A Geek History of Time - Episode 374 - Interview with Pittador Brews Owners Liliette Freeman & Stephen Freeman Part II

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because obvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the pale. That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because you know who's the boss. You know what? I'm going to keep my head down inoffensive as I can to everybody possible.

And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. It's a geek history of time where we bring nerdery to the real world. I'm Damien Harmony, and as you can tell, I am not Ed Blaylock. It's partly the looks, partly the hygiene, but also the fact that he knows what he's talking

about during this time. Ed is on assignment right now, and in all honesty, some of this is due to the fact that we had such a great time with our guests last week that we didn't even get a chance to break in the action. And as a result, we needed to cut it into two pieces. So instead of just throwing you back into it, I wanted you to start with something that sounded at least a little bit familiar. Nothing really big has happened to either of us this week. We've both gone back to work, I believe, which dates this as having been recorded during spring break, but who knows when it's going to release. Anyway, part two of the interview with Stephen Freeman and Lily Freeman, the owners and

operators of Pitador Brews, which is located at 105 Second Street in Old Sacramento. That part two of the interview is coming up. So tuck in and plan your next venture out to go get some coffee from that place because it is amazing. All right. On to the interview. Yeah. Mainly old Sakamu is just for, at least for me personally, it's the draw of connecting to history. Yeah. You know, I, I, I, I was not born here in the United States. I was born in Nicaragua. My family came here when I was seven. My sisters were both born here. So my experiences, they're growing up and my growing up been completely, different. Very, very, very vastly different. But I know where my roots come from. I know where I'm

from. I know where my family's from. But growing up in a different place, I've always felt, even though, I mean, in Sacramento, there's a lot of Hispanic communities here. I've always felt kind of on the outside, not fully part of like the Hispanic community, but not fully part of the general community. sure so I've always kind of felt like out of place out of time it's that connection to like you know history is there you can still go visit it yeah that has always drawn me to sacrament is you can go and see you can go and learn you can step into history yeah I mean there's literally like an underground tour and there's you know all kinds of cool stuff there's two museums there and I think what like three antique shops or something like that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I grew up in Harvey, Illinois. We came here in 89. I was 9. So I think when, I don't remember when I first went to Old Sacramento,

but I just remembered hitting up the old record shop and those were the two main and the candy shop because I'm addicted to candy. Yeah. Stage 9 has been there forever. Those and the comedy place there once. Oh, yeah, laughs unlimited. But I just remember it was very vibrant. And hell, I even got my first supervisor position at Roundtable Pizza because anybody who wants to be a supervisor.

They were sent to Old Sacramento during the Jazz Jubilee Festival to train. Oh. If you survive there, you got promoted. Yeah, because they used to do a jazz festival every Memorial Day weekend. Yep. Yeah. And you survived that crowd and thousands of people would come there. And if you survive that rush, those three days.

Yeah. You can go anywhere. And that's, yeah, I became a supervisor. They sent me over to Ranch Gordova, and I hated it after that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so mainly that's been the draw to Sacramento. It's just, you know, being a part of history, being a part of just something different. And which is interesting because I get the question a lot, like, how do we like it being there?

I tell people we went into Old Sacramento knowing that we weren't going to have what a typical coffee shop business has which is the almost instant clientele of the neighborhood residents, the people that live there

because yes there are people that live in Oldsac but it's not a lot of people so our clientele fluctuates it's more tourist because it is a state party It is a tourist destination. But that doesn't mean we're any less busy on the weekends. We just have different clientele constantly.

I mean, the draw for me is more spiritual. I don't know what it is about old saccharacter, especially the building that we're in. Because once I saw it, I'm like, that is perfect. The window. It's so wide. It is. It's just I could not stop thinking about this place for two years straight.

And then we entered this competition. and part of the competition is you need to select a space in downtown to open in order even when you win in order to get the money you have to sign a lease in the districts that are part of the of the the downtown sacramento partnership so old sacramento uh downtown um the civic area the entertainment area and forgetting a couple others um but within those boundaries you have to open your business because that's the whole goal of the program is to bring new businesses to the area. Yeah. Got that midtown area is where. Yeah. And then Midtown and up, it's a different association. It's managed by the Midtown Association. Okay. So we were going into it already looking in Oldtack. And we looked at a couple other places, but we've always kept getting just drawn back into Oldtack. And in particular, that building. And, it just lined up beautifully that Herring Herringer was going into that same space, but they didn't want the whole space.

So we had about two years before had met with some of the ownership of the building and kind of pitched our idea. And they're fabulous because they had told us no. And they were like, we feel this is too much space for where your business is. at. And for a landlord to say that, I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of, you know, saying, yeah, sure, here, sign this lease for like, you know, four or five thousand dollars a month. Good luck. Right. They were literally like, no, this is, this is more space than you guys are ready for. Come back, you know, if the space is still there, the space is still there. Right. You know. And when we reached out again, the agent was like, it's funny that you guys are

reaching out because I was actually thinking about you guys. There is a winery that's going into the space, but they don't want the full space. And I was thinking about the smaller side for you guys. So if you guys are interested, it's yours. Right. And it just just lined up. Yeah. I was like, so we moved heaven and earth to get in there.

