Vblog | CJ Barone of Empire Coffee and Tea ~ Innovate Newport Contributor


Innovate Newport is welcoming the community. CJ Barone is an inspiration to many with fervor and drive. Serving as an electrical engineer at The Naval Undersea Warfare Center since 2001, CJ also launched Empire Tea and Coffee in 2004. Members of Innovate Newport now have access to Empire Tea and Coffee’s products inside the café . Learn how CJ got connected to this project and is helping the Innovate Newport business residents plan for their presentations, seminars and events.
Special thank you to collaboration, videography and editing of Cooper Hammond Films @composedbycoop
#innovatenewport #economicgardener #community #EmpireTeaandCoffee #coffee #Tea #pastries #events #seminars #presentations #newportRI #newportrightnow #nlandl #newportlivingandlifestyles #nll
Read the Transcript
Cheers! CJ Barone here with Empire Coffee and Tea. What 14 and half years now?14 and ten months!Just about that, yeah!Also, an engineer.Electrical EngineerAt NUWC?At NUWC.Thank you so much for running two businesses right here out of Newport.You are also affiliated with Innovate Newport. Tell us a little bit about how you got involved.Sure, Absolutely. Back when this was first announced,I reached out to Joe Nicholson and folks at the cityto talk about how we are interested in supportingcommunity activities / community events.Knowing that they wanted to put a cafe in here, I wanted to make sure that we could support them.We provide the equipment and the coffee in the co-working cafe.Excellent coffee it is! Cheers!You are also supporting with food in some aspects for their meetings, events and such.For today we are catering the ribbon cutting.We brought in a “make your own” parfait bar.We did some bagels, hummus, tabbouleh.Biscuits with honey butter.We have provided with different catering options when they have had different events in the past.Grilled chicken sandwiches, salads and things like that.If you are in town and you want to have a meeting space or a presentation,you can do that here and also have Empire Tea and Coffee cater it!Yes!Alright! Thanks so much!

September 2018 Gift Give Away with Newport Living and Lifestyles


Drum rolll pleeease …. and the picture of the month winner for hash-tagging themselves #MidtownOysterBar & #NLandL is @veltri.jen via Instagram ! pass the good word ! The $100 gift certificate and bottle of Syltbar Prosecco is waiting for her at Midtown Oyster Bar
Special Thank you to Midtown Oyster Bar and participants and the participants who hash-tagged themselves in September!
@SharonForster and @EricaChristine @ItIsClaire @StaceyMills @TylerBernadyn @shapsbrightidea @harrywgraham @veltri.jen

Read the Transcript

Hi everybody, I’m Christon with Newport Living and Lifestyles and joining me today is Ann Sullivan.

Hi everybody. So today you may be familiar with Midtown Oyster Bar.

We are going to be drawing the photo of the month for anybody who is hash-tagged

#MidtownOysterBar or #NLandL which stands for?

Newport Living and Lifestyles

So you may be familiar that we did an interview with Charlie Holder of Midtown Oyster Bar at the beginning of the month

Which was released September 5th. If you haven’t seen that video, you have to check it out after

We announce the winners for this month. So

We printed all of the pictures where people have hash-tagged themselves

And we’re going to go through them

one by one and talk to you about what we like about each one of them so that you are familiar with

Why we chose the winner ready?

Okay, here we go. I know so this one was by Sharon Foster and Erica Christine

It looks a little funny because it was a video and they posted a video the day of our shoot

So the day we shot the Midtown Oyster Bar video (They wanted to be the first one.) That’s right. They were

So they were the first ones it was super cute and they really liked that (Look at those two girls) because they posted

Hanging with Miss Erica at the Midtown moisture bar waiting for the film crew to get here.

They will be filming Midtown Oyster Bar through Newport Living and Lifestyles. ( I love that one. They are super excited to be there. )

Well, I want to give a big cheers really quickly because we’re allowed to have a glass of wine while we are filming today.

Okay Hoda!!!

Today we’re gonna pretend to be Hoda and Kathy Lee and drink wine on camera!

Cheers Everybody!

Cheers!

We have to wet our wet our whistle a little bit ( it helps.) Yeah exactly.

We see a bunch of people are coming on and joining us today. So hi everybody. Good afternoon

Yeah, so tell us a little about yourself Ann. Alright, my name is Ann Sullivan

I’m really happy to be here with my good friend Christon. I lived in Newport for five years

I don’t think there is a more spectacular

area in all of the United States.

