09/11/2026
Bam Bam Bigelow once opened his own restaurant — and if you could finish his signature “Beast” burger, the story goes that Bam Bam would take a picture with you and hang it in the window.
But the giant burger may actually be the least interesting part of this forgotten chapter of his life.
In 2004, after nearly 25 years of wrestling around the world, Bam Bam Bigelow was trying to figure out what came next.
His answer was Hamlin, Pennsylvania.
There, along Route 590, the “Beast from the East” opened Bam Bam Bigelow’s, a deli that was every bit as personal as the name on the sign.
The rare shirts pictured here advertised the restaurant with a perfect slogan:
“CAN YOU HANDLE THE BEAST?”
And this wasn’t a case of a famous wrestler simply putting his name on somebody else’s business.
Bam Bam actually worked there.
One person who later sold an original restaurant shirt remembered buying it directly from Bam Bam while he was working at the deli alongside a small staff. He also recalled Bigelow having ambitions of eventually expanding the concept into additional locations.
Bam Bam spoke out once in the beginning while the restaurant was actually operating.
And reading his words today gives you a completely different look at Scott Bigelow.
When the interviewer asked exactly what the place was — a deli? An ice cream shop? — Bam Bam gave perhaps the most Bam Bam answer possible:
“I like to call it a deli, but what it is … it’s a place that I would go eat at.”
That was the philosophy.
If Bam Bam wouldn’t eat it, he didn’t want to serve it.
He proudly explained that the cheesesteaks were real, he didn’t like frozen food, and everything was fresh. The bread came from Brooklyn every day. The ice cream came from Brooklyn. They served real Italian ice, and even the chopped meat was 90 percent lean.
And, naturally, Bam Bam liked to eat big.
The restaurant became known for its massive burger challenge — “The Beast.” Surviving accounts disagree on exactly how the challenge was configured and its weight, but there is no mistaking what Bam Bam was selling:
A burger worthy of the Beast from the East.
According to the seller of one of the original restaurant shirts, customers who conquered the challenge got their picture taken with Bam Bam, and the photograph was displayed in the deli window.
Imagine walking into a little Pennsylvania deli and seeing a wall of people who had tried to handle the Beast.
Bam Bam seemed genuinely proud of what he was building.
The restaurant had only recently opened when he gave the interview, and business was already surprising him.
“It gets crazier every day. The respect people have shown me has been phenomenal. I never realized that Scranton was so big into wrestling.”
There was still plenty of the old Bam Bam humor, too.
When the interviewer mentioned the Wild Samoans being nearby in Hazleton, Bigelow joked:
“I’m trying to keep the Samoans away.”
Why?
Because when his longtime friend Afa came to visit, Bam Bam joked that he’d bring about 30 people with him:
“They’ll eat all my mayonnaise.”
But underneath the burgers and the jokes was a much deeper reason why Bam Bam Bigelow was in Hamlin in the first place.
His body was telling him that the ride was ending.
For roughly a quarter-century, his life had been wrestling.
Airports.
Rental cars.
Hotels.
Gyms.
Arenas.
Then do it all again tomorrow.
“The past 24-25 years has been on the go,” Bam Bam explained. “It’s been traveling, rental cars, hotels, gyms, arenas … every day. It’s like the life of a rockstar.”
Except his body had absorbed every mile.
This was a man approaching 400 pounds who moved in ways men his size weren’t supposed to move. Cartwheels. Diving headbutts. Moonsaults. And later, in ECW, tables, chairs and the punishment that came with being one of wrestling’s great big men.
Bigelow said he suffered from chronic back pain and sometimes had difficulty simply getting out of bed.
He put himself and Mick Foley in the same category:
“We were the big guys who put our bodies before ourselves.”
And that’s what makes this little restaurant mean more than it initially appears to.
Bam Bam wasn’t just opening a deli.
Scott Bigelow was trying to build a life after Bam Bam Bigelow.
He explained it beautifully:
“I just want to have a good time. I want to be Scott Bigelow but keep Bam Bam Bigelow and be more even keel.”
Hamlin offered him something wrestling never could. Stillness.
Bigelow said he’d been talking with his friends Eddie and Patty about opening a store in the area for 15 years. Eventually he came up, found a location and fell in love with the place.
He wasn’t interested in simply living there, either. He wanted to belong there.
In fact, look closely at the shirts in our collage. The phone number is listed right there on them.
Bam Bam publicly gave the restaurant number out and invited people to call him if they needed help raising money for children’s charities, firefighters or paramedics.
Dinners. Golf outings. Fundraisers.
If his schedule allowed it, Bam Bam said he’d help for free.
“If the community is giving me their support, then I’ll give them my support.”
Then he said something that tells you quite a bit about the man behind the tattooed head:
“I like kids and I like doing things for kids. Not all of us are as fortunate. There are children out there who just need a smile on their face. It goes a long way.”
That conversation naturally turned to perhaps the most incredible story of Bam Bam’s life outside a wrestling ring.
Years earlier, Bigelow had returned home from an ECW trip to Japan around 3:30 in the morning when he discovered a house on fire.
He heard children crying.
Bam Bam went inside.
He described forcing his way through the burning structure, reaching the upstairs and finding three children — ages five, eight and nine.
He brought them back through the fire.
Bigelow said he suffered second-degree burns over 40 percent of his body and spent nearly two months in the hospital.
Yet when discussing it, he didn’t talk like someone who thought he’d done something extraordinary.
“I did what anybody would have tried to do.”
Then the interviewer pointed out the incredible irony.
Here was a man whose wrestling identity had been covered in flames — the famous tattooed skull, the flame-covered gear — who had actually walked through a real fire.
Bam Bam laughed.
“I’m like combustible. Don’t get too close.”
Then, sitting there as the owner of his own restaurant, he added:
“I can cook burgers in my hands.”
That’s Bam Bam Bigelow.
The deli ultimately didn’t become the long-term second career he’d envisioned, and the plans to expand into additional locations never materialized.
But I don’t think that’s what makes this story interesting.
For a period of time in Hamlin, Pennsylvania, one of the most recognizable big men professional wrestling ever produced was doing something remarkably ordinary.
Making food.
Talking wrestling with customers.
Helping his friends.
Trying to raise money for children.
And figuring out how to be Scott Bigelow after spending most of his adult life being Bam Bam.
The same man who had wrestled Lawrence Taylor in the main event of WrestleMania, battled through ECW and WCW, and traveled the world was now proudly telling an interviewer where his bread came from and joking about Afa eating all his mayonnaise.
And maybe that’s why one line from that old interview sticks with me more than anything else.
After talking about the fire, his flame-covered career and the strange road his life had taken, Bam Bam laughed and said:
“Maybe that was my calling and I missed it.”
Looking back more than two decades later, maybe he didn’t miss it at all.
For a little while, Bam Bam Bigelow found it in Hamlin, Pennsylvania.
And if you were hungry enough to walk through that door, there was only one question:
Could you handle the Beast?
— Steve Stasiak, Book Pro Wrestlers
