North Bend businesses have a lot riding on that lost zebra

The renegade zebra on the lam has brought international attention to the tiny town of North Bend, Washington.

Now, local business owners are wondering if they can get a piece of the action.

It all depends on the zebra's fate.

O

n the main drag through North Bend, there’s a little Mexican restaurant. Rodrigo Lira, owner of Rio Bravo, says the restaurant is now offering a “zebra special.”

”We make it with carne asada, which...the burrito is smothered with sauce and cheese – and we put sour cream on top, so it kind of makes it look like the stripes on the zebra. So that is the zebra special,” Lira says.

“And what are you hoping will come from that?” I ask.

"Hopefully business!”

Lira is not the only one hoping to sell zebra-themed stuff.

Down at a gift store called Birches Habitat, owner Alyssa Sprague plans to make a custom set of coasters.

“But that being said, I don’t want to say what the coaster’s gonna look like,” she says.

“Okay, so, it’s at least gonna have a zebra on it?” I ask.

“Correct…it probably will say North Bend on it too.”

There won’t be a Sasquatch on the coasters, however, in spite of the memes depicting the mythological beast riding a zebra.

Sprague describes her zebra coaster design, but swears me to secrecy so that no one can steal her idea. She’d better act fast if she wants to be first to market, though.

Just across the street, local painter Greg Cooper was filling in at a coffee shop called Hartwood, when he got some good news.

”I just got commissioned by Hartwood here to do a portrait of the zebra,” he says.

His zebra will stand in front of a space-themed background, since North Bend is so weird, he adds.

But there’s a tension here that’s preventing many businesses from going all in.

Down at the South Fork restaurant, owner Luke Talbott went ahead and bought some zebra figurines for a sandbox that kids at the restaurant can play in. But he’s holding off on a buying an expensive carousel zebra from a seller in Spokane.

“We’re waiting to be honest with you,” Talbott says. “I need a positive resolution with the zebra. I want to make sure he gets home, or gets found…in a positive way, before investing, like, too much into it, in case something negative happens, right?”

The same sentiment is shared down at Dark Horse Ink, which prints custom T-shirts in North Bend.

Anna Martinez does a little design work there. Several people have stopped by and said, “You could own this,” she says.

What kind of design do you think would be great for a t-shirt?” I ask Martinez.

“I think the first thing that comes to mind is like, a wanted poster for the zebra. That might be basic, but I do think it would be funny,” she says.

But it would take the shop about a week to produce a shirt.

“So, it’d be unfortunate if while we were producing something, that something bad happened to the zebra. And then we would have to change the design idea. It would either be, like, 'Yay, we found it' – or 'We hope the zebra gets rescued' – or 'RIP the zebra!'”

Let’s hope for the sake of North Bend businesses – and the zebra – that it all turns out okay.

Joshua McNichols is co-host of KUOW's economy podcast, Booming. He does not usually cover escaped zebras.

Update 5/3/2024 3:20 PM: Corrected spelling of Rodrigo Lira's name.