closer to Catonsville and the airport and all of that. So they wound up. But the undertaking for any family, and what you’ve been through, don’t make me cry, but what you’ve been through in the last six months here, this is a miracle, and everybody wants to come out and love you up. It’s no shock that the place to be

Christine  11:35

packed, but they’ve been so supportive. It’s been wonderful. It speaks beyond, like

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Nestor Aparicio  11:38

just your family reputation, what? But just beyond your more than crabs. I mean, people come to you for crabs, and they’ll go to Dundalk, but your menu, your crab cakes, your food, your crab Imperial, which I’m gonna honor next month. That all translates here to a restaurant with a big blue light on top of the grandstand that you can see from York Road, that people, the first thing, the guy said, We food here is pretty good. Well, they get what they don’t have any crabs, you

Pete Triantafilos  12:05

know? Like, no, it’s what we’ve been doing, you know, I have so I live five minutes from here, and a lot of the folks that go to tomorrow to Dundalk, to North Point, they live up here. And I’ve had just on Friday, I had, I had a table come in and they had crab cakes. And he’s like, it’s the best crab cake I ever had. I said, You’ve been coming to Costas for 30 years. You never had a Crabbe use No, I always eat just, I always eat

Nestor Aparicio  12:28

the crap. People are like that. And I said, Hey, we

Pete Triantafilos  12:31

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had this. And it goes, Wow, now I know they’re gonna come up and enjoy some, you know, some of the other things that we offer.

Nestor Aparicio  12:37

You know, that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s a good segue. And then we’ll talk about your dad a little bit. Pete’s here, Christine’s here. We’re at the new cost this, which is the old knicks and the old Timonium gray. It’s the easiest thing in the world to find. If you know where the Timonium racetrack is, just, just drive in, come upstairs. Now, one of the elevators is slow, and

Christine  12:55

once fast. This one, I don’t know if we’re gonna call it that you want to go to West Side. So north or west?

Pete Triantafilos  13:00

Well, this is north. It’s north, but it’s coming off a York Road. And then you got the Timonium entrance, but the York Road entrance towards the exhibition hall, just stay to the left. Head towards the race tracks. You come up to that new elevator. Hop out of your car, jump in the elevator. Second floor. Just walk right

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Christine  13:15

the opposite side of the OTB, but you can come up in the OTB. That’s

Pete Triantafilos  13:19

the order elevator. They’re gonna they’re gonna put a new elevator in for us, a

Nestor Aparicio  13:22

little slow, but I got here, there’s a new one. Is good? Yeah, that’s

Pete Triantafilos  13:27

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renovations that are began. Going to be taking place outside, with the outside space, with flooring and ceilings and things like that. So it’s gonna have a whole different, fresh look in the year, well, hopefully months to come, and it’s gonna just enhance what we’ve already done up here. And it’s been a journey. It’s been a journey just to put this all together, to get it

Nestor Aparicio  13:47

to people walk in. I mean, I was here on Derby Day. You just lost your father. You’re trying to get the place open. You had tables out here with cheeseburgers and and hamburgers and what? Yeah, I mean, you were doing like, a picnic type of thing. And I’m like, crossing my fingers for you. You’re back here, and there’s stuff everywhere, and workers and drills and saw 18 people refrigeration. You’re like, this is going to be the blank. And I’m this is going to be the blank. And I’m like, when does this happen? I’ll be open Monday. I’ll be I’m like, No, you’re not going to be open. Money. Wishful

Christine  14:20

thinking, wasn’t it? But I mean, as we

Nestor Aparicio  14:24

got a month under you, right? I’m doing this

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Christine  14:27

like six weeks started six weeks today, six weeks or six weeks starting the sixth week.

