Before pets cross the ‘rainbow bridge’ this Katy BBQ restaurant offers a ‘rainbow meal’
When the time arrived for Andrew Leeper to say goodbye to his beloved pet dog, Spike, he did what numerous pet homeowners do: he addressed Spike to a tasty past food.
“Spike was my tiny buddy,” Leeper recalled. “He lived to be 17. He received me by way of so a lot. It is amusing how considerably we count on our pets like that.”
Not extensive right after Spike was euthanized, Leeper observed a Facebook post about a cafe in Dallas that gave a free of charge spare rib to a purchaser who termed in to purchase a last meal for their canine.
“I was just really moved by the owner’s gesture, and I began to think about how we could do one thing like that in Katy,” Leeper claimed. He’s the founder of the Katy/Fort Bend Foodies team, a popular Fb website page and website focused to all factors food items in the Katy area.
Leeper reached out to his buddy Waseem Halil, operator of Chuckwagon BBQ & Burgers in Katy, to collaborate on a way to offer pet owners a closing meal for their pet totally free of cost.
“It variety of just clicked for both equally of us,” claimed Halil, who is also an animal lover. “And we just started out doing the job on bringing this to lifetime.”
Rainbow bridge
The “rainbow meals” are named in honor of the well-known expression “rainbow bridge.” According to custom, the rainbow bridge is a mythical bridge animals are said to cross after they die.
The thought for the term arrived from Leeper’s daughter, Angelina Allen. “We required it to have a content name,” Leeper recalled. “It’s such a unfortunate thing to get rid of a pet, but we did not want it to have a depressing information. This is a celebration with your pet ahead of they cross the rainbow bridge, and we desired to mirror that.”
When entrepreneurs get in touch with in advance to get the food, they present Chuckwagon with a photo of their pet, and Halil will put it on a special “rainbow board” that hangs in the cafe.
“When folks arrive in, they can see their greatest friend there on the wall,” Halil said. “It’s psychological, of training course, but for animal lovers, I believe seeing your dog’s encounter when you arrive in for some barbecue is truly comforting.”
The response to the rainbow meal and board has been overwhelmingly constructive, Halil reported. “Once Andrew built the announcement on the Foodie web page that we would be accomplishing this, we started off finding calls from all around- even outside the house of Texas- commending us for doing this. A lot of people today reported they wished they’d experienced this when their pets handed away.”
However Halil and Leeper posted the memory board in late April, Halil just received his initially rainbow meal request on Might 3. “A lady named and placed an order for her doggy that was about to be place down,” Halil said. “She was of course heartbroken, but it intended so a great deal to her that she could give him a closing past food with these a positive information.”
Leeper still receives emotional when he talks about Spike.
“Sending my doggy about the rainbow bridge is just one of the most distressing factors I’ve experienced to do, and it continue to delivers tears to my eyes when I see his image on the wall,” Leeper claimed. “But currently being capable to remember him this way, and understanding other pet fans can remember their puppies this way, is just actually big.”
