Mafia Restaurants and Foiled Capers

Back in the day, when I worked on West 7th street in St Paul, we had many commercial accounts that resided on the same street. West 7th is interesting because it pretty much is a multi mile pit stop for people who are either attending events at the X-Cel Center, or it serves as a quick route that delivers you to the Twin Cities top 2 airport terminals.

Although this 10 mile strip is littered with dozens and dozens of places that are geared at taking your "quick buck" there really isn't any reason to hang out along this road way.

Mr. Parrish owned a small dinner club down the street named fittingly enough...Parrish's Supper Club.

Old man Parrish was at the point in his career where he had been mentioning retirement for several years. He was in his 60's and had worked hard, but I think he continued on mostly because he enjoyed the routine.

Each afternoon he would make a bank run at preciously 2 p.m. When he pulled into the parking lot of the bank, locals would joke that God set his watch to Mr. Parrish's schedule. He was just that reliable.

One afternoon as he was preparing to get out of his huge sedan, he saw 4 young men coming out of the bank with canvas bags.

The boys seemed in a hurry, and Mr. Parrish thought he noticed one of them carrying a gun.

So as the robbers sped away in their ride, Old man Parrish tailed them and called the cops on his cell phone, letting them know up to the second details of the escape route.

Eventually the thieves figured out that they were being tailed and fired shots at the old guy tailing them. This didn't deter our hero though, it just ruffled his feathers harder.

Thanks to his efforts, the Cops nabbed the bad guys and took them into custody.

Mr. Parrish was a reluctant hero.

The police, or the bank ended up offering him a substantial recovery fee, but you know what? He wouldn't have anything to do with it.

People were so grateful they tried to push that money at him and finally he almost got pissed and said....

"Seriously, we should profit on doing the right thing? I don't think so. If your pockets have holes in them and you are burning to get rid of that money. Give it the the park system in the neighborhood so we won't have as many wayward children."

Mr Parrish was cool.