It took a little longer than we thought but the “new” Faidley’s Seafood at Lexington Market is now open. We were thrilled to hear the story of the move and how Damye and Alicia packed the new location with everything you remember about the original space on Paca Street. Luke Jones and Nestor Aparicio broadcast live each Friday (2-5pm) that the Orioles are home this spring and summer.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
years, ran, talking, coming, alicia, floor, market, leave, baltimore, crab cake, orioles, move, underwear, told, hips, baseball team, fridays, raccoon, bet, team
SPEAKERS
Damye Hahn, Alicia, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
We are W NSGA and 5070, Towson Baltimore we are at the new fate these there’s noises there sounds there smells of crab cake. So brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ve got Pac Man, scratch offs. Alicia is too young to play Pac Man. But Danny and I were old enough to remember, you know how to get after the cherries, chasing little ghosts and avoiding them. Maryland lottery sends us out to do this. We’re going to be giving these away here today as well as on Friday the 26th when the Orioles come back down every Friday in season, location, location, location or packet, we’re about three blocks from the ballpark lights. I get fined if I call it a stadium because it’s a ballpark Camden Yards, new ownership. But we have the same ownership here at fade Lee’s. Davey Han is here, Alicia is here. They are running things. Finally, finally, look at
Damye Hahn 00:52
this. Finally, truly, finally,
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:54
when did you know damy that this was going to happen? When did you know? They’re going to rip the market down? They’re talking about a new bar because they’ve been talking about a new market for
Damye Hahn 01:03
30 years. Five years ago, five years ago, we knew that it was coming down. All right. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:08
five years ago, you know this? All right, we’re gonna have to move. Run me through your family’s jam as I look at your father with a cigar up there in a corner, staring at me. Your mother stared at me here. I got the vines.
Damye Hahn 01:24
Right from every angle here. Well, it was it was interesting, because you know, at first actually, probably 10 years ago, they were talking about doing something with Lexington market. And they were talking about restoring the old building. And they had all kinds of groups come in. What’s the restoration supposed to look like? What’s what’s, you know, what do we need to do. And one of the things that came out of it is that what they had done in 1950 is make the sloped floor, which was brutal. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:59
was just talking to Luke about how much it hurt my knees and my hips. When I’m on flat right now. And I’m hurting like hell, but I’m not. I’m not gonna need ice when I was an ice job for a man my age these hips. Yeah, the floor was fine. It was the hips of my knees that were problem.
Damye Hahn 02:14
And those of us who worked there for years on the on the slope, we’re used to having one one bad hip, we got to we got to turn around every once in a while. But but it was brilliant in the fact that they could easily clean the floors. They didn’t have to have, you know, elevators, escalators anything because it was friendly to every wheelchair every everyone right? You know, it was it and it when they put it in and they quickly put it in, there was a there’s a 14 foot drop between PACA Street and Utah street. So when
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:47
it’s a hill, it’s a hill it’s other steps here in the new location, there’s steps and you step down and and the
Damye Hahn 02:53
old Lexington markets that were started in the late 1700s Each of the sheds always took the shape of and they and the and the typography into account. So everybody was always on an angle. And that’s the way the markets were always built. So nobody thought that oh, now we need elevators and escalators floor
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:13
has been really nice for you. It’s
Damye Hahn 03:18
honestly, and all
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:19
you’re doing is how flat the floor
Damye Hahn 03:22
was it was a big deal. 10 years ago when they started coming up with you know, hey, we’re gonna we’re gonna move Lexington market one of the big things was we need to level the floor. And my father’s like, You’re idiots. Why would you want to level the floor here? You level the floor. And that was the cost was like $20 million to level the floor to take that and level. And he’s new market. Exact. That’s exactly what Bill said. Bill said for that kind of money. You build a new market because what you’re going to end up doing is you’re kicking everybody out for two to three years. People go somewhere else to eat, and they’re not coming back. So it takes
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:05
another place to do business. Correct? Correct. You out here for three years you’d have kittens will open now and that just that’s how you would have to do it that we’d
Damye Hahn 04:13
have someplace else downtown, you know, because Catonsville that’s another you know, I got you it’s time for another for other reasons. You know,
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:22
I was here the other day. I’m waiting for you. Every time I go there. I’m like, Hey, one day
Damye Hahn 04:28
well, the worker bees are there now the roofs off there. They’re starting we finally got a building permit about five weeks ago. So it’s taken us this long to get a building permit. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:37
came in here true story. And at least you know, this is a fact I came in here when this was all watered up about two months in January couple Superbowl week. I was supposed to do the show for the new place where you would hope I’d hope was Valentine’s Day. I described my last prep keeps cries over there in November. I’m like, next time I come back, it’ll be and I came back and you’re stressed Yeah, and like, and I’m like, at some point, we’re gonna have normalcy. We’re gonna. It’s like when people told me at some point, we’re gonna have a real baseball owner and cash. Cow was gonna own it’s right, right, right, right. Right. Do you wait long enough things happen? But I would say this. It feels like you’ve been open for 20 years here not 20 days, literally, right? I mean, things are operating and probably all of the angst about moving and the signs on the wall and your family and all of that. Things are probably easier here. Right? The kitchen or quit like every piece of it. Once you get used to it. You’re like, how the hell do we live like that over there?
