GREENFIELD, Iowa — A small restaurant in Greenfield has given back free food and ice cream to the search and rescue teams that are assisting in rebuilding the community weeks after a deadly, EF-4 tornado swept through the city of approximately 2,000 people.
The Tiger Drive-In has been serving up food and ice cream since taking over the Tasty Freeze franchise in the 1970s, and the same cool air meets customers walking through the front doors into the small restaurant.
Katie Huff, who has owned Tiger Drive-In for eight years, continues to be a welcoming presence for the "regulars" who stop by for food on a consistent basis. Her hospitality has been continuously displayed for the past three weeks by giving out sandwiches, chili dogs and ice cream to people assisting in recovery efforts in the city she calls "home."
"I just told people, don't worry about paying," Huff told Local 5 News on Thursday. "We can't offer a full menu, we can't offer everything, we're just trying to give back what little we can because we are still here."
When the news of what the restaurant was doing spread across the state, and even the country, other people started sending donations to keep the gesture going.
Checks came from as far as Washington D.C. and Colorado to help Huff and the Tiger Drive-In continue to keep their generous gesture going.
The donations allowed the Tiger Drive-In to purchase multiple days worth of lunch, and on one day they sold out of soups before they opened the restaurant because so many people learned of what they were doing, and wanted something to eat.
"They were super grateful, and we were grateful just to be able to know that we could be there for them and they were helping us," Huff said.
Huff even said her former kindergarten teacher who lives three hours away sent a check this week granting her restaurant to give out free ice cream for a couple days. Southwestern Community College loaned Huff some generators to keep electricity flowing, so the restaurant could stay open when maybe other buildings were not as fortunate, due to the expansive natural gas outage.
When the tornado ripped through the city, three employees had been working at the time, and hid inside a crammed bathroom for safety. And when the tornado approached the restaurant, employees told Huff they remembered hearing a "freight train" approach.
Luckily, the restaurant and Huff's employees escaped the tornado unscathed.
As the Tiger Drive-In finishes what they believe are their last days of giving out food and ice cream free of charge to repair crews due to fewer donation being received now, the amount of appreciation the business has received from others over the past few weeks is something Huff said will stick with her for a long time.