Hulk Hogan makes a splash at beach restaurant

Hulk Hogan, the wrestler and entrepreneur, has muscled Crabby Bill's aside and opened his own restaurant where the seafood eatery formerly stood on the Courtney Campbell Causeway in Tampa.

Hogan, whose birth name is Terrence Gene Bollea, got things off to a rousing start at Hogan's Beach restaurant with a masquerade party on New Year's Eve. “It looked like a sea of people out there,” many wearing masks, says Ron Howard, who partners with Bollea in his Hogan's Beach Shop in Clearwater.

The new eatery is located at the Bay Harbor Hotel on the Causeway. Hotelier Ben Mallah bought the hotel last spring and has been upgrading the property.