Damye Hahn 05:41
Correct, right? Yeah, yeah, except for the one thing I was gonna tell you with the pitch floors, everything drained. Right, okay. Or nothing drains? Well, let’s let him slip slide and all over the place. Yeah, the flood get them. Ah, yeah. Oh, we’ve got plenty of mops. Yes, but they’re not pitched to the drains, right.
Alicia 05:57
They’re a bit higher. The drains are higher than the floor water around to find them one drink.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:05
All right, yeah. But Alicia, for you with this. And what’s better about this one, I mean, you can see everything but what’s what’s better for people coming in to get a sandwich as the wind is blowing through here. Luke told me is gonna be windy at the game. I didn’t know he’s gonna be in our microphones. But that’s that’s why we didn’t do the show outside today. But you have an outdoor deck here, miss. There’s a lot of like, I would say upgrades to the families.
Alicia 06:28
I mean, the first upgrade we can look at is like the fish side. You know, before it was tucked away that I
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:33
want my wife is threatening that if I don’t bring rock fish over tonight for a bird Blanc and some capers. We’re gonna have problems. You got some fresh rock this year. Right?
Damye Hahn 06:40
We’ve got some good fresh fish
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:43
that you can see the fish counter. You can.
Damye Hahn 06:46
You can see the crabs you can see everything. And we’ve got our old raw bar, which is awesome. Yep. We took the raw bar from next door still here still here
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:55
with the show in front of the sign today because it’s right where like the beer is and I don’t want to get in the way the beer on on a Friday afternoon.
Damye Hahn 07:03
Yeah, but it’s there. The old one of the old signs, we had two of them, so one of them will probably take up to Catonsville. But this, this one is original to the old raw bar. And the actual raw bar itself. The top is the original overall bar top that my dad had built. So we just reworked that one and put it on top of a new Bay
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:24
to clean every frame in here. 100 times right. Like oh my gosh, because we took it down. And the other place. There’s probably stuff up there that’s older than Alicia. Oh,
Alicia 07:32
oh, yeah. Maybe like a majority of these here are from the 1950s.
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:36
But what I’m saying they went on the wall in 1954. And never move.
Damye Hahn 07:41
Correct. Correct. And so when I took them down, a lot of them were falling apart. So not only did I have to restore them, every single one of these I repainted every letter.
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:54
I went over every single one of them good, because I was wondering how did you get it over here? Because it looks I’m looking at it? I’m like, that looks like the same exact thing from over there. Except that was brown over
Damye Hahn 08:05
there. And clean and
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:08
billion crabcakes. Right, right in the market, you know, to tie the one. Exactly
Damye Hahn 08:13
you love about it? Well, I I love that. We’ve brought all our history over here. Every new every single, it was funny, because when we were you know, coming up with a design of this place, I wanted it to look enough like the old families that people would feel familiar. And I also told them, I said I’m bringing every single piece of hanging signage and articles and that kind of stuff. And they said, every one, I said yes, every
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:43
one that was gonna fall apart over there, you’re like, I’ll put it back together. Right? And
Damye Hahn 08:46
I did and every single one, I was obsessed with that
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:51
you don’t have to worry like your recipes, the crab cake, the ordering the customer like all of that your staff. All of that was like going to move from there to here, right? Like you knew the fryers were going to be better the refrigerator like the layout you design this place. I hope it’s perfect, or as close to perfect as your square can be. But then it was like I what am I going to do to make it feel like families? All right, and the way it tastes Right, right?