Nestor Aparicio  14:32

What? What have you learned in doing this over the six months that you didn’t know about a sec because you were really giddy the day I was here, because you’re like, I’m finally getting to design a kitchen. You know, Dad just pieced it together, and we pulled a wall down. We did this and that, but it was never perfect. And I said to you, you get to make your perfect

Pete Triantafilos  14:53

cost. This guy did a great job from start to finish it well, but you’ve never designed

Nestor Aparicio  14:59

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a place like that, right? And other than the place you’ve been in right

Pete Triantafilos  15:02

on North Point, you know, we designed that one, you know, we’ve added on, but that was an add on for the last 50 years, and we put it, yeah, we worked with what we had. So it’s, you know, there’s, there’s kitchens added, and kitchens added as a Commissary Kitchen, which is beautiful and state of the art, which is great and wonderful. But, you know, it’s chopped up, because the way the building is, it’s a, you know, cinder block building that there for 70 years. So you got to work with what you got. But here no rumor.

Nestor Aparicio  15:27

You leave and don’t, let’s stop. People ask me, or do you move stone dog? Well, stop,

Christine  15:36

that’s our baby,

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Nestor Aparicio  15:37

yep, even with the heritage fair. So we even hosted crack the sky, you know, thank you for sending them down, though it’s awesome. Stick together. Close the show, even if we’re in town. So we’re talking about sticking together. Yeah, we are absolutely always. So put the menu together out here and the type of things you thought people would want, and what, what’s been popular to your point, the crab cake thing.

Christine  15:56

Steakhouse sandwich has been very popular, very

Nestor Aparicio  15:59

pop what is that?

Pete Triantafilos  15:59

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California chicken sandwich. I don’t have the menu California bread. We got a soy mayonnaise blend, but that’s not on the just a special for specials. But I came

Nestor Aparicio  16:10

in here fried onion weeks ago. Mixologist job was mixing me up an Orange Crush up here and and I saw the menu and looked at I’m like, hold on, little different. Is a little different. Yeah, it looks the same. A little different. Add some menu items on there, and I’m like, little

Pete Triantafilos  16:27

different. We want to brand what we’ve been

Nestor Aparicio  16:29

doing. You do a pita chip with the with finish. You like

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Speaker 1  16:33

that? Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  16:34

Okay, so here is where I want to take the conversation so we don’t cry about your dad, which we’ll do at the end. Before Johnny o gets here, is he waiting on me? I don’t think he has it come he is the Congressman of the house. Um, my 27 is my 27th anniversary, August 3, right? So I did the 25th with you guys two years ago. Remember we talked? You’re trying to teach me Greek and all that couple years ago with Dennis. So this year I decided 25 crab cakes in 25 days. Right? Then I did 26 oysters. You guys remember I did your oyster Rockefeller, where I got to promote your your spinach that’s on the oyster, which is one of the great things ever, yep, and it comes down to side dishes, everybody knows about you for crabs, and then they never get a crab cake. Or in my case, I was 25 years eating in your place before I thought to order a fried shrimp. Now, you know, over the last four or five years, since I discovered it, your shrimp are like the Acme Oyster House. It’s the same recipe. I used to go to New Orleans, and it was the first thing I would do is go get their shrimp. And it turns out you make the exact same shrimp, even bigger, in your place, that they make it the Acme Oyster House. And I didn’t know this until I was

Speaker 1  17:45

50 years old. Yeah, we Brad.

Christine  17:48

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I know they’re delicious, aren’t

Nestor Aparicio  17:50

they, so people don’t know about your spinach, and now you’re featuring it on this spinach pita dip, yeah, because if you didn’t get the spinach as a side, or if you’re not a Rockefeller person, or you’re like, whose spinach is a vegetable or the orange cheese, or is it one of those gross ass artichoke spinach cheese? Oh, mayonnaisey, white, soupy, Bucha. No, this, this is green. It’s like, oh, so I’m saying, but Spinach artichoke dip, you just order that off the menu. You’re gonna get paste. You know what? I mean, you’re not gonna get something. Get something, but your spinach is amazing,

Pete Triantafilos  18:25

so it’s a unique recipe that’s not done anywhere else. Crab cake tour was created every day 40 years ago.

