The annual Rico’s Restaurante was held on Wednesday, January 9, 2008. Attendance at this popular event was double the previous record. Last year 125 people attended the evening and enjoyed dinner while being served by the players in the cafeteria style line. This year over 230 people attended.  The cost is very reasonable as adults paid $5.00 and children $3.00. Attendees were greeted at the entrance by maitre d’ Kevin Roeder, who appeared to be running for President of the United States as he worked the crowd like a master. Coach Rico Blasi also passed through the crowd to personally greet almost every attendee.

Dinner included pizza, wings, salad, and the very popular “wok line”. The players served up the food. At the wok line, the players actually cooked your selected meal in a wok. You could choose between beef, chicken or shrimp and add all the fixins and veggies you wanted, served with an egg roll and rice. Alec Martinez, Jeff Zatkoff, Mitch Ganzak and Brandon Smith were excellent chefs! Dessert included cherries jubilee (cooked and dished up by the self proclaimed best looking group of players, which included Charlie Effinger and Ray Eichenlaub), cookies (although it appeared Ryan Jones may have eaten many of them) and smoothies. A fine meal for just $5.00.

As usual, the freshmen players were relegated to “back office” functions, such as cleaning pots, pans and dishes. Whenever a freshman came out of the kitchen the other players started hollering and shouting to draw attention to them.

All attendees seemed to enjoy themselves, including the approximately 35 children.  It was great to see the players up close and chat with them as you were in line. All in all, it was a great evening for all.

If you missed this, make sure to get to the next one in January 2009.