And, you know, the rest is history. But already before the space was built, we looked and we're like, we already all grew it. I told Lily, when the frame went up, I'm like, we already outgrew the space. Really? When you're that deep trying to build your business, you've got to know where everything's going to go. Right. I told her, I actually dream about sitting into the space and getting a feel about how people are going to come in here. If I have more than 10 people in there, it's packed.

Yeah, that's true. You know, it's packed. And we're trying to do retail and serve drinks. Our flow is good. Yeah. And people are happy. We haven't had any issues or anything, but we have to start thinking about expansion even before the paint drives.

And sure enough, the building down the street on the left is for sale. It's triple the size of what we have. And I'm like, there is no way in hell. That's a coincidence. Sure. Yeah. And I keep looking at it. It's the same as session I had over this building.

I'm like, we can do everything we want in there. Everything. You get really big gears on the wall. I mean, and you, you kind of have to think forward. I always tell people, you know, what's your, what's your five-year goal? Yeah. It's your 10-year goal. What's your 15-year goal?

You know, you need to check in with yourself or you need to check in with your business partner or heck, you need to check in with your spouse. What are your goals? Where do you see yourself? What do you want to accomplish? Okay. Have we met where we said? we were going to be at this point.

Or do we need to readjust? Yeah. Where do we readjust? You know, where do we need to say, okay, this isn't going to work out, but this will work out better. That will be salvaged this, you know. And when we were writing our business plan, I think we wrote all the way up to 20 years and an exit strategy.

Because I told her, because we had this little debate, and we debate a lot. I see, you know, I think you said something like, well, we're just going to be making tea and coffee. I go, we're not doing that in our 70s. I don't know about you, but we're not doing that in our 70s. We have to have an exit strategy. You know, who's going to take the torch after we're done?

So, yeah, what we did was we created a 20 year, we have a 20 year plan with each point and we're actually taking all the boxes. It's phenomenal. It's always important to go back on these plans and read them.

And then an exit strategy. So how originally when we wrote that exit strategy, we considered an error in the family to take it over. Okay. You also have to include what if that error doesn't want to do this. Right. You know, so then we're looking at her sister's taking over. They don't want to run a business, but I don't want to close it down either. So maybe we've received mail check money, mailbox money.

Oh, I do love passive income. Yeah. They might cut, do what you're going to do with it. You guys make decisions. So there's a myriad of things. The exit strategy is so fascinating because there's a myriad of things you can do and protect what you've built at the same time. And realistically, if you go back and look at some of these old companies, Steve,

let's look at Steve Jobs for one. Sure. Kicked him out and had to bring him back in. Yeah. Because no one else had his vision. Yeah. And he took it to the moon after that, got out of his way. Mm-hmm.

So, you know, we, my, my, my, goal was, you know, I'm, I'm here to kill Starbucks. Well, Starbucks is killing themselves, to be honest. So I got to figure. You can still dance on their ashes. I mean, that's fine. Again, spite is a wonderful. Spite. Once more. Yeah. You know, and for me, it was just the Starbucks, I don't like how they treat the coffee or the product in general. Okay. It's terrible at tea. and I don't want to go into the way they treat their employees. See, that's my wheelhouse. I'm more than happy to get on that.

As a employee myself, you know, I don't complain anymore, especially at the state level. Sure. How do I solve that problem? They can't. It's always going to be the entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. My coworkers, he's been there since he was 18.

And I had to sit him down because he was becoming angry. and stress. And I was like, hey, hang on. First of all, this is the state. This is not so money.

You sell your time. Right. And they own the job. Right. What you can do is look at what these consultants are doing that come into the state. They don't provide much of a solution to a lot of the things you see. But you know what the problems are. So why don't you come back when you're done with your 20 years?

He's already got 25 in. Come back as a consultant. Make three times as much money, but you're solving a problem. problem and being rewarded for it. You can't look at these consultants because they are trying to solve a problem. They are just not as aggressive as he would be because he's worked in the system. Right.

And realistically, he's ready to go in the next four years and do exactly that. And that kind of percolated over to his sister because she started a little business and we're working with her too because she's doing some of our marketing. She's, we're hosting some of her greeting cards in our shop. And her work is phenomenal. She's doing a really good job. And she's a former state employee who, you know, watching him. And they got to talking together. She helps.

He helps her with the website and everything because he's IT, of course. You can't get out of that in the family. But, you know, their mindsets are changing to more, let's stop complaining and getting stressed out to let's just sell them our time. And then we're done with that. Let's create solutions to the problem. Our solution was we wanted to provide coffee and tea, beer and one. wine to our community.

