by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
You won’t find President George W. Bush at the Mudville Grill, but his chair’s there.
The White House, the governor’s office and local Republicans worked for two weeks to set up the president’s visit here and they forgot one thing: his chair.
To the rescue: Billy Catlin.
“I was in Square One [a San Marco bar] about 8:30 Wednesday evening and a friend of mine who works at the governor’s office, called on my cell phone,” said Catlin, a 28-year old salesman at Drummond Press. “Did he know where he could get a dozen nice bar stools?”
One of the president’s stops here Thursday was a business forum at a Southside printing company and a last minute check revealed that no one had thought of chairs.
They were needed right away, because the chairs had to be approved that night for the president’s appearance the next day.
“I thought of clubs, and of bars,” he said, “and I couldn’t think of a place where I could get them on such short notice. Then I looked up and saw Louis Joseph, who owns the Mudville Grill. We knew each other in high school; he went to Kenny, I went to Bolles and we’re the same age.”
Did Joseph have fancy chairs?
Bingo.
A few years ago, the Mudville Grill, a sports bar in St. Nicholas, expanded, adding a party room on the Atlantic Boulevard side of the building. The bar stools there are a grade above those in the restaurant portion, which is on the Beach Boulevard side.
Joseph and Catlin left San Marco and drove to the sports bar, where they met the governor’s staff. The chairs were OK’d for presidential use.
But Catlin’s job wasn’t over.
“They asked me to deliver them so I borrowed my brother’s truck the next morning and took them over to the place,” said Catlin. In return, he got an invitation to stick around for the forum and, later, a handshake from the president.
“Awesome,” he said. “The White House guy called me their ‘savior.’ ”
The chairs are back at Mudville and there are plans to mark the chair — it now has an “X” on the back to differentiate it from those which supported non-presidential rear ends — and let the customers have a chance to sit in a small piece of history.