Nestor Aparicio  18:32

Be honest with me, who’s got the best crab cake? Everybody’s got

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Speaker 1  18:35

the best crap. I’m like,

Nestor Aparicio  18:36

they’re all so different. You know? There really are different. And that’s when I say, Well, this tour isn’t going to be about all your crab cakes, so I’m telling you, go to Coco’s and you get their coconut shrimp with their raspberry one of the greatest things I’ve ever had. Nobody ever gets great job because they get the crab cake, yeah, and they go to your place and they don’t get the cream spinach on the oyster. Rockefeller order fried the

Pete Triantafilos  18:59

jambalaya. The jambalaya is made. Our sauce has made from scratch. The jambalaya, see, I’m gonna bring that though, right? It is, but we’ll bring that up. They don’t have it here. Not yet. Got a seafood mac and cheese, which is the die for fresh lasagna. Not a lot of pasta is just because, you know, we wanted to excel on some of the other things that we do? Yeah, we do steaks and filets, and we do signature sandwiches, and we do beef and ham and Turkey and

Christine  19:26

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the same specials, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday specials in Dundalk. We do them here.

Nestor Aparicio  19:31

What’s not here from Dundalk? Other than crabs? Nothing, right? Like, literally no pastas. Sometimes that’s bad pastas. Yeah, some of the pastas are here, and you’ve added other things, which I guess is my point of being like coming here. Now you could, if you knew Pete, you could do it. Maybe your brother be nice to me and do it. But the spinach and the pita, you could have been doing that anytime, absolutely, and the spinach is so that’s what I want to feature for you next month. Is when I come in to do my 27 favorite things to eat. Me when I come to your place, crabs and crab cakes aside, because that’s not, it’s the same thing for all my sponsors, and anywhere I am, I’m not featuring, you know, the burger at Cooper’s. Everybody knows the burgers good. They need to know about the gumbo. Well, you know, so trying to, like, do

Pete Triantafilos  20:14

these side things, crab cake egg roll has been the sweet chili Thai sauce that’s been just great to want to unwrapped. We let the crab cake and some crab dip and we deep fry it. And that’s been it’s really

Nestor Aparicio  20:30

the house from Dundalk that has a menu so extensive that your place is packed and you’re you don’t ever have a plan to serve crab here right

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Pete Triantafilos  20:37

now. Don’t want to say never, never, say never, say never, down the road. But it’s not built for that. It’s not, you know, we may host a special event or something like that, where we can do something, but you know, if even the supply of the crabs, if we had to supply this restaurant, we would run north point short, right? So nobody in Essex would have any crap. You’d be competing against yourself. You’d be competing against yourself. So right here, we’re just doing a different element of what we’ve been doing for 54 years, and just trying to expand on that. And hopefully people come and enjoy what we’ve been

Nestor Aparicio  21:10

doing for the last 50 All right, so I gotta tell everybody, I’m doing this 27th anniversary. It’s all brought to you by curio Wellness Center France at the Maryland lottery, as well as the y is gonna be involved this before it’s all over with. But I’m coming into Costas, and I’m I was going to do it here, but I want to do it in Dundalk, because I’m here today. I’m here again on Thursday. I want to go old school. I’m going to be in Costas on the 25th of August, and that is day seven of our final countdown of my 27 favorite things to eat in Baltimore. Don’t get your feelings earlier number seven. It’s just more like on the organizational thing. And when you hear what’s number one, you’re gonna know. See, I’m featuring not just like food or plate items or foodie things. Most of the things on the that I’m featuring are under 10 bucks. Under 20 bucks you come get your how much is your spinach or spinach pitted dip? It’s $9 Yeah. I mean, I’m featuring small things that I love, that you wouldn’t know to get because they’re already coming in.

Pete Triantafilos  22:06

Yeah, right. No affordable, and it’s they’re modestly priced. Damn near ordered

Nestor Aparicio  22:11

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the roast beef sandwich here because I’ve delicious. I’ve never had an open face sandwich. It cost us. Oh, it’s such a spares point. Working man’s thing,

Pete Triantafilos  22:20

right? Get off work, right? Beautiful. The hot beef to the happy is a classic hot beef was what I was gonna get. Goes back to the 70s. That’s a hearty meal for you know, the blue collar worker. It’s

Nestor Aparicio  22:30

110 degrees today, and I ordered Maryland crab soup so I could be spicy for our congressman, Johnny. Oh, who’ll be joining us? All right? Last thing, Dad, let’s talk about that for a minute, and people come in, and it’s been this and that, I mean, you feel his presence here, seeing how much love your family got during that period of time where everybody knew you were birthing this, everybody saw you were mourning. I was in Florida the night it happened. It’s got to be like a weird fever dream for you guys. I know when I lost my parents, you reach over. It’s the weirdest thing. I mean, it just is. But like the success of this place, every night, you feel his energy in here. You

Christine  23:10

do. He’s been guiding us from day one.