Because I've always had to, if we wanted to go get a beer, we had to leave Rio Linda to go get craft beer. You know, if we wanted tea or coffee, sometimes we went to the coffee shop. Sometimes we had to go down the freeway. You had to go to Starbucks. We had to go into the city or find one on the corner. I'm like, why don't, why don't we try and figure out how to do these solutions ourselves and bring that to the community and get out of these nine to five jobs?

are thinking like the wealthy do. A lot of the good ones are trying to figure out how do I provide a solution and of course be rewarded for that for the work. Sure. You know. Yeah. But I mean mainly it's been, you know,

how to be happy with what we're doing. I mean, I love it every day. Yeah. Well, and on a conscience level too, not just like I'm happy because I'm fulfilled at this creativity, but like I'm putting good into this world. Yes. And you guys, I mean, that is just so obviously on your sleeve, like talking to either

of you or both of you for more than two minutes. It's like these people want to put good things into this world. Like not just I'm here to make this money and have found a way that people, you know, I'm making people happy, but I'm here for the money. Like obviously you're entrepreneurs, but there's a layer there. I mean, you mentioned the word sweat equity a couple times. There's value to that. Like there's, it's very clear that you're showing us your values with that, you know,

just with even with that phrasing. And I'm a word nerd. So I'm, I'm always about like the rhetoric people use. It is very telling, um, uh, what their focus is. Um, go ahead, Ed. Oh, well, I, I just, I, I kind of wanted to say that earlier, you know, listening to, you know, when you were talking about, uh, working with other folks in. the, you know, coffee tea community and the relationships that you were building there and the

attitude that you had about, you know, we're building community and not necessarily treating it as a zero-sum game. I really, the comment that I made in the chat, because my connection is for garbage tonight, but I said, I feel like, you know, in the midst of the capitalist kind of, you know, late stage capitalist healthcape that we're kind of living in with, you know, massive corporations doing what they're doing. I feel like the two of you are helping make Adam Smith spin a little bit more slowly in his grave, you know, and I really admire that, that positivity and that attitude that you guys, that you both have for that. And I think that's, that's amazing. So I want to get that out.

You know, it's funny because whenever I go into my office, right now we're trying to buy new laptops to upgrade everyone into new hardware. Now, normally her and I would talk, five-minute conversation, what do you need? Okay, let's get it. Can we do better on the price? So make sure we get what fits in our budget. Does it take all the bosses? Great.

At the office, I told my new supervisor, we had three meetings, research, and about a month of time to choose one hardware model. When you, again, she's from private sector too. And she's starting to see the frustration. Just to buy the hardware we need, I go, you have 300 plus people with old hardware that want to do their job, but they're hindered by old hardware. I said, in my business, and I always reverted back, we would have had this done and over with by now.

How can we get there? But, you know, of course, the barrier is, you know, picking out a vendor. you know, they have to be within the contract of the state. Right. And I was like, you know, there's got to be a better way to do this, you know. And for example, each piece of hardware is like $1,500 a piece. You need to order like $300 of them. I was like, I can go to Best Buy, get a nice computer for about $300 or $500.

We need to get back to that principle. Sure. Or if not Best Buy, start holding some of these guys. who are racking up the fees really high and let them know, this is taxpayer money. Right. Just because this is taxpayer money, I mean, you get to jack up the price. Yeah, no, I mean, you need to be a good. At that point, you're a store of the taxpayer money.

And you need to get back to that mindset of you're responsible for, you know, things that people have put into their expectations of you being able to provide a service. that that's why they're putting in their blood, sweat and tears and giving money to the government for. Yeah. But that's what I love being an entrepreneur. I just make a decision. I live with consequences.

Yeah. If I bought a lot, her laptop didn't work. So I had to actually, I was like, well, that was a great decision. You know,

we worked it out. We tried everything we could. And eventually I had to go back to the, luckily it's under warranty. Send it back to the vendor. I need this thing up and run. be split. I think they send it back in four days. Yeah, it was great. Easy. You know, it's so much easier, you know, dealing with, uh, as an entrepreneur, just making those

decisions and moving forward. I mean, that's what I mean, making the decision and owning up to making the decision if whether the decision, uh, turns out to be a good one or a bad one, and taking the bad decision and using that as learning experience. Yeah. Um, to do better next time. Yeah. You mentioned keeping a record of all your decisions, including the bad ones. Like you don't just count the hits. You've got to count the misses. Exactly.

Yeah. Everything you do, every experience that you've had, whether it's good or whether it's bad, it makes you the person that you currently are now. Right. And you have to look at all of those things and just sit back and go, okay. All right. That was interesting. When they do these parties at the office, they always go, Stephen, and I apologize.

I meant to, I wish we could get your coffee. I go, I know, but that's a conflict of interest. So don't even start having this conversation. Right, right, right. But they were like, I wish we can get your coffee. This one, I don't know who got this from Starbucks. This sucks, you know. I have a phrase that I've been using at work for the last year and a half, two years,

which is, well, it's worth failing at. Yeah. And I live by that now is, you know, here's a great idea. Let's try it. And if it failed, cool. It was worth a try because, you know, the old way is status quo and that's clearly not working. So let's fail in a different direction. Exactly.

You didn't fail. You learned how not to do it. There you go. 999 to go. Edison, I think it was. Edison, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaking of Edison, so you guys work in a job that is, it's very much you're doing it yourself, which is a very punk rock kind of way. to do something. And then on top of that, you are, you are pressing hot, hot air through grounds. So literally you are steampunking. Yep. I just, there you go. I'm contractually obligated to make puns.

Pressurized. Yeah. It says something for what good guests, the two of you are, that it took him this long to get around to meeting that that requirement this time around. Usually he'd have been on that within, I don't know, 15, 10 minutes. I have a dream espresso machine though. It's manual lever. It is made of copper.

