The power of business, crabs and community in Reisterstown

We came for a crab cake and got some good civics and community lessons from 2nd District councilman Izzy Patoka and owner Hope Otto of Reter’s Crab House & Grille discussing jobs, young people and the Reisterstown Improvement Association’s efforts to bring folks out and know their neighbors. A perfect stop on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour presented by The Maryland Lottery, Curio Wellness and Liberty Pure Solutions.

Nestor Aparicio, host of WNST 1570, visited Reisterstown Crab House with Hope Otto, the new owner, and Councilman Izzy Patoka. Hope shared her journey of purchasing the crab house from Brad Reter and highlighted community involvement, including the Reisterstown Improvement Association’s efforts like Musical Main Street and monthly cleanups. Izzy emphasized the community’s commitment and the multiplier effect of investments. Hope also discussed her work with local schools, particularly a mock interview program at Franklin High School. Nestor mentioned upcoming events and his 27th anniversary, where he will eat 27 favorite Baltimore foods. The segment concluded with plans for Nestor to try Brandon Kessler’s crab cakes.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Reisterstown, community involvement, Reisterstown Crab House, Maryland Lottery, Back to the Future scratch offs, Reisterstown Improvement Association, Musical Main Street, community roundtable, local high schools, workforce development, mock interview session, local business, community events, crab cakes, Baltimore County.

SPEAKERS

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Izzy Patoka, Hope Otto, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive, positively here in beautiful racers town, Maryland, you should come and try it. It’s all behalf of our friends at the Maryland lottery. You have the Back to the Future scratch offs the giveaway. We’re doing that here today. It is our first time at readers crab house. I was a little worried I was pronouncing it wrong, because hope and I had been texting back and forth, talking back and forth, moving back and forth, and then Izzy. I’ve been trying to get Izzy on for a period of time. I run into you a couple times. We had an opening down at curio, by the way, happy Eddie’s going to be here a little later on, and I’ve been trying to get you on. And I wasn’t insistent that we didn’t do it on Zoom. But I’m like, we should sit next to each other when I’m out doing a crab cake tour. And I said, when I get out to your area, we’re gonna do this. You said, well, the whole county, do it anywhere in the county. And I said, Well, I’m gonna register stand. He’s like, I’m coming to readers. Then I came in a couple hours ago and hopes, like, oh, is he’s here all the time. It’s like, a main street thing and an improvement and a cleanup and all that. So I’m like, All right, I’m putting the two of you together. We’re gonna do a little community. First off, thanks for hosting us. I mean, you guys were great. You got great kitchen, great help. I’ve been here a couple hours. There’s a lot of energy in this room, right? Always is, yeah, well, you come at it, honest. I mean, you own it, run it, but you were running it before you own it. You had, like, a whole story here. And when I told you, like, issues come by. You’re like, we do things here. So I want bring the whole thing together here and give a little bit of your story, because I’m gonna do a whole

Hope Otto  01:27

segment on you later on. So my name is Hope Otto. I am the owner of readers crab house and grow purchased it in January from Brad reader, their previous owner, 27 years. This is an institution here. It’s 97 All right. So Brad is Mr. Reisterstown. He is a volunteer firefighter at the Reisterstown Volunteer Fire Company. He is a Franklin High School alumni. Does a lot with the Alumni Association for Franklin High School. As am I,

Nestor Aparicio  01:59

community based. All about community. Yes, we

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Hope Otto  02:01

host the reistertown Improvement Association here once a month for their community roundtable, where Izzy has spoken a couple of times, and we are very involved with what’s happening on Main Street.

Izzy Patoka  02:13

What’s happening in this community is, come on. Well, REISTER sounds just an outstanding community. And let me before I move on to REISTER sound, let me just say that readers, has a great lunch special here. Yes, I come here all the time.

Nestor Aparicio  02:24

What’s the lunch special

Izzy Patoka  02:25

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you get? What are you getting? Up? I usually get the cod, the cod

Nestor Aparicio  02:29

fried cod fish guy. It’s

Hope Otto  02:31

a fan favorite. You can’t, you know, it comes in fresh every day, so you can’t beat that.

