by An autistic boy was only going to get a menu from a restaurant and then take it back to the car.
However, once he didn’t come back, his father decided to go check on him. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he walked inside and saw how his son was being treated by the staff.
Owen Long enjoys knowing where he is going to eat. Dealing with autism, he isn’t big on surprises when it comes to his food, according to his mother. So, his parents make sure to make special accommodations here and there in order to make Owen happy, decreasing any unnecessary anxiety for the special needs boy. “We knew all day we were going to eat at Sun Restaurant. Owen likes to know exactly where he’s going to eat every night,” explained Owen’s mother Sandra Block.
Owen was in the car with his father when they saw an opportunity to help make the takeout experience a better one for Owen. They were going to grab a menu, so Owen could look it over before they placed their takeout order at Sun Cuisines Restaurant in Williamsville, New York. “So he said to him, ‘Owen just go and get the takeout menu and come right back,’ and they practiced it in the car. ‘You’re going to ask — what are you going to ask?’ ‘Take out menu,’ ‘okay good,’” Sandra furthered.
But, nothing went as planned when the boy entered the eatery. He managed to approach the counter, but Owen was quickly distracted by the smell of the food. When Aye Thein, the Sun Cuisines Restaurant Partner and Manager, asked if she could assist him in some way, Owen simply told her he was hungry. Her reaction had the boy in the restaurant for an extended period of time, and that’s when his dad feared something was wrong.
Curious what was taking Owen so long, his dad entered the restaurant and he simply couldn’t believe the sight unfolding in front of him. Aye Thein’s reaction to the boy’s admission that he was hungry was something this family had never seen or expected. And, Sandra quickly took to the business’s Facebook page to let the world know all about it.
After giving the background story, Sandra said her husband went in to find out what’s going on, and he was so blown away, he took a picture. “What’s going on is that my son is at a table, eating,” Sandra wrote. After telling the staff he was hungry, Aye “sat him down and asked what he wanted to eat, and he answered: ‘beef,’” Sandra added.
“She told her cooks, ‘Hurry, this boy is very hungry,’ and made him a beef curry with rice. She said that he was so sweet she was planning on letting him eat for free,” Sandra continued before saying she loves the restaurant and telling others, “If you end up there, thank them again, from me. For their kindness, and for treating my son like family.”
“He said I’m hungry and when I look at his face, from my heart I said, ‘Oh, he’s a very special boy to me.’ I said, ‘What do you want to eat honey?’ I asked him, and he said, ‘I want to eat beef,’” Aye Thein recalled, according to WIVB News 4. Apparently, at Sun Restaurant, the motto is: “Ask and you shall receive!”
“That is just so uncommonly kind, like how often, can you imagine, I’m going to cry thinking about it,” said an emotional Sandra. And, the shocks just kept coming. After posting about the incident on Facebook, she never expected what came next either. “It went viral. I’m sitting there refreshing it and telling Pat, my husband, ‘Hey we got like a thousand likes on this, and then, I’m like, ‘No, make that 1,200, make that 1,250,” Sandra said.