Damye Hahn 09:14
And we brought the tables we brought all the art we brought all the all the articles like this one here sitting in front of you. That is a certificate for certificate of recognition from the city of Baltimore, because we were named as most iconic food destination in Smithsonian. And I mean, I can’t not have that hanging up. You know, those are the kinds of things are we you know, we put up
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:38
because it’s all around Jason. Now you’re gonna watch this 32 minute video of the documentary. And you’re gonna be like, I feel that way right now. Like I’ve seen a Greg I can’t do the video and not put the Bill Murray thing in the Bill Murray things got to be in there. Right. How long you want to make it? What do you want to leave the Brooks Robinson thing out? No, you can’t do that. Well, you wanna leave the George Bush thing out. You
Damye Hahn 09:59
want to get the brocco bomb Do you leave out when you leave on the table you
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:01
will leave at Shaffer Hogan you want to leave out we what are we doing here? You leave at Cal Ripken or Eddie Murphy. And Ray Lewis. You can leave at Joe foot. You got to it’s all got to be this kind of history that you have here. You don’t want to not just let it go. It’s as important as the recipe to the grab gate. Correct?
Damye Hahn 10:20
Correct. And it was, we had we knew we had these high ceilings. So I told him, I said, you know, they wanted to tile it on. I’m like, Don’t tile it. I’ve got to hang things. And they said, You’re hanging it up there. And I said, Yeah, like a lot of big stuff.
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:33
You know, looking at it since I walked in, we got 35
Damye Hahn 10:37
feet filled this way and I still have more to put on the back wall which is another 20 feet 20 feet. Here’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:43
the problem my god I’m gonna I’m gonna show this sign over here. It’s got the raccoon side over here raccoon Yeah. In season is what the sign says. And I’m like, we have raccoons out in my in my my back every day. And I’m thinking did he know did he taste good? What did it taste like? You know, watching you seen or you might want to move that to
Alicia 11:10
people randomly people call all the time for raccoons. Yes. All the time.
Damye Hahn 11:14
You know what? Lou makes it and he makes one forest every winter. And it tastes like when he does it taste like pulled pork?
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:24
I haven’t put a little better. I’m just gonna get pulled pork. I’m gonna stay away. tickle their bellies when they’re at will get you in they get that? Did they get that dog? Hamburglar low. Yeah, so I put out like this. So for for you with events. Everything’s I’m coming down on Fridays. Are we doing crab racing? Yes.
Alicia 11:44
Absolutely.
Damye Hahn 11:48
Now that’s coming up. That’s right before Preakness the Wednesday before Preakness.
Alicia 11:52
21st is Preakness on the 18th.
Damye Hahn 11:55
Okay, yeah, so we aren’t gonna show up gonna cheat again to win. Not cheat,
Alicia 12:01
there was a little encouragement, there is encouragement with this stick. That was little
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:06
i Well, he knew we had to agitate the crab. I was trying to blow on it talk nice to give him a kiss, you know, features like move and missing. You know, he just like the most competitive dude showed up over here. And I was like, try and like I traveled to China with PJ I covered him when he was with I covered him when he was with the Brewers were in town and I didn’t take it seriously. And I got my ass kicked. And I went over to your original location. And I talked I talked to one of your guys there. He’s like, you gotta poke the crap. And I’m like, we’re gonna told me that before. Now I know. This year. I know you.
Damye Hahn 12:48
You can use the spray bottle water dude to agitate the water. I’ll do it. The water will make him jump.
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:53
I was kind of going like, come on.
Alicia 12:57
Okay, all right. It’s
Damye Hahn 12:58
game time. And that’s the stick had a little barbed wire on it. So you were supposed to like, do it in front of it. How
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:03
about this this year? How about if I not participate? And I just emcee it. Okay,
Damye Hahn 13:07
okay, that’s fine. I’m not gonna when I talked to BJ and he’s coming back to defend his championship. He wants his trophy again.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:20
I know you guys aren’t, you’re a pretty big baseball fan to me. But BJ CERF was a number one overall draft pick one one like, like, why Jackson Holliday? Yeah. So it is fascinating all these years later to see what becomes of the good Ben McDonald one he calls the games entertains me bet McDonough would eat that raccoon. I promise you bring him here. You know what if I tell they’re serving raccoon up here? He they got to crawl fish. That’s what he said. Because he’s always I can get
Damye Hahn 13:49
him some crumbs? Yes.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:52
Is that sacrilegious to do crawfish in here? No. No,
Damye Hahn 13:54
we have people that we sell them frozen because people ask for them. People come in and say can I get crawfish? And of course I’ll get you anything you want. anybody anything? Crawfish.
Alicia 14:08
Like J of something.
