Steakhouse Trolls NFL Rookies With $26k Fake Check
Signing onto an NFL team brings with it a lot of money, but it also comes with some hefty expenses. For example, NFL rookies are traditionally hazed by being taken out to dinner with veteran players and forced to pick up very large tabs at the end of the meal. Recently, however, Ruth's Chris Steak House joined in the fun by making a fake check to prank the new players into thinking they were on the hook for a $26,000 meal.
According to ESPN, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 15 offensive linemen went to dinner at Ruth's Chris. Traditionally the "rookie dinner" gets paid for by the new players. In this case that would be just rookie offensive linemen Korren Kirven and Cole Gardner, who were undrafted free agents who likely did not get much, if anything, in the way of a signing bonus.
Here's a better shot of that Bucs offensive line rookie dinner tab. $10,000 in cognac, $3,450 in red wine at @RuthsChris ... pic.twitter.com/7tYn1uqd1f
— Greg Auman (@gregauman) August 17, 2017
It's not unheard of for NFL rookies to get stuck with bills in the tens of thousands of dollars. When the bill showed up, Kirven and Gardner believed it, even though it included absurd items like a free child's ice cream cone, $10,000 for 50 shots of Louis XIII Cognac, and more than $3,000 for wine.
The dinner took place the night before a game, so all that drinking would have been an unusual choice, if it were real.
"We were shocked at first when we saw the bill. We thought we weren't gonna make it," Kirven told ESPN.
The actual bill was only around $3,000, and the veteran players decided to treat the newbies and split the check among themselves.