You have 400 square miles of oceanfront. How could you go wrong with that? I think it’s gorgeous.

Today is 70 degrees, gorgeous, beautiful Indian summer here in Newport.

So if you haven’t visited yet, come. If you haven’t been to Midown Oyster Bar, come. They are great food , great people and you got this beautiful face!

And joining me with your beautiful face. Thank you for the compliments, I’ll take them all day long

In fact I’d like to record them and then I put them on my alarm

So I can wake up in the morning and hear all your amazing comments.( She’ll just loop this every morning

You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful. ) I love it, I’ll take it, right?

Oh should we get started with the next one? We really like this one?

yes, that’s why I was posted by it is Claire? @itisiclaire, it is I Claire!

Is she an English Major? A poet and we didn’t know it?

This one on is a picture of all the oysters that they chose. ( looks so good) Yummy Yummy

We really like that one and thank you so much for hash tagging #MidtownOysterBar in that one. ( This is tough already

and we are just getting started. ) I know that one is delicious. I know I think we are gonna need to get some oysters…

( or whatever I see on this page!)

Lobster tacos with mango salsa posted by Stacey Mills who is a good friend of mine. (That looks amazing)

Yep, so she posted #MidtownOysterBar

#NewportBuzz, #HungryRhody. #WhatsUpNewp # Foody #Foodyheaven and all kinds of stuff!

It’s a great photo Stacy Mills. Look at all those comments. Those are yummy those are fabulous

I love those ! (yummm.. ) The list goes on and on. We’re gonna be really full after this.

Okay, this one was toast … toasted, okay

CHEERS!

How about every time I say toasted we just drink. ( I like it and does it count when I say it too? ) YES! ( perfect ! )

All right ! and does it count when you say too?

(Sure does! )

TOASTED!

We have a peanut gallery back there, by the way! ( Hi Peanut Gallery! )

CHEERS!

Okay, ( and by the way the wine here is very delicious and what are you drinking? )

I am having a white wine spritzer Pinot Grigio ( and this is Pinot Noir ) mmm….

TOASTED! TOASTY!!

Okay next photo

posted by

Tyler Bernadyn ( I like this, I like this ) Hi Tyler. We love you Tyler

yes, this is a really cool retro poster that he posted and he wrote, ” this is everything ” and he actually

hash-tagged #NLandL and #MidtownOysterBar

( so he knew to do that perfect! )Yeah

( Tyler, I see this as your next tattoo, just sayin. Putting it out there )

Very retro (92 likes on that one too.) Oh, yeah, 92 likes, that’s great!

Oh! We should mention that. okay, perfect. Good idea, Good idea. Okay this one we loved

But it didn’t actually qualify because it was posted before ( Awe, Look at these cuties )

The September 5th requests to post, but it’s a video and you have to check this out. It’s

@shapsbrightidea ( I like it ) I’m going to show it to you

It’s a video and I just loved it and you recognized some of the comments on here. ( I did.

I think the comments are really cute. It says basically they’re the norm they’re composed

But Marissa is always out of control and Ryan is always out of control

But that’s what brings us together and that’s why they love each other. That is the sweetest thing.

Couple’s you can have fun together and love each other and be goofy) Yes , exactly

( I want to know who their orthodontist is, look at those teeth! Those teeth are amazing !)

Go to their page @shapsbrightidea Actually you can go to #MidtownOysterBar and check out their video.

Yeah, so… OH! another one by Tyler Bernadyn. ( Tyler !) Yes he is really going with this! I love it ! It’s a really great

photo of the second floor, right upstairs. Oh, no wait, it is right over here.

It has a certain name. The Burgee Bar! The Burgee Bar! This is the Burgee Bar!

(How did they get the name Burgee Bar? )

Because it has the burgee flags

It’s really cool, it’s never this empty, I don’t know, he must have been before hours ( or after hours or before hours

I don’t know. It’s usually full of people. ) ( Including Tyler behind the bar ! )

(We should have drawn him on there. A little stick figure with a little head. )

He would live that! ( with his little hat. He always wears his hat. Oh , we should have done that. ) Poor Tyler….

( You’re in for it now! We can’t draw! )

This is beautiful. ( That’s what we need to order. )Yeah. We’re gonna order one of everything after this.

We’ll need it. So this guy @harrywgraham

He’s posting the most beautiful pictures of food here.

Now it might have been mentioned that he may be a chef here ?

