- Odds and Ends The Last Meal Cafe

One Last Request

Imagine opening a restaurant where the menu options were based on meals that were requested for a death row inmate’s last meal. It would certainly be a hit among the more macabre of us. The public has long had a fascination with executed individuals. Their last words. Their last meals.

A Possible Menu Design

It’s Been Tried Before

It turns out, some people didn’t love the idea. In 2014, a pop-up restaurant called ‘The Penitentiary’ opened in London. For their online menu they used photos of the inmates with what they ate for their last meal written on a sign that hung around their necks. There was instant backlash.

Back in 2008, someone in Toronto opened the Last Meal Delivery Service. You couldn’t pick which inmate you got but the $20 delivery included a DVD to watch, the meal and a paper mask of the convict who selected it.

In the 1980’s after a death row inmate in South Carolina ordered a pizza for his last meal, Pizza Hut got an idea. They ran a very short lived commercial featuring an inmate actor enjoying a Pizza Hut pizza right before his death.

Texas Says No More

In 2011, State Senator John Whitmire put an end to last meal requests in Texas. It seems that convicted murderer and white supremacist , Lawrence Brewer, went a little overboard. His last meal menu included.

Two chicken-fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions.
A triple-patty bacon cheeseburger.
Cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapenos.
A bowl of fried okra with ketchup.
One pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread.
Three fajitas.
A meat-lover’s pizza.
One pint of Blue Bell Ice Cream.
Slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts.
Three root beers.

They granted Brewer his request, delivered it to him and then he said he wasn’t hungry. Whitmire absolutely lost his mind and took away the privilege for any inmates going forward.

Feed the Homeless?

On May 9th, 2007, Tennessee inmate Philip Ray Workman was executed. His last meal request? A vegetarian pizza, but not for him. Workman wanted a vegetarian pizza delivered to a homeless person. The prison system denied his request but after word got out, homeless shelters across Tennessee began receiving pizzas.