HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-11-25 Euless Articles
A North Texas Barbecue Family Serves Its Last
Charity Thanksgiving Meal
For decades, the Green family kept up the tradition of serving the Euless Senior Center
for free every year, but the effort has come to a natural end.
By Daniel Vaughn
November 24, 2025
The Euless Senior Center’s Thanksgiving meal will endure, but without the Green
family’s barbecue.
Decades ago, the late Hubert Green began an annual tradition of cooking a
Thanksgiving meal for free at the Euless Senior Center. This year’s feast, on November
12, was the last served by the Green family.
Hubert founded North Main BBQ just down the street from the senior center in 1981. A
black-and-white pig statue greeted diners outside the front door, and the pitmaster
would fire up an armadillo-shaped smoker around back. Both are now gone. Hubert and
his second wife, Shari McKay Green, passed away in 2017. The business went to the
McKay side of the family, was sold twice, and eventually closed.
When Hubert died, his son Don Green had already opened his own barbecue trailer in
Euless, the Saturdays-only Green’s Texas Bar-B-Que. He took over the Thanksgiving
barbecue duties from his dad and kept them up through this month —he’s closing down
the trailer in December.
Shelli Walsh, now the supervisor at the Euless Senior Center, started working there in
2019, shortly after Don had taken over. She invited me to this year’s Thanksgiving meal,
where she and her staff hosted 287 seniors and honored the Green family for its
generosity. Most attendees each year are members of the center, and the remaining
tickets are in high demand. Although the center has been able to nearly triple the
number of meals it serves since the dinner began in the early nineties, thanks to a
larger facility completed in 2010, Walsh said there’s still a waiting list of folks looking for
a meal.
Don Green smoked turkey and ham for this year’s Thanksgiving meal.
The day of the event, Walsh arrived at the center at 5:30 in the morning to make sure
everything was in place, and she was on her fifth cup of coffee when the seniors began
lining up, at 11. She was working to admit as many on the waiting list as she could, but
there were only so many seats inside. Walsh said that for many in attendance, this
would be their only Thanksgiving meal of the season. “A lot of people don’t have kids or
their kids aren’t involved, so we do whatever we can.”
The volume of chatter rose as the ballroom filled up with eager diners. Then a hush
came over the crowd as servers made their way through the room with trays of
individually plated Thanksgiving meals. There would be no long buffet line for the
seniors to wait in. The plates were already loaded with favorites like cornbread dressing,
mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce. Don had
smoked turkey breasts and hams and added some of each to every plate. Slices of
apple, pumpkin, and pecan pie were on offer for dessert. I cleaned my plate.
One longtime Euless resident named Karen approached me as I mingled with folks
around the room. “I’m thankful to have the Euless Senior Center so close to my house,”
she said. She’s been a member for a decade, and dining with other seniors is
something she looks forward to every year. “Otherwise I would be in isolation,” she said.
“I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t have any family.”
“We have such a great family here,” Walsh said, adding that the day of the annual
gathering is always an emotional one. “I am overwhelmed. This is my most touching
event.” She pointed to a table of friends with two seats t hat hadn’t yet been filled. They
would have been taken by a couple who died earlier this year, within weeks of each
other. While most families who gather for the holidays remember loved ones who have
passed, Walsh and her staff have new losses to grieve every year.