Hall of Fame football coach Don Shula speaks about his new restaurant in the Hilton Hotel in Providence last week. And he’s still peeved about that Snow Plow Game back in 1982.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

Never one to miss an opportunity to mix my two passions, food and sports, I sat down with a most gracious Don Shula last week when he visited Providence for the grand opening of his new restaurant, Shula’s 347 Grill.

I wanted to meet him because his Miami Dolphin teams were legendary in the days of my youth. Who wouldn’t want to meet the man who engineered the most wins ever in the NFL and found so many ways to beat the New England Patriots in the Sullivan ownership days. With guys like Griese, Csonka, Kiick, Warfield, Yepremian and Buoniconti, Shula’s Dolphins were unstoppable and charismatic. They had a perfect season in 1972, capping it off with the first of two consecutive championships in Super Bowls VII and VIII, in 1973 and ’74.

Shula retired in 1995 and now claims a restaurant empire with son Dave. They have 26 restaurants which include high-end steak houses (Shula’s Steak House) and sports bars (Shula’s Steak 2), a seafood spot (Shula’s on the Beach in Fort Lauderdale), as well as casual, mid-price eateries of which Shula’s 347 Grill is one. It’s located at the Providence Hilton, 21 Atwells Ave. (formerly the Holiday Inn). It sits in shiny new glass-front construction on the second floor next to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center and above a Starbucks. Shula’s serves a breakfast buffet, as well as lunch and dinner. The bar area has lots of flat panel televisions for sports viewing. The tap includes Narragansett as well as Guinness and Bass.

“The last thing I wanted to do was own a restaurant,” the affable Shula said. A friend spent two years convincing him to partner up to buy a failing restaurant on a golf course near his home in Miami Lakes. Finally, promises of making it the best steak house in South Florida swayed Shula, who partnered up with the friend and opened Shula’s Steak House in 1989.

“It was all about the food,” he said. It was so good in fact that earnings quadrupled in very little time, he added.

He’s a fan, too. He fancies a nice Porterhouse steak at his steak houses with a glass of Chardonnay, he said. Unless he’s just come from the golf course; then he likes a cold beer.

After five years, they opened a second restaurant in Tampa. Others followed in Troy, Mich., Baltimore and Cleveland. A chain was born.

Now Providence is the newest notch on his chain belt. Shula said he is no stranger to the city. Once the Patriots moved from Boston to Foxboro, he made sure his Dolphins stayed in Providence for game weekends.

“There was too much for the players to do in Boston the night before a game,” he said with a smile.

It was easy to stay in Rhode Island, but it made for long bus rides if the Dolphins lost.

And when was that? I wondered aloud.

That’s when Shula showed how long the memory of a coach can be. He spat out four words – “The Snow Plow Game.”

“You know, I petitioned the commissioner to change the score of that game. It was a totally unfair act,” he said, talking with his hands which sported a big honking Super Bowl ring.

The Snow Plow Game is infamous. It was on Dec. 12, 1982, in the middle of a blizzard that was dropping plenty of snow on the field. The Dolphins and Patriots were in a scoreless tie in the third quarter in a mess of a game. As the Patriots drew near enough to attempt a field goal, coach Ron Meyer signaled for a sideline snow plow to cross the field to clear a path for kicker John Smith. The kick was good.

“When I saw Ron Meyer signal that convict to the field I should have thrown myself in front of that plow,” he said.

The plow driver was a worker in a prison release program. By clearing the snow, he all but guaranteed the three points. Without him, no one knows for sure, but you couldn’t even see the ball in the snow, never mind get it down for a kick.

So even though the Patriots finished that strike-shortened season 5-4 and the Dolphins and Shula won their third championship, Super Bowl XVII, the coach doesn’t forget.

“This should be Grill 348 not 347,” Shula said with a laugh.