Nestor Aparicio  02:35

So you sell a lot of it. Oh, so I should have ordered it,

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Hope Otto  02:38

yes, but the prime ribs, especially Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  02:41

I mean, I just went, you know, next time go for the cod, yeah, I maybe I’ll take it to go for the community here. And this association you speak of is speak to me. They you come in, you speak to a group here, what goes on here, community wide, that a business like readers can participate in. And I’ve seen, I was here with, with the school. My friend Meredith was DJing, and there’s been some bands and stuff. When you have these Friday is it Friday music on Main Street? Musical, main Okay,

Izzy Patoka  03:10

so Reisner sounds a really cool community, because there’s so many people that are committed to working here in Reisner sound. And they’re not just idea people, they’re doers. And I’ve always said, If you invest $1 in Reiser sound, it’s as if you’ve invested 10, because you’ve got all these people that are committed to make that dollar work and to grow it exponentially. Musical, Main Street’s a perfect example. Every Friday night, there’s a place to go to and hear great music. It’s community, it’s you can get a snack the cows out there.

Nestor Aparicio  03:42

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I saw you at the cow the other day. Well, it’s hard to I cannot believe how long have I been here? About two and a half hours. I haven’t thought of the cow. And that’s your gift to me. Your gift to me is you just said the cow, because I didn’t go up around the corner, you know, I came in off, off cherry over here, right? And, you know, like, so I going up here and turn the corner. It’s the first thing you see, and it’s 100 degrees out today. It’s a perfect day for the cow. So I am not having dessert to go. I want to tell you that, right, we

Hope Otto  04:11

can’t compete with the cow. I mean, you wouldn’t believe how many people come here. They eat their crabs, and then they’re like, Well, you don’t want dessert. We’re

Nestor Aparicio  04:18

going up crabs and ice cream. Yes, all right, so for the events that happen here, and for you, for the community itself, 27 years been here, you bought a place here. This, this feels, um, full, you know, it just feels well trafficked all the time. Yes, this is the kind of business that really is foundationally, what holds communities together, as I do these crab cake tours, as I do them in all sorts of communities, first time I’ve been up here. But having people out and having people excited about things, having good representation is, we hope, right, holding the thing together and making that Friday night thing. Where’s that idea come from?

Izzy Patoka  04:57

Well, it really was a grassroots. This effort through the Reisterstown Improvement Association, and they tried different things. They’re not they’re not scared to try. For example, there was an effort a couple of winters ago where they tried doing indoor music. Didn’t work out so well, but they had the fortitude to try the musical Main Street. The outdoor activity works really well, and something that you don’t hear about much, it’s like an offensive lineman, if you don’t hear about it, they’re doing a good job, right? But every first Saturday of the month, at 9am there’s a cleaning effort along all of Main Street, and it’s just people coming together and they’re going to clean Main Street. I think it’s from readers. We meet here at readers all the way up to Franklin High School. So

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Nestor Aparicio  05:46

then we ask about this stuff. I don’t know you guys, right? What else is going on here? Tell me something else that’s good, that’s happened because I can pitchfork all day long. But I would have known that if I didn’t ask you

Izzy Patoka  05:54

about Yeah, well, I was told just when I first was running for office, I was told by Mary Molinaro, you know Mary? I know Mary very well. She said, Izzy, if you participate in cleanups, I guarantee you’re going to win the council race. And so she was right. I participated in every cleanup, and then I won by 18 points. Nestor, how long have you been in politics? Well as an elected official, for seven years, but I worked in the governor’s office for eight years, in the mayor’s office of Baltimore City for six years, but I’m trained as an urban planner, and that’s what I’ve done for most

Nestor Aparicio  06:30

of my career. So you know what you’re getting into right? You signed up for this. I did signing up for more. I know I got to get you back into the kitchen here, but for other things that happen here, what else happens in this community? Makes you proud, makes you made you want to buy here. Made you want to be a part of this. After working here for a period of time, saying that’s going to be my place

Hope Otto  06:49

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to be honest. I mean, we’ve done a lot of work with Reisterstown Fire Department, with Glendon Fire Department, with different associations, with the school and to be the kids that come out of the local high schools here are definitely my most prized possessions. I volunteer with the workforce with a Work Based Learning program at Franklin High School. I do their junior class has a mock interview session every year, so I’ll go there, and I will interview them to give them life skills, obviously, to be able to interview for a job and and it’s part of their junior class requirement for their English. They have to write a resume. They have to look presentable. And I go and I volunteer with them, and I get a lot of staff members from Franklin and from different local high schools, and to be able to be like a small portion of their work journey and teach them things here that they’re going to take into the next job and to the next phase of their life is definitely a huge community thing that I am very proud to be a part of.