Damye Hahn 14:09
Yeah, there’s a Cajun that is more here. There’s more here. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:14
gotta meet the J yo. Ginger from JC I follow her on Facebook. So
Damye Hahn 14:18
hey, get her over here. Let’s go. Love ginger. Yeah. Oscar right here. 2016
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:24
three in the for the fiber shake. Luke was here. We’re giving away Pac Man scratch offs. Jamie’s trying to shoot move the camera all the way back to the old location here. And Alicia is here as well tell everybody how they can order into all the cool stuff that they’ve always been. And what I learned is you’re really still doing your ship and from 50 feet away and the old spot because yes, as much as you have great frontage here. You have no baggage here. Right, right. Do you have the little cubby you crawl into like the old play yo cage? Oh, man. Oh, we
Damye Hahn 14:50
have an office. We actually have a little like a real office a real office.
Alicia 14:55
It’s surreal to be honest. I put myself in the corner. Sell and kind of like pack things around me to the side like it feels natural.
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:05
Hey, Jamie Walker, whatever she will let me go up to my office and I’m like, it looks like it looks like Louie dipalma is cage. Right? He got caps. You know what I
Damye Hahn 15:17
mean? Well, Bill would call it his crow’s nest or is Eagle’s Nest. Eagle’s Nest. Eagle’s Nest, ravens nest. Yeah, radios nest. He has military he was Navy so we call it the Eagle’s Nest well I
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:30
hope he’s doing okay I’m gonna move down here get him well, you’re doing a grand opening next month Yes. So for you with early business and people coming in there’s nobody that can’t find this place. That’s the one thing I want to let everybody know if you knew where the old failure is is you go there and you walk 50 feet to the right here we are yes there’s no that hasn’t been an issue at all from now
Damye Hahn 15:52
now in fact what we had more of a problem with his people coming here and not realizing we were still up in the old
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:57
Google locate you here early they tried to move you into the new market Yeah, they thought the new old market was closed or temporarily closed or
Damye Hahn 16:08
racks so so we haven’t had a problem getting people back here now which is which is awesome. And we have a lot of front footage now so we’ve got that nice yeah, you’re allowed to eat here then you did now actually we have last it looks way bigger. I know that all the tables are kind
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:27
of shoved in theory that nobody really used toward toward the open airy the market not a lot of people sat back there.
Damye Hahn 16:36
Ha Saturdays it was always packed. You know,
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:39
I still think you have more room here even though it looks
Alicia 16:42
I mean with all but we have a pad windows and the patio it does feel like there’s more space but I think we’re around them. Daily
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:49
seafood you can order crab cakes anywhere in the world one click away. They can be Minnesota Tamar, Idaho tomorrow. You could send them a little bit McDonald’s friends then Louisiana so you can find out what’s good as my mom would say and
Damye Hahn 17:00
wait and we’re still shipping we ship fresh. And we finally have Maryland crab meat again. So yay. We’re back to Maryland crabmeat. April,
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:09
baby that’s crazy month with the Key Bridge and with the Orioles and the sale. We got an election coming up in a month and it’s neat is gonna be your leg. Sheila Dixon is going to be here, I think through is gonna be here two weeks from now. So I’m gonna get conversation. I think it’s so important. I mean, thank you to you for keeping me alive all these years, but I’m doing this 25th anniversary documentary. And so much of it is like how we’ve morphed from sports into the city just into what’s important, you know, video, you’ll know. I ran through the streets of Baltimore and tighty whities for miles in rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon know why. There you go. Why? It was the greatest. I lost a bet. I lost the bet. Okay. So when I say ravens to you, and I know you’re 21 Alicia. So the team’s been here 27 years. So they’ve been here longer than you’ve been alive. But there wasn’t life for Damian i and certainly for parents that we remember the Mayflower trucks leaving, right. And we didn’t have a football team. It’s way different, especially 30 years later, seeing the baseball team really become a distant number two to the football team here over the last 20 years in perception, reality winning and all that. But the baseball team was the only thing that existed here. 30 years ago, when I started the station started the show, which did this show at Hooters live every we did it there almost every home game, because I wanted to be down there it was at the stadium anyway. And I could walk three blocks like this. They give me my press pass back. I’ll still be here till two o’clock on Friday, the rest of the year. But, you know, all these years later with football and losing the team, and the devastation of all of that. There are people younger, who just think well, the Ravens have always been here before that was the Colts and yeah, there was 13 years. Yeah, there were 13 years. We didn’t have a team. So during that period of time, the league didn’t expand, lied to us lied to everybody took our