Christmas came early for a restaurant worker in Denton County.
At 407 BBQ, good food is always on the menu, but behind the scenes, owner Bryan McLarty had something else cooking the past six weeks: A surprise for one of his employees.
This is the first Christmas that Lydia Calderon and her husband won't have kids living at home. They’re empty nesters whose youngest daughter just joined the Marines.
“She’s always such an upbeat person and I could tell that maybe she was a little bit down in the dumps because she didn't think her daughter was coming home for Christmas,” said McLarty.
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Little did Calderon know, her daughter, Private First Class Maylin Martinez was in on the surprise.
“I knew they wanted to see me so bad,” she said.
In a video posted to social media, Calderon thought she was being recognized for her work. McLarty thanked her and presented her with a bouquet of flowers.
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“Don’t get me wrong,” McLarty said. “She's put in a tremendous effort, but that was just more of a distraction to kind of get her mind distracted from what was fixing to happen.”
Then it happened. Martinez walked around the corner in the back the restaurant.
“It was like whenever I saw her being born,” Calderon said in Spanish.
“It was such a great feeling. It was like no other, coming home to your parents after so long of not seeing them,” said Martinez.
Martinez is scheduled to deploy to Japan early next year.