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Pete Triantafilos  23:12

Yeah. So there’s an energy here. There’s a good vibe here. It’s a vibrant vibe. It’s festive, it’s fun. It’s exactly him, because that’s the kind of person he was. When you walk into Costas his restaurant, you feel like family, you feel expression. It’s not like you’re walking into a place and just sit down, you eat, you leave. It’s not like that. He’ll buy you a drink. Make sure you feel at home, make sure you’re comfortable, make sure everything’s right. Check with everybody that’s he’s instilled that in me. That’s just the way we operate as a family. All comes from him. You can’t duplicate that. That’s it’s passion. He was passionate about his work, his family and his customers. They weren’t his customers. They were his extended family. And it was heartbreaking when this all happened. I mean, the outpouring store break for it is it never get over it. It’s just, I know it’s always gonna be like 82 I never know it never gets better. Never gets better. You just learned this is what it is. What are you gonna do? You know? So we’re gonna live his dream.

Christine  24:15

And you take all the things that he taught us over the years, his hospitality, just the way. He wants everyone to run the, you know, all of our employees become family, right? We all work together. He wants to see people smiling and taking care of, making sure people are knowledge. They get the, you know, you know, good food, good service. That’s

Pete Triantafilos  24:33

why I got the memorial picture back there on, you know, I was gonna bring it out here, but I put it back there where his office is. That’s where it’s, right, sure, right behind that wall right there. That’s where his office is. And then that’s for the employees. That’s for us to get, to get the the real gist of what you’re supposed to do, you know. So

Nestor Aparicio  24:51

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we gotta stop one of his traditions right now. And brother, a Nick, I know you don’t listening. Gotta stop this. When you come up and you say, Do you want a beer? And I say. No, don’t put one in front of me. Can you just tell me this? We lost him. Can we just have that just be a chapter,

Speaker 1  25:08

something he’ll back you up. I can’t promise you how

Nestor Aparicio  25:13

many times he would come by, sweetheart, you you want to drink. I give you I’m like, give her the drink. I don’t I’m driving, and then I go pee, and I come back, and there’d be a beer sitting in front of me, and

Christine  25:27

you’re like, oh my goodness,

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Speaker 1  25:29

oh yeah, you just had

Christine  25:30

to stay. That was

Nestor Aparicio  25:32

put an end to that. I got it. I agree when you want to do that for me, here’s what I want you to do. This is an old Dundalk, a tradition that started at Squires, but they’re not my sponsor anymore. You are. So put a Shirley Temple down. Okay, you know what? I mean, yeah, put a Shirley Temple down for me. All right, and cherry in it done. And that way I can get from here over to lock Raven, where I live. And you know, all right, point A, point B, a little better. We’re here. Love you guys. Johnny Oh is going to be here our congressman, we moved the show, but we didn’t move anything. Steve rouse is going to be here on Thursday. Would be set up in the same spot. If you’re around on Thursday. Come by. Get it back to the future. Scratch up. I’ll be here all afternoon on Thursday. Todd Schuler is coming in. Letter Raskin is going to be here. I got some other surprise guests as well on Thursday, but I’m so glad I got in here with you guys, before we got going, nobody cried. I didn’t get any free beer. I got some crab soup. I’m going

Christine  26:25

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to get you a Shirley Temple, though,

Nestor Aparicio  26:28

Virgin, right? Don’t go sneaking a vodka in there. Now, come on. I’ll get John the bartender to make sure he makes that special for some sort of caustic tradition to my drinks around here. Pete, I love you. Christine, next, who’s managing what I mean? Moran

Christine  26:42

next, down that way right now, we’re split

Pete Triantafilos  26:44

up a little Christine and I are up here. My wife’s up here. Demetrius helping us up here as well.

