Comedian Anthony Rodia Remembers New Rochelle’s Notorious Underage Bar
Comedian Anthony Rodia is a white-hot comic with over 1 million social media followers. The Westchester native is coming to the Waterbury Palace Theater this Saturday, October 12th, 2024.
We got a chance to chat with Anthony ahead of the big Connecticut gig and it turns out we shared the same of the same haunts back in the 90s. Here are some of our favorite moments from our I-95 Morning Show interview.
Lou: You're from New Rochelle so I have to ask you this question, did you ever hangout at O'Briens?
Anthony: "Oh my God, O'Briens, Catch 22, Characters, and I believe in 2002 I may have allegedly won the Doo-Doo Brown contest at Club Hollywood."
Lou: So you're what 44?
Anthony: "44 yeah, I may have taken off my shirt but it had a lot to do with the fact that I still had metabolism back then."
Lou: So I'm 45 and I'm from Brewster, when we were 17, 18, 19, we would pile in my buddy's station wagon and go down to O'Briens and get rocked because they would just let kids in and do whatever they want. We had to have run into each other.
Anthony: "Oh 100% and we can talk about that now because O'Briens is now a burger shack. Yeah, I look at it now and I'm like we were high schoolers. I would go to high school on a Monday and I'm like yeah man I'm still feeling those Jager-Bombs from Saturday. I don't know how they got away with it."
Lou: We actually know how they got away with it but we probably shouldn't say. So, I found this Facebook page and it's not very well run you know, they don't even have a profile picture. It's called "I got drunk at O'Briens in New Rochelle" and somebody wrote "open keg until 10, one-dollar kamikaze shots, play "Jump Around," a few Biggie songs and end the night with "Piano Man," it feels legit. They also spelled legit wrong.
Anthony: "Yeah, it was either 'Piano Man' or 'Sweet Caroline.' My worst memory of O'Brien's was—I mean, the stuff we drank back then was—I’m not a big drinker now; I might have a glass of wine here or there, but other than that, I don't have the urge for it. I'm that guy who pours a White Claw into a glass with ice and calls it a real drink. Back then, I remember one night, and I don’t know what the hell was going through our heads, but we used to drink stuff that tasted good. I remember we were drinking Rumple Minze and Goldschlager shots. I threw up; I don't know if your body can handle that much peppermint. I felt like I got sodomized at a dentist's office. My mouth was literally firing out peppermint; I've never been so minty in my life. I remember throwing up and thinking, 'Oh my God, this oddly tastes okay.' It was almost like I was washing my mouth out before I vomited."
Lou: Do you remember St. Ides?
Anthony: "Yeah, St. Ides Mixed Berry 22-ounce bottles, St. Ides will tear you up because of the sugar. I used to drink it the way I saw them (Wu-Tang) drink it. Wu-Tang used to drink it out of a paper bag, I drank mine out of a paper bag and at that age I think the only person that I know that died was like an old aunt in Italy, but I poured some out for her. I said RIP to my aunt in Italy."
Lou: Do you think I'm some sort of a jackass? You don't think I had it in a paper bag, what are we doing here?
Anthony: "You've got to, you have to drink St. Ides in a paper bag!"
Check out our complete two-part interview with Anthony below, along with some of his standup work.
Part 1 - Anthony swaps Westchester stories with Lou and tells hilarious stories about his dad.
Part 2 - Anthony explains how selling cars in Westchester prepared him for standup comedy. He also had a great story about a millionaire who couldn't buy a car because his credit was shot.
Check out the Ethan, Lou & Large Dave Podcast on Apple and Spotify
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