MINNEAPOLIS -- A restaurant whose food was sharply criticized by Randy Moss is giving the former Minnesota Vikings receiver something to chew on.
Tinucci's in suburban Newport will offer free lunches Friday to the first 50 people who come to turn in their Moss jerseys. For everyone else, the lunch buffet will be marked down to $8.40, a takeoff on the receiver's No. 84 jersey, co-owner Gus Tinucci said Thursday.
Tinucci said he was catering lunch for the players at the Vikings' practice facility last Friday when Moss entered the locker room and looked at the buffet line.
"Randy came up to the table and said, 'Who ordered this (expletive) stuff? I wouldn't feed it this to my (expletive) dog,"' Tinucci recalled. He said the locker room went quiet and somebody told Moss to shut up. "We didn't see him again. He didn't eat and that was the end of it."
Moss's agent, Joel Segal, did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday. Tinucci said he got an apology this week from a member of the Wilf family, which owns the Vikings.
The idea for the jersey turn-in came from local sports talk station KSTP-AM, which is a customer of the Tinucci family's catering business and will broadcast live from Friday's event, he said.
Tinucci is laughing off the disrespect from Moss, given the source. Vikings coach Brad Childress cut Moss on Monday, less than a month into his second stint in Minnesota. The Vikings lost three of the four games in which he played, and his cause wasn't helped by his locker room behavior or postgame complaining Sunday.
The buffet incident has provided plenty of fodder for newspaper columns, talk radio and sports bloggers all week.
Tinucci's also got a thumbs up Wednesday from quarterback Brett Favre.
"I was sitting in my locker eating the food" when Moss complained, Favre told reporters. He added: "I thought it was pretty good."
The jerseys will be donated to the Boys & Girls Clubs in Nashville. The Tennessee Titans claimed Moss off the waiver wire Wednesday. The Tinucci family will also donate $500 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Paul, and will ask Friday's patrons for donations, too.
The food? It will be what Tinucci served the Vikings, including chicken, ribs and beef.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press