It is so beautiful. The thing is like $12, $15,000. Yeah. And I watch every now and again, I'll watch a video on just watching the guy just operate. is that one of those gorgeous ones with the gigantic big like tank steam tank looking thing on it and you just you load the puck in there you press down the thing and then yeah have a mangle lever one and I'm gonna actually start bringing it in if you guys are you know

let us know you're coming in I'll pull you a shot off my manual lover specimen machine yeah sure nice yeah yeah I'll be there for that yeah okay so I want to get around to the dog thing Yes. Yeah. Okay, it's Pitador, which is obviously Pit and Labrador. Correct. Okay. You mentioned earlier that, like, you know, you guys love pitties, and both of us love pitties as well.

So what's why, why name it after the dog? Why not go into other? So what was the genesis of the idea of a pitador specifically, not a pit bull, or a pit bull? or like i got some ideas for business names on a cordon i'll send you this recording oh can we start doing pun names for dogs gladly gladly start submitting so um when we were talking about in that that six month of planning stages we were trying to come up with a name we wanted something just unique something different and then at the time we had two pit labs.

They're going on our website, you'll see their pictures. They're on the Arcornamore coffee label that's theirs. We have paintings of them in the shop. They were my first dogs. I didn't have dogs growing up, but they were my introduction to dogs. and they were always specific. We took them everywhere. They love car rides.

They went to the brewery with us. They went red wheat. We actually drove to Washington with him in the car, and he loved it. It was great. And so Steve's like, well, I want to incorporate the dogs. They're my brew dogs. I want to do something. So we were throwing ideas back and forth.

And I was like, well, why not Pettador? And Steve's like, what's a Pettor? I'm like, it's a mix. he's taking a pin in the lab. He's like, okay, I like that. That's different. So that's kind of how the name came up and bruised because, well, you brew tea, you brew coffee, you brew beer, you brew wine. Let's just leave it open-ended and then you can help us everything. And that actually, that marketing campaign actually works because I'm not even selling beer and people come into our shop looking for beer. Right. Like this bruise, where's the beer? I'm like, coming soon. Just give me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, right here on my arm, I, banged it earlier. Yeah. So that's, that's how the name came to be. And we lost bread and Bubba a couple years ago to cancer. They were siblings, different litters, about a year apart, and they passed away, literally a year apart. They were very much a bonded pair.

But they were just something. Different. Red was a very people-friendly, submissive dog. I mean, I could leave him in my bedroom almost all day, and he will just sleep in his bed. He was a very lazy dog. Straight up. I mean, this is the kind of dog that 8 o'clock at night rolls around. He's becoming defiant.

Because he wants to go to bed. He wants to go to bed. He's done. He's done with the world. That's my kind of dog right there. I appreciate that. Don't wake him up in the morning. either he was extremely lazy.

I mean, we literally have to go like, oh, come on, get up. It's going to eat breakfast. Yeah. And then he slowly, stretch, stretch, stretch. Okay, we can go. Yeah.

And, you know, Bubba would, so Red was more pit than lab in personality. Bubba was more lab than pit in looks and personality. We have a fire pit in our backyard. We're very lucky to have a quarter acre out in real Linda. Our house sits like a nice in between. So we have a nice front yard backyard. We have a fire in the back.

When we had people coming, he would literally run halfway to see who was there. Stop. Look around. Run back to where the fire pit is. Stop. Look around. Look around. There it is.

Find the exact toy that he was looking for in his graveyard of toys. rabbit then run to greet the person. So he had to have a toy. That was his priority. He needed to have his toy. And if we picked up the toys and put them away, he would take them back out and litter them back all over. And he always knew exactly where they were because he would always run to the specific one that he was looking for.

Yeah. So. That's neat. Just what six months before we lost Bubba because we lost Bubba first. we got Rocky. So Rocky, he is a shepherd. I'm sorry, a what? A shepherd.

Shepet. Okay, so Shepard Pit? Yes. Oh, nicely done it. So he's a shepherd. He is actually related to the first two. They share the same mother. Okay.

So we still have Rocky. He's about to turn five in August. So he's finally past the T-Rex stage. Yes. That was the other thing during the business and telework and then raising Rocky. Oh, my God. I had to run him two and a half miles a day just to take the edge off. I was going to say it because shepherds are, I assume you mean like a German shepherd is what we're talking about.

because yeah friend of the show Sean and his wife have had multiple shepherds and yeah that's not a low energy dog at all oh my god

and he is Pitt so yes all of the German shepherd traits personalities are 100% constantly going with him he's very he's very independent in comparison to the other dogs

he doesn't like he'll hop on the bed when we're not on the bed he'll hop on the bed when we're in the bed but don't grace his booty because he will bitch you out yeah is that the shepherd part because the hip the hip sway like no um no um he one of his first experiences with the bet oh there you ah so he is very booty conscious okay so he's very booty conscious okay so He raises his butt. He will let you know. He's got a very specific little bark. He'll turn around.

He's like, blah, right. And he's like, sorry. That is my hind end. Exactly. Very, very,

exactly. Don't touch the hind, he's very much on his terms. And then once in a while, when he's tired, the pity comes out. And he's all about hug me,

hold me. He'll climb on top of you, laid down, and just like stare at you. or he'll come over and just to stare at you. And it's like, you start petting him. Then you stop and he's like, no, no, no. Keep going.

