Texas Restaurant Opens Early to Serve 3-Year-Old Girl with Leukemia Her Favorite Meal

Texas Restaurant Opens Early to Serve 3-Year-Old Girl with Leukemia Her Favorite Meal

A Texas restaurant helped bring a smile to the face of a sick 3-year-old girl when they opened their doors early just for her.

When Adelaide Stanley turned 3 on July 1, 2019, she was diagnosed with leukemia, a rare cancer that starts in the bone marrow and affects blood cells, platelets and white blood cells, according to the American Cancer Society.

The combination of the disease and her chemotherapy treatment has dramatically affected Adelaide’s immune system, her parents, Vanlam Nguyen and Jordon Stanley, explained to Good Morning America. The family has largely kept Adelaide indoors since the diagnosis.

“A simple common cold would put her into the hospital,” Nguyen said of Adelaide, who also has two sisters, Zoë, 11, and Alice, 1. “As a parent with a kid who has leukemia, I try to keep her in a bubble.”

“We went from hugging everyone to being a germaphobe, so we don’t bring anything home to her,” she added to CNN. “We stopped doing what we do as a family.”

But during a recent trip in her father’s car, Adelaide spotted her favorite restaurant — J. Wilson’s in Beaumont — and asked if they could all get food. Stanley had to remind Adelaide that they would have to wait until she is better.

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The family at J. Wilson's | Courtesy Vanlam Nguyen
The family at J. Wilson's | Courtesy Vanlam Nguyen

“That was so hard,” Nguyen told Fox News of the moment. “He said, ‘Baby, when you’re not sick anymore, when you get better, we can go eat there.’ ”

Nguyen later told a friend about the heartbreaking moment, and, in turn, the friend reached out to the restaurant’s owner, John Wilson, to see if he’d accommodate a special request: opening up early so Adelaide and the family could enjoy a meal by themselves.

“They used to come to brunch here all the time before she was diagnosed with leukemia,” Wilson told GMA. “They had been in confinement pretty much since July.”

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The restaurant’s staff went to work, deep cleaning the establishment and decorating it in pink — Adelaide’s favorite color.

Then, on Jan. 26, J. Wilson’s opened an hour and 15 minutes early so Adelaide could have her favorite — scrambled eggs, bacon and homemade biscuits.

“Seeing her smile, just knowing we could give her a little sense of normalcy was great,” Wilson told GMA. “It’s something we all felt fulfillment from.”

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Not only that, but the restaurant also took care of the bill.

“I was ready to pay for the bill, but it was already taken care of,” Nguyen recalled to CNN. “I can’t explain how much this means to me, her dad and her sister.”

According to Fox News, doctors are hoping to declare Adelaide cancer-free by September 2021.