Brew's Cafe

When we think of East End architecture, and new building and development in general, we often gravitate toward the obvious: the large, new, cutting edge design that makes magazine covers and lifelong name recognition. Erica Broberg certainly doesn't shy away from taking on large projects, but her business mission holds firmly to one critical  ethic that separates her from the more famous name...

To make ends meet on the East End, these days, it helps to wear a lot of hats. It helps even more if those hats are all for roles that aren't being worn by lots of others around town. Need a digital marketing expert? No, you say? Well, you're wrong. It doesn't matter what you do, nowadays, if you're not in the media business, you're not in business for long. And that'...

You have the hat. Probably in several colors. Because everyone has the hat. But when Amanda Merrow and Kate Baldwin set out to start Amber Waves Farm, they did not expect to be the creators of one of the most iconic fashion pieces of the past 10 years. In fact, they didn't expect to be many of the things they turned out to be, 15 years later. But here they are, and the small plot of land they...

Jeremy Blutstein is NOT a local. He makes that clear several times in the course of our conversation. He wasn't born here, only moved here when he was a kid, used to be a summer kid. All the bona-fides of a non-local. But you'd be hard pressed to find someone more dedicated to promoting and contributing to the local economy than he does as current and former chef of several restaurants w...

A recurring theme for many of my guests, is that they knew what they wanted to do from an early age. When Nick Epstein was very young, he knew he wanted to perform onstage. Today, Nick can be seen onstage as the lead singer and guitar player in Roses Grove Band, a group that plays songs from the Grateful Dead songbook, mostly on Long Island and very often on the East End. I've had the good fo...

In lots of the pictures I take, my guests have their eyes closed. I usually delete those. But in the case of spiritual healer Angel Santamarina, it's only fitting that I use a photo with his eyes closed. After all, the name of the book he co-wrote with Erica Broberg is titled "I See Better With My Eyes Closed", and after a read of the book or a long conversation, I can understand wh...

Not everyone likes flower baskets hanging from the lampposts in East Hampton Village. Not everyone likes banners promoting coming Village events. Community events in Herrick Park? Santa arriving by helicopter? Not everyone is into it. Jerry Larsen, East Hampton Village mayor for the past three years, understands that. And, for the most part, he's ok with it. Because he feels most people appre...

Just because Minerva Perez tackles some of the most critical issues facing some of the most vulnerable East End residents, doesn't mean she can't be a little silly sometimes. And even though she has a degree in theater from NYU, her movie credit might be a little less highbrow than you would think. But... you'll have to listen to the end to find out in what famous comedy she played....

You may be excused for having no idea who Walker Ward is. Very few of us, myself included, had any idea who he was. Until, that is, "Wall Street Intern" got on the train to Montauk for the first time. And then was overheard in line for the Surf Lodge. And couldn't get on the corporate jet. And for many of us, the travails of the "Wall Street Intern" became one of the amusi...

Brian Halweil has been a mainstay in the East End local food movement since before "Locavore" was even a word. For many years, Brian brought the sights and stories of local producers and their food products directly to our hands via "Edible" publications, "Edible East End" and "Edible Long Island" being the most relevant locally. But a few years ago, Brian m...

This is an episode I was looking forward to for a long time. Brian Burns is not just an extremely successful Film and Television writer and producer, he's an extremely interesting person and a helluva nice guy. And a great little league coach! So among his Hollywood credits such as "Blue Bloods" and  "Entourage", on which he did much of the writing, or "Daddy's H...

"Watch till the End"!! In the course of my conversation with Josh Gladstone, I explain how, in the life of Brew's, the long running NYC bar and restaurant after which this podcast is named and formulated, every single day something would happen that had never happened before. And here Josh keeps the spirit alive by ending the episode with not just a soliloquy, but with an emotionall...

You probably won't recognized Doug Levin by name, but by the end of the day, he will likely have impacted your life in some small, unnoticeable but very important way. As the founder and CEO of Black Duck Software, Doug was responsible for creating a company that led to an entire segment of the industry focused on both making open source software license compliant and secure from malware and...