Get out of your hand and tossing it behind his head. So that actually gave me two ideas when it came to all our dogs and how their behavior is and what effects they have on other people they meet. Now, Rocky, he mainly stays home because he's a bit of a psychopath out in the world when it comes to other dogs and people. he's home with her dad. It's not aggressive. He's just very reactive and he's like,

oh, it's somebody new. Bark, bark, bark, bark. Suspicious. Yeah. But her dad, he has arthritis all over his body. So he's not very active. During the day, one of the things that Rocky will do after a nap, he gets up, he'll look at her dad,

see if he's awake. If he's not, he'll go nudge him to get up. And he'll keep nudging him until he actually gets up. And one of the conditions. And Rocky has him completely trained. When he does that, he also has a specific high-pitched bark that he does to annoy. Yeah. So when he gets up and goes outside, we bought him a rechargeable bubble gun, and Rocky will force him to use the bubble gun to play.

And to keep him moving around in the backyard. So my dad has, he's got a condition that's called relapsie polychondritis on top of the arthritis. And what that is, it actually eats the cartilage in your body. So it's very painful for him to just live, basically. Bone on bone. Yeah, exactly. So Rocky is a great way to keep him going, keep him active, you know, play with him. So they kind of harass each other.

Yeah. So it keeps him moving. But what that tells me is he's working. as intended, you know, that that's man's best friend. Yeah. He sees that there's a problem. He'll come by, lick him, nudge them, and bark at him, get him to move around. So I got this idea where, well, I started watching the interactions of everyone else's dogs in the breweries and when they stop by. I'm like, you know, these dogs

tend to become their family, their companions. Yeah, absolutely. I was talking to some folks that deal with veterans issues. And I had this. I was like, you know, when we get big enough, I just tell them, what do you see as something that can be beneficial to veterans, especially the ones that have combat issues when they come back home? And they were listing off a bunch of programs. I go, have you ever considered maybe having a vet take care of a dog or going to a shelter to walk a dog, to give them that sense of, okay, as a country, we've taught you how to kill.

Right. How about create and nurture? you know, let's try and flip that switch back to humanity, you know. So one of the things that we want to do once we become big enough, and we already kind of start in the process, is work with maybe connecting vets to dogs that are on the kill list or the euthanasia. One of the ways that we've kind of started to work into that is we also, because we are dog friendly, you can bring your dog.

We have pup peps and we also have treats that are for our four-legged visitors. the treats are made by a vet. She was in the Army, but that's what she does. Her and her dog, Vinny, they make barcutary boards. Barcutary. Oh, I love it. Exactly. She does these elaborate dog cookies, biscuit treats, and like fun shapes. And it's all 100% safe for the dogs.

The icing, too, is from fruits, vegetables, coloring, all of that stuff. But she teamed up with a winery. And I forget which winery it is. And they're hosting an event as a fundraiser for military and connecting dogs and all of that stuff. And one of the things that we're doing is we're donating two raffle prices to it. We're doing a gift basket. and we're also doing a coffee roasting experience for a small group. That's awesome.

Very cool. That's wonderful. It's slowly building that foundation to get more involved with that. Well, and you're tapping into something that most veterans have an understanding and appreciation of, which is schedule and routine. And, you know, and then you're you're using that to be like, okay, now here's a thing that you that needs you. That's your reason. you know if you can't get out of bed today you're going to get out of bed today because that dog is counting on you to walk him yep yeah and there's that duty and that you know that that trust that's

that's that's wonderful yeah do you have a name for it yet you haven't thought of the name no we're getting there those yeah maybe steps for that but that's that's one of the the hopes and dreams coming up that we we're hopefully going to get to work on a little bit more and that kind of leads us to who are last psychopath. And that's very lovingly what I call him. I like to call him my little short and stuff. Steve calls him Big Body Little Head, and he calls Rock Big Head Little Body.

So about a year ago, a little over a year ago, we got Benny. He broke free from the SBC and came home with us. and he is a staffy, pity, boxer, little Tau-Towr, little Doverman, little Doberman, Little Jepard, 100% terror that is my little boy. He's a mutt. He is, he is a mutt. When I first saw him on a Facebook post that the SBCI I posted,

they were going to have an adoption event. And then I think a tree fell. on their generator or a storm did something to the generator so they weren't able to have the event. And so they were like, hey, these puppies were going to be available this weekend, but they'll be available still on Tuesday when we're open normally. And so I saw him and we had lost red earlier that year. And so we just had Rocky. And I was like, you know what?

I think it's time that we, Rocky needs a buddy. I want another dog. It's weird having one dog. And it just, I was like, this, this feels right. I'm like this guy right here, this middle guy in this picture. And so I forced us to get there early as before they opened. My little sister went with us. And I was like, we're here.

We're here. We're here to see appetizer. That was his name. His litter was brunch gang. Nice. They're like, well, nobody else has asked for him. Give us a few minutes and we'll get you into a room with him. They took us in a room.

the technician came in brought him, put him down. He sprinted and launched himself at my sister. And we're like, yep, that's our dog. Yeah. Yep. And I was like, that's wonderful. He's going to be a big boy. He's going to be a nice size.

