Darius Rucker caught a mood at his hometown IHOP and bought everyone breakfast. The “Beers and Sunshine” singer didn’t expect his gesture to make national news.
“I was just looking around … and there was just a bunch of families, a bunch of kids,” he shares with Taste of Country Nights hosts Evan and Amber. “I really just thought about the economy and what it is and it’s been a tough year, and I was walking out and saw my friends that I see all the time when I’m in there, and I said, ‘Hey, man, how long will it take you to calculate everybody’s check.’ He said, ‘About a minute.’
“I did it — I tipped the waitstaff and I left. I just didn’t think it was going to be newsworthy,” he adds, starting to laugh. It was big news nationwide, actually, with local South Carolina outlets and national hard news outlets covering the story.
Rucker has done something similar before, he shares. Perhaps he was at a bar looking around when he decided to buy a round, and those incidents go unrecorded. But this decision — a spur-of-the-moment one made on his way to play golf with his son — caught fire.
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It’s not clear what the tab came to, but it was Sunday morning breakfast, so presumably a busy time at the IHOP. As for his golf game? The 54-year-old is known as one of country music’s best golfers, but he admits his son bested him that day, meaning he had to make good on a promise to buy him any car his mother would allow. The resignation in his voice as he tells this to the radio show indicates it cost a whole lot more than pancakes.
“Beers and Sunshine” is Rucker’s new single from an upcoming album, which he says is nearly complete. It’s going to be among his most personal, he says.
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