2015, Joe Biden VP, Polo Bar NYC. He walked right up to me and Shook my hand as he was leaving!
He got a standing ovation.
Barbara Walters, same evening, Polo Bar. Shuffled out as she left.
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Pablo Torre has done a great podcast series on Belichick and Jordon. It’s hilarious!
Pablo Torre Finds Out. I think it’s only 2 episodes and is on YouTube as well as in podcast episodes
Doc Severinsen. Oh, my gosh, he’s still alive! 97. My family was on vacation in LA when I was in high school. My parents went to a concert and let my sister and me eat in the hotel restaurant. Doc was just a few tables away. I really liked him because I always watched the Tonight Show with my dad. I was shy, so I convinced my little sister to go ask him for his autograph. He was very gracious.
George Bush (senior) and Mikhail Gorbachev at Barnacle Billy’s in Kennebunkport. We saw them go in and grabbed a table near them. Gorbachev was wearing a red, white, and blue track suit! They walked out right past us.
I periodically see Joan Benoit Samuelson at the store or bank (she won the first women’s Olympic marathon).
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Neil Patrick Harris at a food tasting event in Albuquerque, his hometown.
And Tennessee Ernie Ford at a nice but not high end steakhouse in OKC. I and two of my high school friends decided to travel an hour and a half to try it out. One of my friends pointed him out. I had heard of him but never would have recognized him.
Also, I’m going to say Blake Shelton because he lived across the road from me when I was young and we lived in a small town. I rode the school bus every day with his brother and sister to our k-12 school (he was too young). So I’m sure that I was in a restaurant or grocery store with him at some point! Even though he would have been a child.
He also contributed to my insect collection that was required for my college entomology class but that’s another story.
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Madonna in the cafeteria in high school! 
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Me too! I was bringing my baby home from the hospital (she was 3 months old) and I was dropping off film to be developed (almost 30 years ago) and he said “Dat a leetle baby” (she only weighed 4 pounds). In those days it wasn’t common to have a cell phone, especially with a camera and I so wish I’d had a picture of him holding her!
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One of the Jonas brothers opened a door for me when entering an ice cream shop in Hawaii. I said thank you. He was with another of his brothers. I stupidly did not know who he was but my D’s did and told me!
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Lewis Black would sometimes sit at a coffee shop not far from my kid’s dance studio, so I saw him a couple of times when I would go there for coffee and cake (while waiting for my kid).
I know it doesn’t really follow the rules, but bumped into Rahm Emanuel (almost literally) at a small dance show. He was there with his family when he was mayor of Chicago. He said hello to my kid and asked how she liked the show. I mean, we did all sit at the little foyer at one point, where drinks and snacks are served during intermission, and we did actually have some of each, so I think that technically it counts.
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Does being in a bar count?
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I changed the title of the thread. I had reasons for being more specific but the natural course of CC sometimes veers otherwise because everyone wants to participate. Which is not a bad thing. 
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Ok then, with @abasket’s blessing 
:
It was 1987, and I had just moved to New York City a week earlier. A friend invited me out to a bar to see a friend’s band. About thirty minutes in, a ripple went through the crowd: some of the Rolling Stones were there.
Fueled by a gin and tonic, I made my way to the dance floor. And – I was dancing with Keith Richards (and Patti Hansen :-)). I complimented his eyeliner (which was well received).
I thought, “Wow, so this is what living in NYC is like – celebrities everywhere”. Let the record show, that for the next 5 years that I lived there, not a single other celebrity encounter ever happened.
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OK, then, I will add Richard Gephardt. He was flying coach on a plane my two-year-old daughter and I were on going to Chicago. He was waiting outside the restroom when I was wrangling with her. He was very kind. Wearing a REALLY nice suit.
Then the weather was so rough that we were put in a holding pattern over O’Hare. Eventually the Captain came on and said we would be the first plane allowed to land. I remember thinking, “Great, we’re going to be on the national news for crashing with Dick Gephardt…”
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A couple of years ago, my wife saw Nick Jonas and his Bollywood megastar wife, Priyanka coming out of a restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.
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The cast of Friends (Aniston, Cox, Schwimmer and Perry) at a restaurant on the upper west side if NY, outdoor table. Courtney Cox pet our dog!
Diane Rehm at an outdoor table at a bagel shop in NW DC.
Peter Berg (Dr. on Chicago Hope in the 90s) at a restaurant in LA.
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My husband arrived early for our reservations at a restaurant on Nantucket. (D and I wanted to pop into a store nearby and were going to meet H at the restaurant afterward). The hostess told H to wait for us at the bar; while there, he started chatting with the guy next to him. They talked about Nantucket fishing and had a nice conversation. H gave him the name/number of a local fishing guide. After the nice guy left, the bartender came over and asked H if he knew who the nice guy was. H didn’t have a clue. Turned out it was Ryan Reynolds.
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Not me, but my sister-in-law and niece… in 2023 they had gone to the Hamptons for a getaway weekend. They went to some small, not well know restaurant for dinner. Before they were seated, the maitre’d sternly told them that no pictures were allowed. SIL and niece thought that was a little odd until they turned into the dining room and saw Paul McCartney and his family sitting there.
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Since we have expanded the “where” I will add Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a wedding (Bride’s dad went to law school with RBG and husband and the dad was one of the “notetakers” when her husband was sick…they were then friends for life). I did get to speak to her ------sort of. When the appetizers were being passed around, I took a mini pizza and she standing next to me and said “What’s on that pizza” and I said “I think its mushrooms”. Yep that was my entire convo with her!
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I’m sure some well known people shop at the grocery stores near me but I’m clueless.
We did see Pink and her husband having lunch at a sandwich shop in Cambria Ca. They had come up from the Santa Ynez valley on a motorcycle ride. The owner of the cafe said they came often. I wouldn’t have known who it was but my daughter was with us.
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Robert Redford. Twice! Twenty years apart, at restaurants in Northern California. Both times we recognized him by his voice.
A memorable combination was Harold Pinter, Marianne Faithfull, and Kate Moss at the next table, in London late 90s.
Also sat next to Jodie Foster at a Paris restaurant way back when, maybe early 90s. She spoke perfect French and nobody recognized her. The German tourists on the other side of her asked her to take their picture. Another unmistakable voice.
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Steph Curry in Safeway.
There was some young actor I didn’t recognize but D19 did out at supper once..
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