He's going to grow tall. And this one's like, he's not going to grow tall. He's going to be a little guy. You're going to be stuff with him. And he cursed him. He's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, slightly shorter than Rocky, definitely shorter than Red and Bubba.

But he is 100% terror, hyper. In that sense, I got to be careful with him because since he is, so he's about 65 pounds. Oh, wow.

He's a little big boy. Rocky's about 75 pounds, but Rocky can't fit in the spaces he can get to. And that's the scary part because I have a small crawl space under the house. and there are my... Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

You guys are, no, you're not going under there. Rocky won't go under his too big, but he can't. I've had to get creative about separating him because we do have cats in the house. And he's ambushed him a couple times. And not to be aggressive, but he's just overly curious. Yeah, yeah. And so we've kept them separated just so the cats can have some pieces of other.

Because they're older cats. We have older cats. Our oldest is going to be 21, or is 21. I mean, we keep saying that he is a highlander because he will never die. And he's also like a energy vampire because he sucks the energy out of you because he's still going. He's got like liver issues and allergy issues of crooked neck and he is still around. But he's also like Rocky, he keeps her dad active. right if he's sleep in the chair

Patrick will go up to him and start nudging him and wake up it's so interesting how animals interact with us and each other even though before when we thought we were going to lose him one of the younger cats was beating him up and I'm like this has got to stop but one night I got up and they were both chasing his

I'm like that's a 20 year old cat why is he running like that yeah they were playing chasing each other same therapy they made some weird piece and then they were the only two that were allowed in my sister's room because they didn't let the other cats come in. And so they had some sort of agreement that they were both sharing her space and the bed and all of that because nobody else was allowed. They wouldn't let the other cats in. But yeah, Benny's going to be two in July.

Yeah. So are you going to start getting your sister to do the painting of the cats as well to do? No, we should. Yeah. Because, I mean, that's, that's cat Pacino. That's easy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But, wow. Okay. So I see the pictures of, you said it was red and Bubba. I see that I, that's the reddish one and the black and white, right? Correct. Yeah, I've seen those pictures a lot.

Are there pictures of Rocky and forgive me, forgetting? Benny and Benny. I don't think I have pictures of them on the website. Benny? I think I might have picture of Rocky. Well, we haven't really updated. That's the whole point to launch it. So we're putting the website on a new platform.

Okay. And we're actually working. I'm working with our business strategist to create blog entries. Okay. And we're trying to build a community section there, complete reforms and stuff like that for people to make the site more engaging. Yeah, sure. give it a good overhaul.

I'm thinking I actually delayed a couple weeks, though. But yeah, we're going to, I'm definitely on a section where people upload pictures and share their pets and stuff like that. I'm creating a YouTube channel for tips and tricks. Excuse me, I'm making the coffee and the tea and the beer and the wine and just kind of keep up to date what we're doing and be more interactive. But what the business strategy just wants to do is create story times for the dogs. This is where I got to kind of rein him in because he can be more passionate about a business than the person who owns it.

Right. Goes off into his ideas. I already have backstories for all the dogs. And it was mainly because we created these tip jars that look like giant coffee cups. We got them from the container store. They're actually like little trash bins. But we put their pictures on the front and it says my dog's college fund. so each of the dogs have ones

when we went to pop-ups and stuff like that we always grabbed a different one so they rotated out so a lot of people recognize this by the dog and they would ask so what's this dog going to school for? Somebody tried to quiz me. I'm like, oh, really? Sometimes I can sometimes my mouth goes ahead of my brain.

I go, well, that's red. He went to school for fine dying and hospitality. Yeah. Because I can't get it. And realistically, that just relates back to his personality for one week. he wouldn't eat his food. They wouldn't eat. Blood test.

I'm like, oh, my God, this dog's trying to kill himself. So I went to, um, we went to our feed store. And we were just trying to figure out what, what do we do into food? What do we this? And then one of the sales associates, she's like, well, can I help you find anything? What's going on? And so we explained everything to her. And she just looked at us.

She was like, cat food. And we're like, cat food. And she's like, yeah, cat food. Cat food is nothing but junk to dogs. So what you do is. you go home, you grab a bowl of cat food, put it in front of him. If he eats it, he's pulling your leg. If he doesn't eat it, he's sick.

Oh, wow. And we're like, really? And she's like, yeah. And I was like, okay. I was like, let's just, it's crazy. Give a shot. Yeah. What do we have to lose at this point?

This dog was dehydrated. It's, he's got to eat something. Put the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. nothing. I'm like, all right, pull the fucking cat food out and put it down. Put it down. Yeah. Like red! And he was like, caught me.

Yeah. So, you know, just investigating further, I'm like, well, the cat food is a food we never bought him, which is made of a fish formula. So I'm like, maybe he's a pescatarian. I went to go buy trout food on the shelf. The most expensive damn food on the shelf. ate consistently. And he was eating it consistently. I'm like, this son of him.

Okay, so and then treats. He's already looking for chicken. So I had to buy all kinds of fish treats because he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't just eat anything else. Everything he would investigate. Pig ears, fresh pig ears would not touch it. But if I put down some cod skin, tear it right up.

