Texas Roadhouse makes steak 'with love' for dying pup
EPHRATA, Pa. (WHTM) – They’re called “special instructions,” but they’re common enough that they have their own field on the online order page.
Maddie Fry, working in the Texas Roadhouse to-go area, said the most common special instruction is, “Please, can I have some extra rolls and butter?”
People love their rolls. But they love their pets even more. Last week, a special instruction unlike any other appeared.
“Last meal for our dog. Prepare w/ love,” read Hunter Metzger’s request, which was below an order for an 8-ounce New York strip steak Saturday.
Iris was an 8 1/2-year-old Great Dane with a “great personality.”
“Even people that weren’t big dog fans necessarily just instantly loved her,” said Metzger, sitting on a bench Thursday at Long’s Park in Lancaster, recalling Iris and her last day. “She had these big, soft, floppy ears everybody liked to play with. And just great personality — great personality.”
Maddie Colon, who has 12 dogs and was working that night in the to-go area, saw the request for what, thanks to social media, has become a world-famous last meal.
Abbie Fry, who has two dogs, was also there.
“So I got Kate, because she’s, like, the biggest dog lover I know back here,” recalled Fry, standing Thursday with Colon and kitchen supervisor Kate Weston.
“I couldn’t imagine losing my dog right now,” Weston said. She showed a photo on her phone of herself with her dog, Quinn. Everyone who works at the restaurant knows all about Quinn.
“We just made sure the meal was perfect,” Weston said. And she didn’t mean just cooked rare for Iris — with a cool, red center — as the order specified.
On the receipt, which went in the bag with the butter for the rolls, Weston, Fry, Colon and another co-worker wrote condolence messages to Metzger and his family. On the frosted plastic cover, they wrote in red marker, alongside two hearts: “Made with LOVE.”
“And we waited for Hunter to come pick it up,” Weston said. “I just went up to the window and I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m really so sorry for your loss.'”
Metzger told Weston and the others about Iris and how he and his Aunt Patty in Iowa found a forever home for Iris with the Metzgers when she was an 8-month-old pup.
He also spoke about the happy times as well as when Iris started having breathing issues a few weeks earlier, which turned out to be a symptom of an inoperable mass in her naval cavity.
“She regressed very quickly,” Metzger said. “The end was somewhat inevitable.”
Iris “enjoyed her last meal,” Metzger continued. “We put her to sleep that evening. And the next morning, I was going through my emails, and I saw they had also refunded my meal. So not only did they take the time to put the notes on there and offer their condolences, they refunded the meal, which was absolutely amazing.”
“We just did the least possible thing we could do,” Weston said. “We’re just honored to be part of Iris’ life.”
Weston said she and the team didn’t do any of this for publicity or to inspire anyone else. It’s just what felt like the right thing to do at the time.
“A little bit of kindness goes a long way,” Colon said.
