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99-Year-Old Dad Helps 80-Year-Old Son Redeem Wintzell’s Longstanding Free-Oysters Offer

A decades-old sign long treated as a joke became a planned family milestone for longtime patrons.

Overview

  • Jimmy Rush Jr., 80, arrived at Wintzell’s Oyster House in Mobile with his 99-year-old father, James, to claim the offer, which staff and the restaurant’s Facebook post described as a first.
  • The placard at the downtown location reads, “Free oysters to any man 80 years old accompanied by his father,” a promise displayed since the restaurant’s early decades.
  • Wintzell’s general manager said the sign had been viewed as a novelty rather than an active policy until the Rush family presented it.
  • The restaurant honored the promotion with a dozen free oysters as roughly 60 relatives and friends joined the birthday celebration.
  • The Rushes have visited Wintzell’s since the 1970s, and younger brother Carl says he plans to try the same deal when he turns 80 in October 2028.