This episode was recorded at the iconic Pete's Saloon and Restaurant in Elmsford, New York. We sat down for drinks and dinner (and the best fried calamari in Westchester!) to chat about the Best Music Venues in Westchester, the business of Live Music, Pete’s Saloon, and Police Off the Cuff.
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Bill Cannon is a retired Sgt. Detective of Manhattan North Homocide and co-host of Police Off The Cuff, a podcast where some of the most legendary figures in law enforcement tell their stories.
Jimmy Tate has performed and sang in five broadway shows. An accomplished guitarist, pianist, and vocalist; Jimmy is able to mold his voice to almost any style of music.
Brought up in Mount Vernon and Pelham, Pete Riekstin came to age at the end of the turbulent and nonconforming sixties. He grew up with the love of music, and as a bass guitarist at sixteen played his first club. That’s probably where it all started. Throughout his college years as a pre-dental major, he worked the tri-state area with a popular band known as St. James Infirmary. At nineteen Pete met his wife, Denise, while at work backing up The Belmonts on a live radio show. Shortly after that he began to help out in Denise’s father’s business, a bar/restaurant in White Plains, as a kitchen helper and bartender. Now married, finishing college, and about to apply to dental school, his father in-law suggested that he could pick up this small “Beer & Shot Joint” in Elmsford. “Let it pay the bills… Keep it until you finish school – Then dump it.”
August 15, 1977, Pete arrived in Elmsford… and stayed. Thirty-Nine Years and six major renovations later, “PETE’S” Saloon & Restaurant has become a landmark for food and music in Westchester County. PETE’S is a place to “EAT”. Under the premise that – “people must eat two or three times a day – and they may only be able to afford to dine once a week”, Pete created an affordable, home cooked menu consisting of burgers, steaks, chops, and fresh seafood that is accessible to almost any person’s daily budget.