Okay. I was so mad. I was like, you've got to be kidding. Be dog. And Bubba was a tank. He can eat anything. So I'm like, well, you're guilty by association. Right.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's kind of the journey with the dogs and how it relates to coffee. No matter what, I'm having a cup of coffee and we're going to this. We're a family. The idea that, why won't you touch this? Yeah. Yeah, this is crazy. That's great.

Well, okay. So, Ed, do you have other questions? Because I do have one final question for them, just because I've never been able to figure this out of my own. But do you have other questions for them before I jump to that? No. Okay. So my question for you is this. I do not. No. So go ahead. All right. We're still having audio issues with Ed, so he'll finish that sentence in about a minute. But so it's spelled R-O-O-B-I-O-S. How do you say it? And what is it?

it depends on where you're from. Okay. I do pronounce Roybus or Rubios. I can't say that. It comes from South Africa. It's an, it's a, it's a bush. Okay. And it's, it falls into the tea category and the fact that you drink it and you

brew it like tea, but it's not tea. It doesn't have any Camillusonensis, which is the tea plant. So white, green, and black are all teas because it comes from, the same plant. Herbils and fruit and then roibus, they're not technically tea because there's no synestis. They're just classified as tea because they're brewed in the same method. Sure.

And they're blended in the same method. But I like to tell people think of roibus like a black tea just without the caffeine. It's bold so it takes well to like milk, milk alternatives, sugar. And it also takes well to flavoring. when it comes to blends. So it comes in a whole plethora of flavor options, just like Blacktea does. And it's very medicinal.

It's got naturally antimicrobial. It's got anti-inflammatory properties. They give it to babies that are colicky. And it's just loaded with just minerals. High antioxidants. High antioxidants. It's good. It's delicious.

Okay. And then my final question. So thank you for that. I've never known. And I think the first time I had experience with it, it came in a canister from like World Market that somebody bought me back in like 1999. And I had no idea what it was. I'm like, okay, it's tea.

You know, but I, yeah. My next question is, what is your favorite coffee drink? Oh, gosh. So that's what our secret menu is for. So we have a secret menu. It says staff secrets and you scan a cure code. It takes you to our, well, it's one, it's the staff favorites. And then two, it's the popular drinks that we've made at theme pop-ups.

So we will make any of those drinks if we have the ingredients on hand. And for the most part, we have almost all of the ingredients on hand. So each of us, Steve, myself and my sisters, we each pick, I think it's five or six drinks that we like. And so that's, they're all encompassed there. But right now we are doing an April menu. And my sister really wants to strangle me for this drink. It's called the golden crumb carrot cake latte. You can have it as a latte or a cold brew.

And I made a house made a carrot syrup that tastes like carrot with a cold foam that's cream cheese. Oh, wow. That is currently my favorite. It's delicious. So I'm pretty simple. I'll take it used to be the, so Starbucks had this drink that I got fat on was called the double shot espresso and cream. So I mimic that when I started making my own espresso.

So I would take espresso shot, put it over ice, add half and half or anything creamier than that. And then either simple syrup or the turban olive sugar works fine too. Or iced espresso would be my jam, especially during the hot months. Sure. A good cold brew. And realistically, since we like to go to different coffee shops, I do hit, let's that place your dad used to go to. gets the dog treats from there

Dutch Brothers. So when I used to go to Dutch Brothers, I discovered their cold foam with the cold brew. Now cold foam, I really like it because it can be, you can get cold foam without any sugar in it and just taste the creaminess of the milk

combined with the coffee as you're drinking it from the top without a straw. But they had a sweetened cold foam. Now, Dutch brothers have very sugary drinks. So this was very out of ordinary for me to try something like that from them. So now that we have our own shop, her and her sisters are playing around with different cold foam experiments. And I'm just loving it. And it sits right on top of the, like an island on top of the cold green.

You just drink it from the top without the straw. So you combine the coffee and the milk as it goes in together. You get that sweetness. It's a very refreshing and fabulous drink. Yeah. for St. Patrick's Day, we did a drink called Lucky Lair, which was the cold brew with a layer of Irish cream, cold foam that we added some green edible glitter. So it turned it green and it's sparkled. So when the cream melted into the cold room, you saw the sparkles. Yeah. Yeah. It was neat. Danielle had one. My partner had one. And yeah, it was. It was.

is delicious. Yeah. The cold calm is my jam right now for sure. Okay. Cool. Ed is just gobsmacked at this. So cool. Well, I got to say, this has been a bucket and a half of fun.

Like you guys are just, it's, it's, there are certain movies that I watch that just cheer me up no matter what. And talking to you guys has had the same effect of, of watching. like Anthony Hopkins, the world's fastest Indian. Like it's that same kind of just like, oh, this is a good world. Like, so thank you both for that. Stephen and Lily.

Pitador Brews is at 1005 Second Street in Old Sacramento. And you're right. Old Sacramento has this wonderful charm, and some of that is just because the wooden walkways make a neat sound. But everybody should stop in there and absolutely repeatedly go back. back because it's just the variety I have not even begun to scratch the surface on.

