Tinucci's gets its revenge on Randy

Talk about it

No such thing as a free lunch, right?

There was on Friday, at Tinucci's in Newport, where the first 50 fans who turned over a Randy Moss jersey got a complimentary buffet lunch that the ex-Viking dissed in a locker room tirade before he was cut by the team last week.

Hundreds packed the restaurant's dining room to turn over jerseys

for a free lunch, or dine on the specially priced lunch buffet -- $8.40, a

play on Moss' jersey number 84 -- and listen to local sports talk station ESPN 1500 broadcast live from the restaurant.

Brent Brommer showed up shortly before noon wearing a well-worn purple Moss

jersey to support the popular east metro restaurant. The Woodbury

resident's opinion of the ex-Viking for his catering comments?

"(Moss') behavior is pretty much inexcusable," he said. "I have a word for

it. I call him a jerk-o-holic."

Friends Tom Nelson and Brian Burgoyne drove from Burnsville and Savage,

respectively, for Friday's event. While they waited in a line for a table

that, by 12:30 p.m., stretched nearly an hour, the Vikings fans said they

wanted to support a restaurant they hadn't been to in more than 20 years. Moss' comments changed that.

"I'm glad it's turning out for good," Nelson said.

Tinucci's purveyor Gus Tinucci -- one of three Tinucci brothers who own the

more than 50-year-old restaurant -- said the event was just intended to poke a little fun at a situation that has garnered national media attention.

"We're having fun," he said on-air with ESPN 1500 hosts Pat Reusse and Phil

Mackey, taking a break from bussing tables in the busy dining room. "He was

wrong; we were just doing our jobs. It could have been a lobster buffet and he would have said the same thing."

The discarded Moss jerseys will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club of

Nashville, Tenn., the home of the Tennessee Titans team that signed Moss

after his exit from Minnesota.

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