PETA’s ‘Hell on Wheels’ Targets Downtown Evansville Restaurant

PETA plans to bring "Hell on Wheels" to one Downtown Evansville restaurant. Here's what we know.

Who Is PETA and What Do They Stand For?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an animal rights organization that boasts its work in "animal liberation," with over 9 million members and supporters around the world.

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in laboratories, the food industry, the clothing trade, and the entertainment business.

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Why Evansville? Why Now?

In a press release, PETA shares its plans to target an Evansville-area small business. The organization says it will be bringing "Hell on Wheels" to "bombard" the restaurant and its patrons with recorded sounds of bird cries, in addition to subliminal messaging to "go vegan."

“Behind every chicken sandwich is a once-living, sensitive individual who was crammed onto a truck for a terrifying, miserable journey to their death,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ‘Hell on Wheels’ truck is an appeal to anyone who eats chicken or eggs to remember that these industries are cruel to birds and hazardous to human health and that the only kind meal is a vegan one.”

Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash

Health and Disease Concerns from Chicken Farming

PETA claims that chicken farming creates "hotspots for potentially deadly zoonotic diseases," and points to the spread of Avian Influenza for the deaths of 32 million chickens in 2025.

Where and When It’s Happening

To raise awareness for its cause, PETA says the "life-size, hyperrealistic chicken transport truck" that is plastered with imagery of crated chickens will be set up outside of Comfort by the Cross-Eyed Cricket, located at 230 Main Street in Evansville, beginning at 5 pm CST on Monday, April 21, 2025.