A 99-year-old father and his 80-year-old son just collected on a promise that the latter said had gone unclaimed for nearly nine decades.
Jimmy Rush Jr. walked into Wintzell’s Oyster House in downtown Mobile, Alabama, on his 80th birthday with his father, Jim Sr., and tested an 88-year-old sign, according to NBC15. The placard offers a free meal of oysters to any 80-year-old man who shows up with his dad.
General manager Mike Vickers said the sign had always served as more of a novelty than an actual policy. The restaurant, which has operated since 1938, shucked a plate for the Rushes.
The family had kept its eye on that sign for a generation. Jimmy told Fox 10 TV that he and his father began eating at the downtown location in 1972 after riding in Friday night Mardi Gras parades. His brother Carl said the family spent more than 25 years planning it. (RELATED: Restaurant Giant Announces Massive Expansion, Then Files For Bankruptcy)
“I can quote by heart, ‘Free oysters, to any man 80 years old, accompanied by his father,’” Carl Rush told Fox 10. Jimmy confirmed through the restaurant’s bartender that no one had ever cashed in before them. “So we said, ‘We’ll be the first,’” he said.
Jim Sr. served in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War, according to NBC15. Jimmy Jr. credited his father in an NPR interview with teaching him a life built around the Gulf of America.
“[H]e taught me a lot — shrimping, oystering, crabbing. We always had seafood on our table,” he told NPR’s Scott Simon. Carl called the family “very blessed.”
Roughly 60 relatives and friends packed the restaurant for the party, according to Fox 10. Wintzell’s provided a dozen free oysters. Carl, who turns 80 in October 2028, already has the next visit planned for when Jim Sr. would be 102.
“My dad says he’s going to make it, so that’s good enough for me,” Carl told Fox 10.