Nestor Aparicio  07:54

You know what? Man, I don’t know what I’m getting when I wake up in the morning with this show I did Mickey Coachella show last night. We work blue. I had no idea. So you just told me about something that I didn’t know I wore. I was a do kid, which was distributive directive, Aki, I don’t know it’s my senior year. I worked at the newspaper, but no one ever told me how to interview for a job, right? I mean, these are basic life skills that I didn’t even know. They’re teaching this stuff. So they bring local business people like you in, yeah, and talk to these young people, and maybe you find a shine to one of them higher one day, right? That’s part of the recruiting process, right, when your local business. But more than that, they get the, you know, the intimidation part of interviewing for a job under softer in a

Hope Otto  08:36

softer way. I mean, we hire a lot of kids that are, this is their first job, and just to be like a small sprinkle in their whole life and still keeping in touch with a bunch of the kids that we’ve had working here. Now, they’re on college. Now they’re on grad school. They’ve got their pride.

Izzy Patoka  08:53

She deserves to be acknowledged. It’s great work, especially nowadays, when kids are so focused on their electronics, they’re, you know, I think having a real life experience that hope is is working on is just outstanding. I

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Nestor Aparicio  09:06

just passed the Planet Fitness around a corner. I actually worked out there. Their sponsor mine, they do a summer thing where kids workout free, you know, yeah, and I came and I promoted it and do all that. And I’m thinking to myself, is that good or bad, one way or the other? Because kids can be a little bit just this and that. And in the conversation had with Justin for Planet Fitness, I’m like, No, this is how they learn respect. They come in with a bunch of adults who say, No, we this is how we behave in the gym. This is how we do things socially. This is how we get a job. This is how we work in the back when we have a job, right? Yeah, I don’t know in the COVID era that we’re getting younger people who’ve been, to your point, already got the necks already down on the phone, they’ve been wearing masks. You know, I do worry about that generation, but I do hear more people like you. And I met Tallulah at the counter here. Made sure she’s 18 before I get her back to future scratch. But I meet young people that have I. Better. Welcome in. Can I help you? Can I get you

Hope Otto  10:03

know? Yeah, I mean just giving them confidence to speak to adults that are not their family members, to be able to reiterate the information that they were taught from us about our place and things and protocols and that sort of thing, to be able to communicate with them and feel confident in their communicating. That’s life skills that they’ll take into the next phase. So definitely proud of, proud of that here. All right, well, I want

Nestor Aparicio  10:25

to break because I just wanted to give you some opportunity to talk about Russia. There’s anything else from Reisterstown I gotta get, because when I bring you in, we’re gonna talk crabs. I’m gonna eat a crab cake. And is and I got, we got, we got things we gonna talk about, right? We got the county, we got the district. I know you wanna talk about Israel. I want to talk about Trump. I know we got things we’ve got to talk about, right? So do that

Izzy Patoka  10:44

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before we leave Nestor, I want to give crystal, the main street manager, a shout out. Please do the crystal doesn’t out. She is like, like I said, for every dollar you invest in Reisterstown, you get it’s a multiplier effect. And with crystal, it’s absolutely true.

Nestor Aparicio  10:59

There you go for Crystal, she’s a peach. We love you have you have meetings in here,

Hope Otto  11:03

yes, the second Tuesday or first Tuesday of every month, business owners or community. It just, just business owners. It’s, it’s a business roundtable, but it’s open to all of racers town, anybody who is a citizen here, they are open. There’s lots of longtime residents that come just to absolutely, I mean, volunteer, know about they’re putting a development across the street. Talk about the development. They’re redistricting, districting our area. So talk about that. So it’s really just informative information about where we live.

Nestor Aparicio  11:36

Repeat the name of the group, so people can Google it or website. Find out more if they want to

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Hope Otto  11:41

be involved in Reisterstown. It’s the Reisterstown Improvement Association, Reisterstown improvement

Nestor Aparicio  11:46

associate, the RIA Correct. See, I’m good with I’m good with that. We’re readers. We’re out here Reisterstown. Let Hope get back to the kitchen. She’s gonna be coming back out. You know, you maybe you could speak to how I wound up here, because your your line chef said crab cakes. At one point, it popped up on the top of my Facebook because Zuckerberg knows me, right. He knows I want and I’m like, reader’s crab house. I’ve been trying, and I knew Brad’s name, and I think I had left a message out here years ago or something. Probably thought I was trying to sell him some, and I’ve just never been here. I had a girlfriend lived around the corner here 25 years ago, and I’m sure her dad, her mom and dad, got a lot of crabs here back in the day because they were crab eaters, for sure. But this is Reisterstown crab house, right? Has been for three decades.