You might recognize Debra Geller's name from construction signs outside several of East Hampton's more glamorous design projects. Working with builder Phil Kauffman, she has designed, built, decorated and sold (or is selling) two gorgeous homes here. But as you'll hear here, deep down she's really just a "sawx" fan raising a houseful of Yankees fans. Originally from M...

You've probably heard the stories over the years, the concerts, the events, the fundraisers.... the bars, nightclubs and famous names from Hamptons glory days. John Kowalenko not only was there, he probably put the whole thing on. Over the course of the past 35 years John Kowalenko has had a hand in some of the most iconic events and happenings on the east end. Today, as they have for the pas...

It seems like not all that long ago, to me anyway, that potatoes were a big deal on the South Fork of Long Island. Throughout the past several decades, though, potatoes, and farmland in general, have given way to development of large summer homes, as the pressure to sell the exceedingly valuable farmland between Montauk Highway and the Atlantic Ocean became unavoidable for many local farming famil...

By now, many have you have figured out that I'll pretty much go to any length to get a great guest. I mean, you might think I'd even change jobs and leave a well established firm to join an upstart company with little brand recognition in this market, just to get an interview with a guy like Ryan Serhant. In our business (real estate, in case you missed that), Ryan Serhant is kinda the b...

Just in time for Hamptons Whodunnit comes this very special episode with mystery novelist Randye Lordon. Randye, who lives full-time in Springs, walks us through the process of becoming a mystery writer, where her characters come from and how much fun it was setting this particular mystery in East Hampton. Randye will be reading and signing her most recent novel, "She's Dead, Who Cares&q...

By now, Nancy Atlas needs no introduction, but I'm going to do it anyway. It's possible a listener might've been living under a rock for the past 25 years, or maybe they live far away. For anyone who's spent more than a week or two on the east end, though, it'd be pretty hard to avoid Nancy Atlas. And even though you might see her on Friday at the Talkhouse, Sunday at Gurn...

You might not recognize Hugh King out of uniform. Quite often, while in public, he wears a black top hat and a black cape. And he's usually leading a graveyard tour, or a historical walk or some other similar historically based activity. For when someone, anyone in East Hampton needs to know about the past, they usually turn to Hugh King. Born and raised in Amagansett, a long time teacher in...

There are four major tournaments in golf: The Masters, The US Open, The British Open and The PGA. Most of us aspire to go and watch one of these tournaments, to simply to get to SEE the likes of a Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson or Justin Thomas today, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Palmer in past eras and names like Ben Hogan and Sam Snead in the history books. For most professional golfers, the dream of pla...

Chances are you know Jenny Landey. Everyone seems to know Jenny Landey, and she seems to know everyone. High school friends post pics on Instagram and they're "liked by JennyLandey."... We did not go to high school in the same state. She has her own explanations for how this could be, and they seem plausible. But there's a whole lot more to Jenny than her popularity, as we find...

It might not always seem so, but he really wants you to get the answers right. Maybe not all of them. But when you go to "Quiz Night" at Townline BBQ, or Trivia Brunch at Peconic Bay Brewery, Paul Johnson is trying NOT to stump you. It's actually not fun for him unless you get at least SOME of the answers. So you might not know who holds the record for most Grand Slam Tennis wins, b...

Green Comets? Seventy degrees in February? Unusual beach erosion? Whales washing up all over the place? What in the Earth Science is going on here?!?! To help me understand some of what is happening in our world, and a little less of how, and hardly any why, I turned to my favorite Earth Science teacher, Erik Schwab (he's competing with Mrs. Joseph, my 9th grade ES teacher, so it's not r...

Sometimes the best episodes are the ones where I have absolutely no plan. The only plan is to sit down and chew the fat with someone I've known for some time and with whom I've always enjoyed chewing the fat. It helps, of course, if that someone who spends 6 hours at a clip filling empty radio air on the iconic WLNG with music, information, commentary and an occasional advertisement. Whi...