Joe home for holidays thanks to Misfits car club

The grainy security camera video shows a man behind the bar at Flamin’ Joe’s on East Sprague Avenue. He grabs a stack of promotional stickers and patches them all over his body, including his forehead. He rustles around the closed restaurant, smashes a TV, gets himself a beer and then heads straight for the restaurant’s mascot: Fireman Joe. He grabs the life-size statue – including the Dalmatian dog – and throws it through a window into the parking lot.

“Police picked him up walking down Sprague, dragging Joe after him,” said Coreal Smith, manager of Flamin’ Joe’s. “It was just the weirdest thing.”

The early morning burglary left Smith and Flamin’ Joe’s owner Sally Guthrie with a mess on their hands and about $3,000 worth of damage.

They glued Joe back together the best they could but he just wasn’t the same.

“He was messed up,” Smith said.

That didn’t sit well with the members of the Misfits Custom Car and Motorcycle Club, which meets at Flamin’ Joe’s for Monday Night Football and their regular meetings.

Deron Nicholson, president of the car club, went online and began searching for Joe’s replacement. He found a statue in Southern California and persuaded his club members to take up a collection to cover the $1,200 statue.

“We are here all the time,” Nicholson said. “It felt like someone had broken into our home.”

The Misfits didn’t tell Smith and Guthrie about their plan, so when the giant box containing Joe and his Dalmatian showed up, Guthrie wasn’t sure she should sign for it.

“There was a phone number on the label and I didn’t recognize it,” Smith said. “I called and Deron picked up.” Nicholson told Smith to go ahead and open the package.

Guthrie and Smith were both totally surprised.

“The goal was to get Joe here before Christmas,” Nicholson said. “And we did.”