Hope Otto  12:30

Yeah. So Brandon Kessler is our brand new head chef, and he is a lifetime, longtime fan of yours. He said he’s been growing up listening lives, all lies, growing up listening to you on the radio. And you know, when we still young, he is, he is not

Nestor Aparicio  12:48

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young. My 34th year. It’s my it’s 26th anniversary. About to do 27 on August 3.

Hope Otto  12:55

All right, so he is mid 30 so he has grown off, listen, yeah, yes, yes. So

Izzy Patoka  13:01

rid of the gray here. You’re looking good. Yeah.

Hope Otto  13:05

So, so yeah. When it’s when we kind of put out on social media that he was our new Head Chef, that’s kind of how you guys

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Nestor Aparicio  13:12

connected is, I have not had his crab cake, yes,

Hope Otto  13:15

yet. All right, well, he’s gonna make one for you. All right, we’re gonna have a

Nestor Aparicio  13:18

good time around here. We’re rushed. I’m already having a good time. Did an hour of baseball. Allen and Allen and Luke are over here. Tallulah offered me the crab and shrimp quesadilla. Allen has been my friend for this is our 30th anniversary of our friendship, and him, working for me, absolutely hates cheese. He’s not allergic to it, but he speaks about cheese the way I speak about Donald Trump. You know what I mean? Like, he speaks about cheese in this so I was going to order the case of D and I ordered it. I’m like, no, no, I got Alan. He won’t eat it. He won’t share with me. That’s why I got the prime ribs. Did I miss something with the crab shrimp case? Because Luke’s eating it right now. It is, it is, if I take a break, I can go regular slice,

Hope Otto  13:59

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just a little nibble off. I might want to do that. It’s one of the top things. Here it is, one of our most popular items.

Nestor Aparicio  14:04

Allen ordered the cheeseburger without the cheese.

Hope Otto  14:08

He did. He said, firehouse. That is, that is our staple. He

Nestor Aparicio  14:12

said to the girl, he said, I want the hamburger, no cheese. And I said, No cheese. Please. No cheese. So anyway, he’s he missed that on the

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Hope Otto  14:20

job. You can’t mess up with a burger at readers either she burger

Nestor Aparicio  14:23

cheaper. Cheaper is what I’m saying. All right. We’re out here rice readers in Reisterstown. I kid because Gary Thorne, the old Oriole broadcast he was from Baltimore. He would always call it registers town. I don’t know why, yes, so I always say we’re in registers town. So if I slip, it’s just it’s the Gary Thorne, who was the greatest hockey broadcaster of all time. So I’m brought to you by the Maryland lottery at the Back to the Future scratch offs is I’m gonna give you one I already gave you one site. I could do it on camera. Pretend I’m giving that. I’m giving these to lots of folks here while I’m breaking and stealing Luke’s case of D over here. We’re out here Reyes town today. We’re on the eighth we’re going to be in Canton. At deepest Qualis, first time ever, Dan Rodricks, Joe Giordano, Pete Kerin G, all my Goombas are coming out from Highland town, bringing all the soccer hooligans out. That’s the morning of the eighth, and then on the 10th, in the afternoon will be Acosta, some Timonium for the very first time at the racetrack. Didn’t even know they had a cost, as they could have done outside of Dundalk, but they do. So we’ll be there in Timonium. And I should involve you in this, because you’re a food person. 27th anniversary is August 3. I’m eating my 27 favorite things to eat in Baltimore, one a day, every day, beginning on August the third. And I’m making the list and checking it twice. I feel like Santa Claus, so Izzy’s going to stick around. We’re going to talk about the second. We’re going to talk about Baltimore County. We’re going to talk about politics. We’re gonna talk about things. We’re gonna eat crab cakes. Seen a little bit. See you then. All right, tell him I’ve had a lot of crab cakes. So you know, he’s back

Hope Otto  15:51

there sweating. Is it gonna be broiled or fried? What’s it gonna be? I think it’s gonna be broiled. All right, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  15:56

my mama made him fry dog. We’re back for more. We’re in northwest. We’re out here in beautiful Reisterstown on a hot day, and I got the cow around the corner, and I don’t mean Colton cows. Are you.