The concept is simple -- sports bar with eight super-sized TVs huddled up front and a no-nonsense menu starting with made-fresh-daily egg rolls filled with cheddar and Monterey Jack spiked with jalapenos and served with marinara sauce on the side; spinach-artichoke dip; chicken wings; chicken tenders smothering a bed of fries slathered with barbecue sauce; and barbecue chicken with cheddar and jack, bacon and sour cream hiding potato skins, $4.95 to $7.95.
Chicken is also the foundation of two of the salads, $9.25, along with greens crowned with charbroiled steak or mahi-mahi for 50 cents more. And there are two chicken breast sandwiches, half-pounders grilled or barbecued, served with parmesan-peppercorn salute or Monterey Jack and bacon, $6.75 to $6.95. The lighter side of the menu is rounded out with a trio of burgers and an upgraded Philly cheese steak in a hoagie filled with sliced filet mignon, provolone, mushrooms, onions and peppers, $5.95 to $8.75.
Eight mesquite-grilled sizzlers range from $12.95 for 12 ounces of center-cut sirloin and $13.95 for 7 ounces of filet mignon to $20.45 for 20 ounces of porterhouse. Prime rib is $14.95 for 12 ounces and $16.95 for 16 ounces.
Mesquite-grilled barbecue pork chops and salmon provide variety as do the baby back ribs and rotisserie-roasted chicken, $11.45 to $16.95, a pair of pastabilities, $12.25 to $13.25, and the South African lobster tails at market price. The nine sides include sauteed onions, fresh vegetable and baked sweet potato. There's a four-item kids' menu and hand-cranked home-made ice cream to keep families happy.
The menu was worked out and tested months ago, long before Coach Schnellenberger was ready to lead his newest team, Florida Atlantic University, out on the field for its first-ever game -- on Sept. 1 against Slippery Rock no less.
He must be the only coach in the country who spun into the restaurant business before retiring. Highlights of his career -- head coach at the University of Miami for five years and assistant coach of the Miami Dolphins for six -- cover the walls of his new venture, but he's certainly not the first Dolphin to spread his name on restaurant walls.
Place kicker Garo Yepremian couldn't score on his short-lived shot at fast food, and linebacker John Offerdahl succeeded only a couple of years with gourmet bagels and then opened Offerdahl's Raw Juice in Weston while Bob Brudzinski was surviving in Margate and Pro Player Stadium with Bru's Wings and Ribs and Bob Baumhower was forging a chain with Wings Sports Grilles in Tallahassee and Alabama after a dismal failure with partners Joe Namath and Richard Todd at Bachelors III in Fort Lauderdale. Other football celebrateurs:
The Bucs
Keyshawn Johnson
Reign (Beverly Hills, Calif.)
Lee Roy Selmon
Lee Roy Selmon's Southern Comforts
Chidi Ahanotu
Tampa Sacks Seafood Grill & House of Jazz
Mike Alstott, Dave Moore
The Island Way Grill
Tom McHale
Tuscan Oven / Old Meeting House / McHale's Chophouse
The Buccaneers' Keyshawn Johnson doesn't mess with wings or the like. Before the heralded wide receiver was traded to the Bucs he opened something poshy called Reign in Beverly Hills, featuring some of the same kind of food found in retired Buccaneer Lee Roy Selmon's Southern Comforts in Tampa and some of the same kind of sophistication that Buccaneer Chidi Ahanotu has in his Tampa Sacks Seafood Grill & House of Jazz.
The Bucs' Mike Alstott and Dave Moore are partners in the new Clearwater seafood specialist, The Island Way Grill. Another busy Buc is former lineman Tom McHale, who's now a triple threat owner with the Tuscan Oven, Old Meeting House and McHale's Chophouse, which boasts "Barbecue with Style," all of them on Tampa's Restaurant Row.
The Cowboys / Broncos
Crawford Ker
Ker's Wing House
Wings are what make the money for Crawford Ker of the Cowboys and Broncos. He's got a half-dozen Ker's Wing Houses in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.
The Dolphins
Jimmy Johnson
Jimmy Johnson Three Rings Bar & Grill
Former Dolphins (and University of Miami) Coach Jimmy Johnson has his own sports bar shrine loaded with photographs and other memorabilia in Miami Beach's Eden Roc Resort & Spa, Jimmy Johnson Three Rings Bar & Grill.
Dan Marino
Dan Marino's Town Tavern
Quarterback great Dan Marino at last count had five successful Town Taverns featuring lively entertainment and reliable sports bar/grill room menus -- in Miami's Coconut Grove, Fort Lauderdale's Riverwalk, Orlando, Coral Springs and most recently at St. Petersburg's BayWalk.
Don Shula
Shula's Steak House / Shula's Steak 2
It's the coach himself, Don Shula, who has carved the most ambitious empire of any of the former greats. Not competing with the players by doing just another sports bar, chicken wings coop or rib joint, at least not in the beginning. But by running with the bulls, the white tablecloth high-flying steakhouses.
Shula's Steak House started in 1989, 17 years after that perfect season, and it started at Don Shula's Hotel & Golf Club in Miami Lakes. It was five years before the second one kicked off but then came the multiple offense with another six in 1997-1999 and seven more in the next two years. All of them featuring Shula and Dolphin memories and a menu of top-quality Angus steaks, from $29.95 for prime rib on the bone to $69.95 for the Cowboy Steak, a 48-ounce porterhouse. Eat it all, and your name goes up on a wall plaque.
Shula's Steak 2 also opened at his hotel in Miami Lakes, concentrating on "more steak, more casual, more sport" and fathering clones as far afield as Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia. The steaks run from $15.95 for a 12-ounce New York Strip to $17.95 for an 18-ounce T-bone or filet mignon. The 325 top sirloin honors the victory that made Shula the winningest coach in NFL history, and the 347 ribeye commemorates his number of career wins.
A pretty tough act for anyone to follow.