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Mosaic To Raze Former Carnival Worker's Restaurant

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 27, 2008

RIVERVIEW - Mosaic Fertilizer announced today that it has purchased the historic Giant's Camp in Riverview, a once-thriving down-home restaurant and bait shop run by a man known on the carnival sideshow circuit as The Giant.

The restaurant, which opened in 1941, was once home to fishermen, fellow sideshow artists, and Al and Jeanie Tomaini. Known as the "World's Strangest Married Couple," he stood 8 feet tall, his wife, a mere 2 1/2 feet tall.

According to family lore, fishing lured the Tomainis to the Riverview and Gibsonton area, where many carnival people have come to retire through the years.

Al Tomaini died in 1962, his wife in 1999. Their daughter, Judy Tomaini Rock, closed the business abruptly in October, and the property went up for sale within weeks.

Mosaic spokeswoman Chris Smith said the old restaurant and surrounding buildings are in disrepair to the point that some buildings are nearly falling down. The property will be cleaned up and the buildings razed, she said. Mosaic plans to enhance the entrance to its education center adjacent to the property on the south side of the Alafia River at U.S. 41.

Plans are in the works to erect a memorial to The Giant, Smith said, but those plans have not been finalized.

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