At the Backstage Restaurant and Bar on the Cleveland West Side, Tommy Melton was eating heartily. He had a couple plates of food which he was downing as if it were his last meal. However, Melton's mind was elsewhere. He knew for every food order at Backstage, the restaurant would give him a free ticket for the Powerball Lottery.
He didn't see food on his plate as much as he saw $1.5 billion headed for his bank account.
When asked what he would do were his free Powerball ticket prove to be the winning one for the multi-states lottery game, his answer came between chews. "I would buy the Cleveland Browns," he said without hesitation.
Melton would be approaching the level needed to buy a sports team were he to win. He was not the only one downing lunches at the restaurant at 17007 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland. Others had bellied up to the bar and ordered hamburgers, mussels, pasta dishes, and other delights.
Shauna Koehl, the bartender, was busy placing orders in the kitchen. She, too, admitted she had dreams of winning the Powerball. "That's a lot of potatoes," she said, displaying a big smile. Back in the kitchen, Danny "Paco" Velez was busy handling the orders which were pouring in.
As he pulled slices of bread from their packages, he probably thought of the "bread" which would come into his life with a winning Powerball ticket.
Backstage Restaurant and Bar has hit on a very good idea. With the Powerball lottery machine only three steps from the bar, the restaurant workers putting in dollars, pulling out tickets, and handing them free of charge to customers who ordered meals.
With a jackpot of $1.5 billion dollars, the customers continued to come in and place their orders. No one told the chef to go easy on the bread. It is "bread" -- the spending kind -- they want. Everyone in the restaurant wanted a "slice" of the the Powerball jackpot.
