My friend Howard was the first Ottawa Glutton.  I’m not sure that he started the Ottawa Gluttons, so much as that he willed them into existence.  As he told me later, “it didn’t require a great deal of proselytizing…”  It was late 1972, or early ’73, and as was often the case, Howard and I were talking about food.

The week before, after church, Howard had gone with his Dad to The Ramada Inn north of town for breakfast.  It turned out the Ramada had an all-you-can-eat breakfast on Sunday mornings for $2.  All-you-can-eat….$2…    is what I heard, and a plan was hatched.   The next Sunday, after church, Howard and I went to the Ramada, and ate all we could.  It was great!

That week at school we mentioned it to some friends, and on Sunday, after church, there were four of us at the buffet, with Tim Stouffer and Danny Munson joining us.   (Due to the church connection, there were a lot of Methodists among the early Gluttons).  We were now on a mission.  The following week, six of us went to the Ramada, and the next week it was eight.  It was probably about then we named ourselves The Ottawa Gluttons.   Much like Arlo Guthrie and Alice’s Restaurant, it became a movement.

Sunday came again, and we were back with 10 or 12 of us.  We started tracking specific food records (125 slices of bacon, as an example) and made a rule that you couldn’t go for a record, until after you had a full plate of food.  We started some awards as well – Most Valuable Glutton, Rookie of the Week, and Most Improved.  Howard bought three small trophies and these were handed out at the end of the meal to the winners.  You had to bring the trophy back the next week, so it could be awarded to the new winner.

We ended up with over 16 of us at a meal one week.  After that, we printed up Ottawa Glutton T-shirts and all of us promptly wore them to high school.  That got more guys wanting to join, and also led to the development of a rival group – The Fat Alberts.  The Fat Alberts challenged us to an eat off at the new Pizza Hut, which had foolishly just announced an all-you-could-eat special.  The big day came, and we met there.  I have no idea how much pizza was eaten in total, but we finally called a draw when there were two guys left – Curt Cechowicz for us, and Wally Jenson for the Fat Alberts.  Both had eaten 23 pieces of pizza.

We crested with over 20 members at the Ramada in March of ’73.  At about the same time, Dale Boisso, one of our members, wrote about us in the High School paper. The title of the article was “Ottawa Gluttons Go Hog Wild”. In the article, he shared some of our records:

 – 125 Slices of Bacon – Curt Cechowicz

 – 77 Silver Dollar Pancakes – Danny Munson 

 – 37 Sausages – Larry Sexton

 – 14 Bowls of Grapefruit – tie between Jack Spicer and Greg Balke

 – 14 Cups of Coffee – Tim Stouffer

 – 2 Bowls of Prunes – Bob Poggi

Back at the Ramada, the waitresses loved us.  On a $2 breakfast, most of us would tip $1 each.  They thought of us as “growing boys”.  The hotel management apparently wasn’t so happy, and called the High School to complain about us.  Here, fate intervened.  It turned out that my mom, Gen Hall, who worked in the front office of OHS, took the call.  The Ramada thought we were an officially sanctioned OHS group.  Mom informed them that we weren’t.   They then complained about how much we were eating.  My mom asked them “Well, aren’t you advertising ‘all you can eat'”?  Well, yes, but they hadn’t expected this.  Mom, God Bless her, basically said she couldn’t help them. They then asked her if she could get a message to the group, and she said she would try.  “Please let them know that the next time they come, we will be seating them in a separate room, and will need to charge them a surcharge for the room”.  Mom said she would try to pass the message on.  She let me know that night.

The message was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.  We called and reserved the room.  I think we had something like 25 guys that week and it was a mad house.  The restaurant could barely keep up with how much food we were eating.  At one point, the chef came out, cleaver in hand, and threatened  “IF YOU DON’T EAT EVERYTHING ON YOUR PLATE, I’M GOING TO CHARGE YOU DOUBLE”!   Staring at the chef, and at each other, we just kept eating.  Needless to say, there was no food left on any plate.  We viewed it, as perhaps, our finest hour….

And then fate intervened again.  A few days later there was a fire at the restaurant.   No one was hurt, but they closed.   Indefinitely.   In fact, they didn’t reopen, at least not that year.   We were always a bit suspicious about the timing of the fire, but nothing ever came of it.

For the Gluttons, It marked our end as well.  With the Ramada gone, we lost our unifying factor.  It was almost the end of the school year, and several of us were graduating and moving on.  Over the years, we did a couple of reunion “dinners”, but by then the calories didn’t burn off so quickly, and Bruce was right – you can’t relive your high school glory days…..

signed//

Max Hall….two time Most Valuable Glutton…

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***Special thanks to Howard Johnson for filling in a couple of holes in the story***