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Nestor Aparicio  26:49

Operation off. Eventually. How do I get one of those done? You’re gonna have one mango Costa shirt one today.

Christine  26:57

But our goal is to to be at both places, right? Once we get established. I want to be at both places. I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  27:03

there’s mixologist John, who’s a native of at here. I see mag. I mean, I see people that, you know, yeah, we

Christine  27:08

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have some that work at both places. We’re

Pete Triantafilos  27:10

starting to balance it out. You know, I’ve been seven days a week up here. Then now it’s, I’ve been doing one in six, so one down in North Point, and six up here. Now it’s gonna be five and two, and eventually, you know, four and three. And we’re gonna balance

Christine  27:21

it out, everybody both places, and then we miss everybody. I can’t wait to

Pete Triantafilos  27:25

go back. I haven’t been back. You’ll see Christine at North Point and tomorrow. And the same with having gotten

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Nestor Aparicio  27:30

there, yeah, and all of us. How long has it been since you’ve been in

Christine  27:33

Dundalk six going on, six weeks, and walk into your foot now it’s the longest in your life. My whole life must be shaken. Actually gonna be a customer tomorrow. My mother in law were going for crabs tomorrow night, so I’m going to be a customer.

Nestor Aparicio  27:44

I hear they’re good. They are hurt, they’re worth coming back for. I am at Costas. This is the Maryland crab cake tour, and it’s only the beginning of our time here, the beginning out here at Timonium, they’re open. Come on out. Don’t come here looking for crabs. But if you want crab cakes, crab Imperial. You have here, right? Oh, yeah, and it’s Monday cake. Monday night. Crab cake night. Yep. So as much as I’ve talked up your spinach, when some of my sponsors and location like do I want to talk about this or that at certain places for me to crab Imperial is the thing that like that. That’s one of my favorite things that you do, that I want to like feature. So great stuff. That’s it. How many of those have I ordered? That’s a go to, that’s my go to stuffed mushroom caps, and usually the oyster Rockefeller. But now you can, if you’re not an oyster person, you can just get the spinach with the pita bread. Yeah, and skip the artichoke. Delicious artichoke. Anyway, I am Nestor. We’re gonna come back with Congressman Oh chess. Gets weird to say that Congressman Johnny. Oh Congressman

Pete Triantafilos  28:45

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Johnny, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. He’s been busy. Do you know how this happened? No, I don’t see how you freed him up.

Nestor Aparicio  28:51

You weren’t in there that night, the night I did my show. Or was it my show? I don’t know. It wasn’t. I went and watched the game with my son. I didn’t do the show that night. It’s about 656, weeks ago, I was in your bar late for, like, a Tuesday night. We might watch an Oriole game, and I had friends who left, and at the end of the night, it was like a scene in a Bogart thing. My son and I and his wife are on the far end by the door of the long bar, and at the other end I had eaten crabs. I met my buddy, Mark and John. We had those big crabs that night, and your brother was there, and I went to rinse, and there’s nobody left in the place. It’s like you’re almost putting stools up, and look down, and I look across, and I’m gonna tell Johnny, look across the bar. Johnny’s at the bar. He looks up at me. I looked at him, and I looked at his. Dad was with him, and his he hadn’t shaved in a couple days, and Johnny was in there looking at 10 o’clock at night, like a guy who had been in Congress for like six months. And I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I looked at him. There he is, like he’s looking at me now. And. Yeah. And I said, You are right. He’s like, just having a drink with my dad, man, long day, long day. And I said, you coming out to do the show? And he said, Yeah, I’ll come to the new Costas. So here he comes. Nothing like on wearing the American flag after honey beleaguered down in DC.

Christine  30:15

Oh boy, that’s a tough job. I feel for him. We’ll get

Nestor Aparicio  30:19

you there. I’m saying goodbye to these, to these, to these folks. They got they’re gonna make us dinner. They’re making a sandwich. How are you signing off? We’ll come back with Congressman osheski back for more. We’re in Timonium Towson. Nobody cried. So we survived. They.