Fort Pierce pizzeria owner on lifting up Obama: ‘It was just pure emotion’

Forget about Charlie Crist’s man-hugs of President Obama.

The new standard for presidential embraces was set Sunday afternoon when Obama made an impromptu visit to Big Apple Pizza here and encountered owner Scott Van Duzer.

“Scott, you are like the biggest pizza parlor owner I’ve ever seen,” Obama said to Van Duzer, 46, who is 6-foot-3 and weighs 260 pounds.

“Look at these guns,” Obama said, admiring Van Duzer’s muscles. “If I eat your pizza, will I look like that?”

Then, with Secret Service agents and reporters and about a dozen customers watching, Port St. Lucie resident Van Duzer hugged the leader of the free world and lifted him off his feet.

“Look at that,” Obama said when his shoes were planted back on the floor. “Man, are you a power lifter or what?”

Pictures and videos of the encounter circulated quickly and, within a few hours, Van Duzer said he’d been booked to appear on CNN and had fielded calls from The Washington Post, the online Huffington Post, Inside Edition and other outlets.

“This thing’s blowing up,” Van Duzer said.

Van Duzer said he only learned of Obama’s visit about 40 minutes before the presidential bus tour and motorcade arrived at his restaurant on South 35th Street near Indian River State College. Dressed in gray athletic shorts and a gray T-shirt for an afternoon at the driving range, Van Duzer said he sped to his restaurant when a manager called to tell him the president was coming.

“I got goosebumps, so excited and just overwhelmed … just overwhelmed when I saw him, blown away,” Van Duzer told reporters. He said he’s a Republican but supported Obama in 2008 and will vote for him again this year.

Later, Van Duzen said he didn’t have time to plan in advance to pick up the president, or to think about how the Secret Service might react.

“He walked in like we were old friends. That was the best,” Van Duzer said Sunday evening. “It was just pure emotion. I didn’t think about it. I watched the convention the other night and then there he was.”

Obama, who was on his way from Melbourne to West Palm Beach on the second day of a weekend campaign bus tour, told reporters he stopped by to congratulate Van Duzer on charitable work he’s done.

“One of the reasons we wanted to stop by is Scott has been doing unbelievable work out of this pizza shop in promoting the importance of donating blood,” Obama said.

“He has set some records here in Florida. He has received commendations from the White House, our surgeon general. He has galvanized and mobilized the local community, and he’s educated kids and folks all across the country on this issue. And so this is an example of somebody who’s doing well, but he’s also giving back and so we just want to say how proud we are of him.

“I’m still wondering how he got these biceps, but what we know is that the guy’s got a big heart along with big pecs,” Obama said.

Van Duzer, married with three sons, said he started working at the pizza parlor when he was 16 and bought the business when he was 23.

He founded the Van Duzer Foundation a few years ago to help families experiencing tough times. He said he was inspired by the experience of helping a childhood friend and St. Lucie County firefighter whose house burned. He started promoting blood donation about four years ago. This year, he said, he took a month to bike more than 1,000 miles to Washington with four kids aged 12 to 17 to raise awareness and discuss the issue with Surgeon General Regina Benjamin.