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Trip Report – 40th Birthday Celebration – Tampa
I have been waiting weeks for this to happen, and it was finally happening. I was on the plane flying to Tampa, for what I was hoping would be a celebration to remember. My wife and I flew in late Friday night, had a light dinner at Shula’s, and then just went to bed. Saturday, I woke up and my wife told me she had wanted to take me to lunch some place that was going to a surprise. Hello Topgolf! I’ve been wanting to go there since I heard about it. Pretty cool place with targets to aim at, and a computerized scoring system to play different games. We went there from noon – 1:30, but we needed to be at the restaurant for 6pm, and I still had shopping to do.
After showering and changing, I remembered I wanted to get a belt, and get my shoes shined. I mean I have to make a good impression here. Went to the mall, the cobbler told me it was an hour wait for me to get my shoes shined. A $50 tip took care of that. Shined them right up, and I was on my way. Picked up a belt, went out to Wrangler we rented, and changed into the new Bugatchi shirt I picked up before the flight. We were now ready to roll to the restaurant!!!
We got to the Salt Rock Grill at 5:30, we had a 6pm reservation, and our table was not yet ready. At this point I am incredibly nervous. I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous, I still thought there was a 5% chance it wouldn’t happen, so I texted his wife to let her know we were at the restaurant, and she texted me back that they were on their way. I saw the black convertible pull up to valet, and out stepped a very large man…Brutus The Barber Beefcake and his wife.
When they walked into the restaurant, I introduced myself and my wife to them. I have no idea how I even walked to the table, because I just kept thinking I am about to have dinner with Brutus Beefcake. We got the table, my wife sat to my left, his wife sat across from me, and Brutus sat to my right. When we all were seated, I just said, “I can’t believe this is actually happening.” My wife thankfully is very social and hit it off with his wife immediately.
We ordered drinks, I haven’t had a drink in roughly seven years, but tonight I was having one. I ordered a Bud Light bottle, he ordered a Captain and Coke. At this point I am thinking to myself, “Brutus Beefcake is about to have a drink with me.” My wife asked him what we should call him, his real name is Ed, but he said Brutus was fine. Even his wife calls him Brutus, so it didn’t seem weird or anything.
Brutus had been to this restaurant a few times, and this would be the first time he called me brother. “Brother, you have no idea how good this food is. There isn’t a bad thing on the menu.” “Holy ****” I thought, “Brutus just called me brother!” We ordered a bunch of apps for the table, and just started talking. About a million things. WWF in the 80’s, baseball (he played little league with Wade Boggs, and is still good friends with him), football, he loves to boat.
At this point I was getting more comfortable, we ordered our entrees, ordered the filet and lobster tail, I had the bone in filet, and I started asking questions I had prepared while we waited for our food. Here is some of our dialogue shortened:
Me: What was Bobby Heenan like?
Brutus: Nicest guy, funny, kind, witty, and super smart about the business.
Me: Gorilla Monsoon?
Brutus: Nicest guy you ever wanted to meet.
Me: Who was the strongest guy you worked with?
Brutus: Andre the Giant, seven – foot -two, 600 plus pounds, and brother, could crush you if he wanted to.
Me: Most famous person in your phone right now?
Brutus: The Rock
After we ate dinner, my wife and Mrs. Beefcake split a dessert, and after the check was taken care of it was around 8:30 at this point. My wife said, “Well you guys probably have had enough of us at this point.”, but they said they were having a great time, and we hung out for another 2 hours! He has a book coming out, we talked about the book, how they were promoting it, and what would be a good goal in terms of book sales. He shared stories of what it was like living that life, and when was the moment he realized what they were doing was bigger than they ever imagined.
I didn’t cross the line by taking a million pictures, we got a few pics, and I asked him to sign a figure that I had, and he was a gracious enough to do that.
This was the greatest thing I have ever done. To be able to be 9 years old again for just a few hours, was so incredibly awesome. They couldn’t have been nicer people. In fact, after dinner, they mentioned they were going to be in the Boston area, and if they have time, would love to get together again. Now I don’t know if that will ever happen again, but even if it doesn’t, it was just so amazing to be able to enjoy this unique experience.
Cliffs; I had dinner with Brutus F-ing Beefcake!!!!!!!