Billy Mitchell's Restaurant

[Flack]

I'll eventually mold this into a blog post but I thought I would bang out a quick version.

I assume everyone here has seen King of Kong and knows who Billy Mitchell is. In the movie, Billy mentions that he owns a restaurant named Rickey's and makes and sells his own hot sauce. Rickey's is in Hollywood, Florida. We drove right through Hollywood, Florida on vacation yesterday so I thought it would be really cool to check out Billy's place, see if there was any King of Kong or Donkey Kong stuff there, and maybe even catch a glimpse of Billy Mitchell himself!

We set the GPS and arrived around 2pm. Our first reaction was that Rickey's was either a strip club or an adult bookstore. In a sea of white, gray, and tan buildings, it's painted red and yellow. It's in a big building covered in siding with two metal doors and no windows. Even if this was the restaurant, we were pretty sure kids would not be welcome. The place does not appear "inviting."

We opened the door and stepped in to a dark bar. After standing at the doorway for 2 minutes looking like dumb asses the bartender eventually said "sit anywhere." Inside, it's all bar. We counted 17 televisions, all tuned to sports channels. There's the top of a pool table (complete with the balls) mounted to the ceiling. There's also a jukebox and a small arcade in the back corner. It's dark but not particularly smokey. There's a huge bar in the middle of the room with a few tables and a dozen or so booths around the outside walls.

Our waitress greeted us with "I'm the only one working, I'll be with you in a few minutes." We sat and looked over the menu. They sell bar food. That makes sense because... well, it's a bar. Susan and I had two different kinds of quesadillas. Morgan had a bowl of chili. Mason had a hamburger. We also ordered 10 wings so that we could try the hot sauce.

While we were waiting for our food Mason and I went to check out the arcade. One "Galaga/Ms. Pac-Man" machine, one crane machine, and one Jurassic Park pinball machine. No Donkey Kong machine. If it hadn't been for the bottle of Rickey's Hot Sauce on our table, I would have sworn that we were in the wrong place.

Despite being busy and possibly understaffed, our food arrived relatively quickly and was good. The wings were more like the ones we got in Buffalo than the ones we get in Oklahoma. The chili was good. I had the philly cheesesteak quesadillas and they were also tasty. Since we were on vacation we added a couple of desserts to our tab. They were good too. I also wanted a souvenir so we purchased two bottles of hot sauce, one to open and one to keep. Things were going great!

And then my wife says to the waitress, "isn't this Billy Mitchell's place?"

You could have heard a pin drop. It was like someone dragged a needle across a record. She quickly corrected us. "This place is owned by Billy's parents, and run by his sister." She then turned to the lady sitting at the bar who was seated next to us. "I can't remember the last time Billy was in here, can you?" They both shook their heads no. We had obviously hit a sore spot. We grabbed our bottles of hot sauce and hit the door.

If you're looking for a dive bar in Hollywood, Florida, Rickey's is a nice place (as nice as dive bars get, I guess). The neighborhood reminded me more of New Orleans than the other Hollywood, but we didn't have any problems. If you're looking for some decent wings, cold beer and a dark sports bar, this is your place. If you're looking for any trace of Billy Mitchell or Donkey Kong, save your quarters and watch King of Kong again instead.

[Flack]

I can't wait to get home and try the hot sauce out on everything. We had lunch yesterday at Krystal's. I did not use the sauce on the burgers because I did not want super hot diarrhea. It was a good choice. Now I just have diarrhea of the regular temperature.

[Tdarcos]

When someone mentions "Billy Mitchell," what it reminds me of is General Billy Mitchell, who was court-martialled by the military by doing an inspection of one of the military bases and based on the slovenly mismanagement during the 1930s, he predicted the ridiculous notion that the Empire of Japan would eventually send aircraft to bomb Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii.

Rick Rescorla saw the truck bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, and realized that if they could do it once, they would do it again, and set up drills and practice to prepare to escape. When it did happen again on September 11, 2001, his putting the employees of Morgan Stanley through the drills and told everyone to evacuate even though the building management was telling people there was no need to leave.

Rick Rescorla's foresight saved hundreds of lives and he died trying to save another person when the building collapsed.

[Tdarcos]

My apologies, it just occurred to me that the Rick Rescorla story is not related to this thread, it just tied into someone who saw a disaster in the wind and prepared for it.

[Flack]

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[AArdvark]

it's a good thing Billy Mitchell saw that kill screen coming or he never would have won.

THE
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AARDVARK

[Flack]

I can't wait to get home and try the hot sauce out on everything. We had lunch yesterday at Krystal's. I did not use the sauce on the burgers because I did not want super hot diarrhea. It was a good choice. Now I just have diarrhea of the regular temperature.

This morning I had the sauce on my eggs. Yesterday I had it on a ham sandwich. The other night I ate some Ruffles and put a drop on each chip. Tonight I poured some on my rice. I seriously cannot get enough of this sauce.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

There is a guy in the arcade world that always describes it as "vinegary," but you know what, I LIKE vinegar hot sauces. I like all manner of hot sauces. I like that Firefighters one and I am sure I'd like Billy's.

I meant to say the following before the house stuff that occupied me for the last two months:

Flack and I met the guy in person a few months ago, when Flack visited Denver. Billy is a great guy. I've heard that everyone who worked and starred in King of Kong was "in on it." I've heard that Billy hasn't watched the movie. None of that really matters in the end. The guy treated every single person at the arcade with respect and is a normal dude that likes old games. I couldn't possibly like him any more than I do.