jerseys took our uniforms. We had to sit here and pounce. And we had to save money, steal a team, right to get a team. We lost expansion to Charlotte and Jacksonville. So we lost that expansion to Charlotte in Jacksonville. I had been on the air about two two and a half years. It’s 9394 is in the 94 We lost expansion and in the 95 and once we lost Jacksonville, I sat over at the bar at bow hangers with a bottle of champagne, waiting to hear that Baltimore got a team back. They said Jacksonville go back to Baltimore build a museum. That’s what the commissioner of the NFL told our city to build a museum. She didn’t know this until 1995. I went on the air and I’m like, We’re never getting the team here. It was despondent, it was like We’re never getting a team. I said I’ll run naked from Hooters the balls, remember balls, balls balls is where the Estrie alehouse okay so that was PJ crickets before that but it was balls was at ball sports bar balls all American sportswear when Camden Yards open it really created you know business for this area in a big way three and a half million people. Why do you think I fight with the creeping on the deep because I got I saw the attrition what it did the business is down here. But the football thing when the team came it it’s hard to express what a miracle. It’s a miracle that that football team came here. It was such a miracle that callers call me and say hey, nasty, you should go run naked Damn. So I had to do it. So in lieu of running naked, so it’s filmed. The 25th anniversary documentary comes out a fiber weighed on the 25th. All right, and if you want to see what I look like it’s running in my underwear. Eastbound. I ran that day in tighty whities and I had four Hooters girls and their Hooters athletes, and they were all like Chainsmokers and drinking and you know, they, they couldn’t breathe. And I was trained to do it. Even I looked at good and I looked better now but but I was in shape to run five miles and I ran. I ran five five miles. I mean, we ran an hour. I ran to Little Italy and it means she’s had a water station. Great on social media. Right. But they had a water station for me. And then I ran up the hill up to the monument. And then I ran down the hill with a lot easier coming down than up hill bad down. Oh, good. Book, a better sub floor. And when I got to President street, I turned the corner and it was a cabbie hawk and this old calves honking his horn, he had a $20 bill holding out for me. We’re raising money for a block. So I was getting tipped on the pole. And I had my my tighty whities on and we raised money for a block. So
21:55
that’s amazing. So there’s one. That’s good. We can’t wait to watch it. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:59
know you really want to see me my underwear but it only lasts about eight seconds. We’ll hold the whole thing all right. Here I will not be in my underwear broadcasting here. But if we ever get an NHL team, I’ll broadcast in my underwear from here and fade Nice. All right, is that good? It’s noted it’s not what we have as much chance to get an NHL team right now as we did have a football team 30 years ago, trust me. I would never said I was gonna run naked than you. I didn’t expect to ever have to pay up on that bet I guess is my point.
Alicia 22:26
Well, I’m happy.
Damye Hahn 22:27
Didn’t didn’t we have one for a while?
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:32
Not Ah. Oh, wait a minute show. Yeah, good. Minor League Hockey. Okay. I always say for years on the radio.
Damye Hahn 22:38
My father owned part of that
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:41
hockey team. I wish I would have known before I would have come back crabcakes you guys before. But yeah, I love hockey. So when I met my wife at a hockey game, so I love hockey. I was always like, if I ever really got rich doing this, I would have bought a hockey team. That would have been my stupid thing to lose money was being a hockey entrepreneur. All right, Shannon Steve’s gonna be joining us momentarily. She’s running for city council president. We’re gonna shoot with Dixon here a little later on as well. Throughout listener land. John Allen Keith Brewer, two of our voices from the documentary join me earlier Costas this week. We talked a lot about the Key Bridge we talked to Todd Crandall, we talked to Joe gold from Key Brewing about how important the peninsula is. So the city is important. We’ve been talking about Lexington market forever but talking about a baseball team we can all be proud of and ownership and Cal Ripken. All of that is happening. We got a good baseball team. We’re gonna be here at Faith Lee’s on Fridays. Every Friday the Orioles are home from two to five. I said earlier, don’t come down here and I’m not here. Come when I’m not here. You’ll enjoy it more. The other Fridays come on the 19th if you want, but they’re here all the time. And you can obviously ship the crab cakes and faily seafood, but they taste better here. So it’s already come on down for a ballgame. Right? Perfect. All right. Sal and I sent Luke out with the shrimp salad. Pac Man ticket for you back man for you. She’s gonna get one. Even though she’s too young to do you know what Pac Man is? Being young,
Alicia 23:59
I’m done. Yeah. Well.
Damye Hahn 24:03
She can’t because her mother was playing
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:08
you know Laurie right? Give me that bet you get to play you’re not at all right. I am Nestor. We are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. We’re at Lexington market. The new Lexington market birth families come down and get some seafood rockfish like I’m going to take home tonight.
