Free Hot Wings and Half-Priced Beer

Anne and I had little expendable cash following the eighties oil bust. We usually ate dinner at nearby Wyatt’s Cafeteria. Times were tough all over and their food was not only good, it was also inexpensive.

During a visit from Bruce, our close friend and former employee, we let him convince us to visit a seafood restaurant on Northwest Expressway called Harry’s.

“They have free hot wings during happy hour, and half-priced drinks. I’ll even go in Dutch.”

Bruce, a formerly strapping young man, had leukemia. He was looking bad at the time and Anne and I would have spent our last penny to make him happy. The trip, contrary to our doubts, proved fruitful.

There was a new game in town called NTN Trivia. Restaurants belonging to the NTN network have interactive boxes that their patrons use to play various games of trivia. A satellite transmits the network to restaurants all over the United States and Canada and these restaurants compete against each other in real time.

Every Tuesday night, NTN has their premium game called Showdown and rank the top one hundred restaurants and bars following the game based on their top five boxes. Harry’s didn’t finish in the top one hundred that night but Anne, playing as OILIES, finished tenth overall for individuals. We were pleasantly surprised at the end of the game when our waitress presented us with a twenty-five dollar gift certificate.

“We give it every Tuesday to the highest ranked player in the restaurant,” the blonde-haired woman told us.

From then on, Tuesday nights had us hooked. Bruce went with us to Harry’s on Tuesdays until his disease progressed beyond the point where he couldn’t make it every week. If I told you we won the gift certificate every week you will probably think that I am lying, but we won the prize almost every week.

Lil, another close friend, began accompanying us to Harry’s and we played as a team, helping each other with the answers. This went on for nearly a year until Oklahoma’s rapidly waning economy caught up with Harry’s and it went out of business. There were other restaurants still playing trivia and Anne and I soon found one. Along the way, we met other Trivia addicts and began playing together as a coherent team.

I won’t bore you with details except to say that our group included a dozen very smart people and I’m proud to say that Anne and I were part of the fabled Don Serapio’s group that won so many championships.

That was a while back. Bruce is now gone, as is Anne. So is Harry’s and Don Serapio’s in Oklahoma City - though Jimmy and Janie still have a very successful (and quite wonderful) Mexican restaurant in El Reno.

There’s a point to this story: even when the economy is in the dumpster, there’s still a place out there offering free hot wings, half-price drinks and maybe more – sometimes much more. Find it!

Louisiana Mystery Writer