And I keep coming back largely because I like the same two things over and over again. But it's just so reliably tasty. So we normally like to close up by asking people what they would recommend to folks to take in, whether it's usually it's media. So anything you're watching or reading. or listening to, but honestly, take-in could also include, you know, suggesting a drink to folks or telling folks what to sample, because you guys have some really good bakery goods too.

So, Ed, I'm going to start with you, and then I'll go. And then Lily and Stephen, if you have recommendations, we'll hear those. And then we'll close it up. So, Ed, what are you recommending to people this week? What I'm going to recommend is a bit of a departure from what we've been talking about, but I want to very strongly recommend for anybody who has an interest in Civil War history. I had the chance to read Cold Harbor, Grant and Lee, May 26th through June 30, 1864 by Gordon C. Ray. The reason I'm recommending it is because I think it does a one job of grant as a general and as a strategist. The lost cause besmirched grant's ability as a strategist and a tactician in the interest of glazing Robert E. Lee.

and if Robert Lee has only one living hater, I am that person. So it's a really compelling history of the campaign or that portion of the campaign. It's part of a larger series. So it's a really niche recommendation, but it's a really, really good book. And I think it's important because of the research that Ray did and the job he does of correcting the historical record and those perceptions. So that's my recommendation this week. How about you?

Well, I'm going to do two things that are both tangential to coffee. One is the Merrill Streep Robert Redford movie out of Africa from 1985. It is all about her trying to grow coffee. I mean, it's actually about the relationship and all this kind of stuff. But it is like that is a major plot point is she's trying to grow coffee, I believe in Kenya. And there's some discussion as to how far up it'll grow and what have you. And it's a really good movie. I think it won the Academy Award.

The other thing I'm going to recommend is the pun also rises, which the full title is how the humble pun revolutionized language changed history. And I have to scroll for the rest of the title. and made wordplay more than some antics. Get it? I hate it already. Yeah. So if you go back to our episode on the history of Paracinomia, which is the history of puns,

you might remember that puns really got going in England because of coffee houses. And so I just, you know, we're combining two things that have, one has cost me money, the other has made me money. So there you go. I'm going to recommend those. In addition, I'd say take that book and go on down to 1005 Second Street in Old Sacramento and experience the steampunk atmosphere. It's just a wonderful, wonderful vibe in there, too.

Just really high ceilings, wonderful lighting. And it's just funny. Anywhere you look, there's a funny, odd, quirky thing. So, yeah. You also have a free library. You do, that's right. Yeah. So if you don't bring your own book, you can certainly take one of ours.

And you have games, too. And we have games. So you can pick up a game and hang out for a while. We have a gaming table. So if anybody wants to use it, let us know. We pop the lid off and you can have fun at it. Five minutes of a soon. Yeah.

Is there anything you too, either of you or both of you would like to recommend for people to take in? Um, for whatever strange reason, my go-to movie, uh, if I'm feeling like I really want to watch something is hunt for Red October. Really? Nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I don't know why. I just like something about the suspense, but not the suspense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, he always turns a crazy Ivan at the bottom of the hour. He goes left, you know, that kind of thing.

So one of the things I'm going to recommend. And in our shop, 1,05 Second Street in the old Sacramento, we have this corner of our store, I call the prime real estate. And in that corner, you can sit there and you can people watch because I like to be overstimulated. I'm going to recommend a book called Think and Grow Rich. It's a self-help kind of book. And while you're reading that book, if we don't have any pastries that day, four pieces of Bisk off, because that's the serving. size or you can do a chop the nutella croissant and while you're doing that you can have if you're a tea person i recommend the dory and gray coffee i would have a nice shot of espresso or i would do a

light roast coffee or rocket fuel if we have it on tap there that one's a nice citrus uh light roasted coffee. It's really good. Yeah, it's currently from Rwanda. It's called Rocky's Rocket Field because it's named after the German Shepherd. And so. Very cool. I love it. Well, Lily

and Stephen, thank you guys so much for joining us tonight. Very grateful. I've been trying to like, it's been since my birthday that I was like, I really want to interview these two. So, yeah. Ed, where can they

find us. We can be found on our website at wauwobabawbawoba.woba.com. We can also be found on our YouTube account at Geek History of Time. We can be found utilizing the Apple podcast app or the Android, not Android, Amazon, sorry, podcast app, and on Spotify. And wherever it is that you have found us, please take a moment to, make sure to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve for getting such awesome guests.

And Mr. Harmony, where can you be found? By the time this releases, I'm going to say that you're just in time for the July 3rd Capital Punishment Show at Sacramento Comedy Spot in downtown Sacramento. Go to satcommodyspot.com and go to the tickets and calendar section. Get your ticket online because it's going to sell out. if you miss that one then August 7th and September 4th come to all of those you will hear different puns every single time because that's how we roll Justine myself and Emily are just going to be killing it

yeah that's that's where you can find find me the other places you can find me is at 1005 2nd Street in old Sacramento at pitador bruise you'll probably find me sitting there enjoying a couple shots of espresso and reading different books. And you'll be able to spot him thanks to the humming at about 750 hertz. I think. Yeah. So again, Lily and Stephen, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Everybody, if you're in Sacramento, get on down to Pittador Brews. It's amazing. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. For a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.