El Matador’s bull is back after being found in trash
Ferdinand has been found.
El Matador restaurant’s mascot – a furry, 4-foot-tall, 40-pound bull statue – was returned to his home at the downtown Costa Mesa restaurant on Wednesday. He had been missing since early February.
Costa Mesa resident Amber Heinz, a 13-year-old who attends Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach, came upon the bull Tuesday night while taking trash to a bin at her Eastside apartment complex on Elden Avenue, about a mile from El Matador.
According to her mother, Chanda Heinz, Amber thought the statue was a dead animal.
“She saw the horns sticking up,” Chanda said in an interview Thursday.
But they soon realized it was Ferdinand after Chanda remembered reading in the Daily Pilot about his disappearance from El Matador.
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On Tuesday, Ferdinand was in bad shape — dirty, with a broken leg. So the Heinzes used carpet cleaner to clear up his fur and duct tape to fix his leg.
They escorted Ferdinand to El Matador on Wednesday, and Amber received the $250 reward the restaurant had advertised.
Amber and Chanda returned Ferdinand in style — he’s wearing a patriotic hat to celebrate the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
El Matador co-owners Jana and Greg McConaughy said everyone is excited to see the beloved mascot return.
The bull also was apparently stolen in 2008 but was found a few months later on the porch of a Costa Mesa home.
The McConaughy family said the restaurant now has a surveillance camera trained on the bull to help deter would-be thieves. That wasn’t the case in February.
Chanda said Amber plans to open a bank account with her $250, which figures to come in handy as summer spending money.
“She thinks she’s a millionaire right now,” Chanda said.
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Bradley Zint, bradley.zint@latimes.com
Twitter: @BradleyZint
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