( Maybe ? ) okay, we’re thinking that it might be possible. (Did we decide that he has an Instagram account so we can follow him? )

He does! yep! All of his pictures are really beautiful.

Somebody says brighten the camera, I don’t know how….

Maybe we should just turn our face like that, is that better? ( Like this?)

Is that Good? (Is that good? )

Sorry, we’ll get closer…

( I don’t want to touch it ) No, I don’t want to touch it either.

So guys, great photos @harrywgraham, (That’s beautiful. That is a beautiful picture ) Yeah, he has a lot,

So check out his Instagram page, but you can just go to #MidtownOysterBar and all those are there.

so, okay this one my favorite one because it was

from a shoot that I did with Charlie. I have to … OOP! Don’t throw it away!! Okay, check that out. That’s so fun!!!

That is a real live video shoot here… Everybody look so happy…

( We know this can’t win number one, but she is always

number one in our lives. ) Oh I will take that, Thank you Ann.

(Always number one in our lives. ) I just got to get her liquored up, that’s all….

( That helps , A lot )

( You got to get her, Toasted ! )

Oh ! CHEERS!

I’ll take it. Okay. I hope that you guys can see it. Okay. This one was super fun. Go ahead , you tell the story.

( We’re gonna put this up on the camera and I’m sure everyone will recognize it)

But I didn’t !! (First person to post the name of this little character and I’ll give you a hint

It’s on the Pirates of the Caribbean

Who is it? )

Who is it? We can’t hear you. You gotta speak up!

Peanut gallery ? Anyone ? Anyone ?

( Dave Jones ! )

David Jones? Davey Jones, (Davey Jones ) okay, Do you know where this picture was taken?

( Where was it taken? ) it was taken recently last weekend at the

Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival, so they had this big display out with their oysters and this huge octopus out there

It was a lot of fun. I hope that you guys made it out there.

That’s a great let us know by commenting., if you guys made it out to Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival.

So that’s a great photo. ( I Iove this so cute ) mmmhhhmmm.. it’s fun

( Charismatic. I love it )

Now a couple people from our peanut gallery back here that you can’t see , they’re back there making fun of us.

They chose this photo ( Beautiful photo, it’s making one of them very hungry right now )

It is a great motive the lobster roll there

roll there. Yeah, super good. This one got 72 likes. ( Read the comments , that’s great! ) Ok

This was posted by @tinygirlhugeappetite

(Love that ) I feel yeah, I do. Okay. So this one says give me a lobster roll and I’m a happy girl !

You give me any food I’ll be happy.

(TOASTED! )

CHEERS!

Okay, how’s your what are some of these comments bring them on camera watch it

Oh, oh you can bring people on camera

I don’t know. No, I can’t bring anyone on camera. Sorry, but

Okay. So this is we are down to our very last two and then we’re yeah

Then we’re gonna announce what the winner actually gets to win. So this one’s really special because

couple just got married this week this weekend that they posted this so they came here to celebrate

their wedding

at Midtown Oyster Bar. ( I love that they chose Midtown Oyster Bar to come and have

a specific memory that will last a lifetime and then they tag themselves for this event! )

What did you say earlier?

Making Magic at Midtown. (I did say that ) That’s brilliant. I love that. I think that should be a new hashtag.

( Oh!? ) Yes. ( Charlie ?! ) Charlie?!

Charlie Holder get down here! Making Magic Memories Happen…

( Making Magic Memories happen) Ok I love it. (At Midtown ) #MakingMagicMemoriesHappenAtMidtown

Tell us what your thoughts are, please, in the comments

( That is the sweetest. ) Okay so that was a really nice one. ( That one is really sweet, I love that one )

So should we announce the winner now?

( I think we should… Ready? )

Okay, this one we loved for many different reasons. ( You have to turn the camera ) We have to turn the camera? ( Oh! it’s sideways…… )

( We’re getting a note saying that we have to turn the camera. ) I don’t know if we’ll both be in it if we do that.

( I don’t know, what do you think? )

So that’s what they’re saying! (okay, turn the camera )

Is that better?! ( Is that better ?! ) Do we get some thumbs ups ? Do we get some thumbs ups ?!

*Had to start live again, Facebook cut the live feed..*

Now we are really cozy…We had to space out there for a second cuz apparently we didn’t know what we were doing

But we’re back now with Newport Living and Lifestyles, and now we’re super cozy.

