You may have heard that Randy Moss was waived earlier this week by the Minnesota Vikings.  He was is the talented, if hard to deal with, wide receiver that the Vikes needed to win the Super Bowl.  Laughing.

All MN fans knew he would arrive with a big helping of  flair, drama, obnoxiousness but hey, Randy, just keep your nose clean and act somewhat Norwegian (see Garrison Keillor), and we will love you.  He lasted a month.

At the end of Vikings’ practices on Fridays, the team invites a local restaurant to come into the locker room and serve a buffet style meal.  Cool idea, community building and all that.

Last Friday, a local “eatery” showed up with pasta, chicken, ribs and put on quite the spread for our young men in purple.  The restaurant has been in our area for over fifty years and many Viking players have eaten there.  Anyway.

At this “spread” young Randy went up and down the serving line complaining and berating the food and servers, “I won’t eat this crap,” and other such language that your young children should not hear.  Even his teammates were appalled at his boorish behavior.  Well let me tell you, sports fans, you can complain about our weather up here in scenic Minnesota, you can call us “bandwagon fans,” but we like our sports heroes to be nice and humble as well as good, see Joe Mauer, Kent Hrbek, Alan Page.  And don’t complain about the food.  We eat lutefisk.

So, Tinucci’s Restaurant had some bad PR on its hands….52 years here and Randy Moss ( THE Randy Moss)…was calling their food crap.  How would you feel if every morning, like almost 365 mornings every year, you got up and poured your life into trying your best for your customers and one spoiled football player railed on YOUR FOOD.  A PR disaster.  Yikes, Vikes.

So, they did what locally owned businesses have been doing for years.  They reacted with good humor.  And they came up with a plan that did not need corporate approval.

The plan:  Tomorrow, from noon to 2 pm, they will be serving the very same food that was served on the fateful day one week ago, to anyone who stops by.

The buffet is FREE.  All you have to do is donate your Randy Moss #84 Jersey.  Clever, this Tinucci Family.

I’m thinking crowd control issues.  The restaurant is in Newport, MN, just down the road from Lake Wobegon.