My husband Tim had bid on and won (with lots of pushing from me!) a "Meet & Greet with Reba McIntire" at a live auction for the Make-A-Wish Foundation held by my company.What I had forgotten to check before pressing him to bid on this DREAM of mine was that Reba had already come to our surrounding area for her tour and didn't show any signs of coming back on her website. And thus became a little roadtrip to Ohio.
Our adventure to Ohio was supposed to be a surprise. Since our honeymoon to Jamaica was postponed because of a terrible terrible flu I came down with...Tim had to tell me his plans. Originally, he had contacted Reba's management team to set up the date to be when we got BACK from our honeymoon...however since we had to push the honeymoon off a week, he had to tell me because we would now be going BEFORE Jamaica. (Who cares when and where as long as I get to meet Reba!!)
Visiting Terry's Turf Club in Cincinnati, Ohio was chosen mainly because we were going to Ohio and I checked what "Diners, Drive-In's & Dives" hotspot we could visit while there. There were two in the vicinity...and while I don't remember what the name of the other place was, it doesn't really matter because we chose Terry's Turf Club merely for the filet mignon chili. Yes, filet mignon chili.
Thus began a "Roadtrip to Reba" which in turn began the "Roadtrip to Terry's Turf Club".
Terry's Turf Club is conveniently located about 15 minutes from the U.S. Bank Arena where we would be meeting Reba (who by the way is someone I have looked up to since I was tiny!)
We used our GPS...which told us we arrived at our destination (checkered flag and all) at a dilapidated building with a plywood sign...Tim said, "If this is it, I am not eating here!" Of course, I walked up and pulled the handle saying, "If Guy Fieri thought it was good enough to eat, WE CAN EAT HERE!! The door was locked (thank God!) I told Tim it must be a little further down...you know how iffy GPS's are!
Turns out, the GPS was definitely confused. We pulled up outside Terry's to see a shiny, glowing array of neon signs. Ah...we have NOW arrived at our destination.
Upon entering the Turf Club, we were sat at a bar top table for 4. We immediately ordered drinks and the filet mignon chili (which don't ask me HOW I forgot to get a photo of that!!) The waitress brought it to us and TERRY himself walked by to ask how it was. He told the waitress to bring us some creme fraiche (no sour cream at this high-end dive!) It was amazing needless to say.
I proceeded to ask Terry about the hand made dart gun they talked about on his episode of Triple D. (I know Guy like that so I can say that. Or least I can pretend.) He wouldn't use it because there were too many diners at the time. But he was a very nice man and his appearance totally explained the Turf Club's appearance. Quirky, but charming.
Next we ordered burgers. They each came out with a huge knife in case you wanted to cut them in half since they were monsterous! The burgers were equally as delicious as the chili however way too large for my stomach to handle. (This was a Diners, Drive-In's & Dives stop for me, not a Man vs. Food!)
As we ate our burgers the place filled up. They sat a family of 3 at our table. Hey, pull up a seat, we don't mind! (After all, most of my adventures in food involve meeting new people!) They were very nice. (I wish I remembered their names...I think I wrote them down somewhere!) Anyway the son was interning at Toyota and couldn't tell us what he did because it was all hush-hush R&D stuff.
After we ate what we could, we had to get going! We had a country music legend to meet! We got to the arena...watched LeeAnn Womack, George Straight and finally Reba McIntire. We were 4 rows from the stage. I could have died happy right there.
After the Show they shuffled all the meet&greet-er's to a downstairs room to wait. I had bought 6 cd's, opened them all and brought in the cd jackets to be signed for myself, family & friends. (No one ever said no autographs! I wound up with 6 non-returnable cd's!) We get to this room and they told us NO AUTOGRAPHS. My heart sank. She came in and she was as friendly and beautiful as ever. (Still no autographs...but oh well!) A photo will work:)
The Roadtrip to Reba (and Terry's Turf Club) was a success. Guy Fieri was definitely right about this one! If you're ever in Cincinnati, I definitely recommend Terry's! If you use your GPS, it's located at 4618 Eastern Avenue, Cincinnati, OH...just make sure you keep going til you see the neon lights!
(This first blog of 2012 is all thanks to R.C., an old (and new again) friend convincing me to keep blogging!)