Yeah, so apparently we have to have the camera profile. We didn’t know. ( We didn’t know. Sorry guys )

So, how are we doing now? Are we good ?Are we good? ( Are we better? )

Okay! Perfect ! Yay!

So we were just talking about all of the people that posted and hash-tagged

themselves at #MidtownOysterBar and hash-tagged themselves #NLandL and we’re picking winners of the photo

contest to win a local gift of the month ( and the question is before we do that,

do we need to go back and show any photos while Christon…. okay Vanna… )

While you were talking I just thought I would do something fun.

( Do we have to go back and show you guys any photos at all, because we understand the camera was a little wonky,

so just let us know. We’re watching you right now on our live feed. ) Yeah. Yeah, what are they saying?

Okay, good, ( Okay. All right ) So we can tell you what our top three photos were. (Let’s go back and review )

Oh Bridgette Soby says hi! Michael Murray’s got the martini glass there. Hi guys.

(Let’s just go back and review the top ones. ) Okay , Lets just review the top four.

All right, let’s do this one first. Okay. Yeah, this one with super super great, loved it. And what was the name?

( Davy Jones ) frommmm ( From Pirates of the Caribbean. )

Caribbean ( or Caribbean. ) Yeah, yeah, yeah ( or Caribbean. ) Tomato – Tomato…! eh… who cares eh?

So we loved this one this one got 58 likes

It was posted 6 days ago

And this was from the Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival and I recognize it because I was there.

Let us know if you guys were at the Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival and saw this. ( That’s a great photo )

Yeah, so that’s one of the top of the four.

This one was highly liked as well

( Yeah, I’m so hungry ) Looooobsterrrrr roooolllllll……

Everybody loved the lobster rolls

72 likes posted by @tinygirlhugeappetite. ( I love that name, by the way. ) ( There’s like a whole lobster in there )

It’s a lot of lobster and you know what looks really good about it? It’s not too mayo’ey ( I actually don’t see any mayo at all )

No… ( It’s fresh! )

( And you know what? They have the ultimate lobster roll bread too) – yummy yummy

Okay, I gotta stop looking at that because we’re gonna get one.

(Here is our cute photo that we love. ) We love this one because this couple got married

September 7th and they posted here at Midtown Oyster Bar September 10th. ( And what do we say the new hashtag should be? )

( Making Magic Memories at Midtown. #MakingMagicMemoriesAtMidtown )

That’s awesome. That’s going to be the

newest, bestest hashtag, yet!

So #MakingMagicalMemoriesAtMidtown. ( I love it. ) I love it too. (I love it ) New hashtag !

okay, so… ( Awe, look at this crew!

This is really nice because The Salve Regina reunion is this weekend and I love the fact that this picture was taken )

Yeah, so a little bit about why we like this photo

It is a mother and two daughters

celebrating together here at Midtown. You can see a picture of all the food you can see pictures of the water with the label of

Midtown and I think that it really just

emphasizes the people, the food

the

memories that people are making here. ( I think it epitomizes the new hashtag we just came up with. )

That’s right! absolutely!

( I mean look at this food, it looks tremendous!

And they’re here making memories, it’s the sweetest and look just how adorable they are. )

( And whatever they ordered it needs to be on this table right now. ) Yeah !

Hey! They have the octopus! Oh my gosh. I love that. Check it out. Do you see the octopus down there?

Yummy. That’s one of my favorite dishes here. (Here ya go ! ) If you haven’t a seen the interview with Charlie Holder and myself

on Newport Living and Lifestyles. You’ll have to go watch that, after you’re watching us today. So this was posted by belt

@veltri.jen If you go to a hashtag #MidtownOysterBar

you can see all of the photos that we have chosen from today and we have chosen ….

Drum rollll…..

We have chosen this one as our number one favorite pick of the month ( Yay! ) Yes and

we are going to be reaching out to

@veltri.jen and she will be the winner of a

$100 gift certificate to Midtown Oyster Bar and

included is a

bottle of Prosecco by Syltbar and a little bit about this.

( So this is organic

Prosecco ) Yes ( and by the way for those that don’t know this , this is actually vegan. Who would know?

I don’t even know… ( I had to google that ) I didn’t even know that Posecco was not vegan, honestly. ( Right? Right! )

So this is low calorie, low sugar and it’s supposed to be really helpful for you and a bunch of us tasted it

recently, maybe, more than once and its super good.

( Basically, you can drink all day and loose weight and you don’t even have to go running, perfect! )

Yeah , the runner over here. I’m still working on my run….

Yeah

So congratulations to the winners ( Yes Congratulations!) Keep on hash tagging #MidtownOysterBar

Hashtag NLandL. We are also going to be doing a gift of the month every month.

So make sure that you hashtag NLandL in everything that you do and

You may qualify to win a local gift of the month. ( I love it. ) Thanks Ann for joining me today. It was a lot of fun!!

( No Thank you ! )

Toasty! ( Toasty! )

Cheers everybody!

Thank you Hoda!

Signing off for now until next time. Look forward to seeing you on Newport Living and Lifestyles.

Surf Club Newport with Newport Living and Lifestyles


The Surf Club Newport is suitably located on the bend of Thames Street at “The Wave” statue, the Surf Club is warm and romantic inside while the outside is entertaining, lively and dog-friendly with views of locals and visitors strolling by. Come enjoy the elegant surf theme at the Surf Club and the specials below.
– Monday: Pizza & Beer Night
– Tuesday: Nachos & Beer Night
– Wednesday: Wine & Cheese Board Night
– Every THIRD Thursday of the month: Pizza Class for $40 and includes a glass of wine!

Make sure to tag your photos comments with #NLandL for a chance to win the photo contest of the month local gift give away!

Read the Transcript
Welcome to Newport Living & Lifestyles. I’m Christon and I’m here with Charlie Holder of Surf Club Newport, and he’s going to give us an idea of their amazing specials and how they came up with their elegant surf theme. Well Christon, it’s great to have you. We’re very excited to have Newport Living &Lifestyles down here. Surf Club Newport is kind of like a throwback to an old-school Newport theme where it’s actually a really great surf spot. It has been for a long time, and people don’t really think about that when they think of Newport. They think of sailing, they think of the mansions but the locals they know all the surf spots. So that’s where we came up with surf club.  What we do here, we do some fantastic Neapolitan South pizzas, a lot of comfort food, a casual kind of setup, a lot of groups that we have come down here. We have an inside space which is located at the bottom of Newport Bay Club, and we’ll see in a little bit we have an outside space it’s open in the summertime, it’s a little bit of everything for everyone. We do three specials, we do one on Monday night it’s called pizza and beer and where if you order pizza, you get a beer no charge.  On Tuesday nights it’s a fun one it’s called Tacos & Tequila. Hey! Everyone loves tequila.  You order whatever tequila you like, you get the taco, no charge and  Wednesday’s is a good one too it’s called, “Wine and Cheese.” You order a glass of wine, whatever the featured glass of wine is that night, you get a nice a cheese plate. I love that! Yummy!  So on Sundays you can have Bloody Mary and mimosas?  Yeah we have a Bloody Mary mimosa bar setup.  Okay!  So come on downstairs, we have O.J., we have mango juice, we have strawberry guava, we have pineapple, we have pomegranate to make your own little mimosas. For the Bloody Mary side, we give you the vodka you put in your own Bloody Mary Mix and we have all the fixings: olives, cheese stuffed olives, pepperoni wrapped cheese.  That sounds like so much fun!  We got all kinds of stuff! so you can just make your own! One other fun thing that we do is third Monday of every month we do a pizza class. So for $40 you come in, we show you how to make dough, we show you how to make the sauce, you make your own pizza, we have a little contest, whoever has the best pizza at the end of the class wins a nice little $25 gift card,and the best part: Wine’s included.  Well you can’t be that! Not at all. I’m in. Let’s do it.  I’m going to show you how to make a pizza right now! Alright!  You ready? Let’s go, yeah! First thing’s first, you need to have an apron. All right. Nice insignia.Right now I’m bringing our chef Bryan Ashtis, Bryan come on in. Nice to meet you, Pleasure. Tell us about your fantastic oven. So it’s a gas-powered, brick oven that cooks the pizza in 120 seconds. How hot does it get? 850 degrees. That’s the top, okay excellent. So how do we get started here today? All right, so we have some dough right here take this handy spatula here, and we’re just going to turn it out onto the table like that I’m Italian, I should be a pro. Oh no, I already messed it up! My ball is a ball, and not flat. My Italian relatives would be so proud of me right now.  The deck of the oven actually rotates pretty evenly, so one time around and the pizza will be done.   Thank you so much Charlie for having us today, it was a fantastic experience here at Surf Club Newport, Cheers!  We look forward to seeing you on Newport Living & Lifestyles.  CHEERS!