Hello Hutchinson

When this all first started with a random phone call in October of 2020, everything seemed like a distant impossibility. You see, for the majority of my life, I had failed at everything I had tried. More accurately, I rarely tried to do anything of accomplishment. For most of my adult life, I battled alcoholism, addiction, and all of the damage that is the result of doing so. I started early on in my teens, and it just kept getting worse because I loved the feeling of not feeling, and the chemicals that made me who I thought I wanted to be. Five years, seven months, and eight days ago I was released from a minimum-security prison treatment program with the shirt on my back and a few measly dollars to start life over, again. Today, my wife and I are signing the papers that make us owners of a restaurant.

I haven’t touched a drop or a dime since I was sentenced, and life keeps handing me lemonade. This isn’t for naught; I have earned my life only through serious dedication to a life in a 12-step program, honesty, commitment to family, and a whole lot of work on my morals. Since my release I have found the woman I will love forever, purchased a house with her, co-authored and published a book, became a step-father, made a baby, bought a sweet minivan to escort said family, and otherwise constantly pushed myself to be a better person. I have had failures, and I have learned from them. I am not perfect. But I push. I constantly want a better life for us, so I push myself to do more; to be more.

The road to being a business owner has been full of obstacles, but at each and every step, I/We have conquered and moved forward. We do not have perfect credit, I have a lengthy criminal past… Wow, just writing that makes me wonder why I was so afraid of failure in the first place. It says it right there: criminal PAST.

I know what we see in the media today is a blanket of what we should fear, and what we should think of people who make mistakes. But I saw proof recently that inspired me to be comfortable with who I am now, and what I was back then. We were tasked with coming up with a certain amount of cash to contribute to this project-to put some skin in the game, as it were. So, we went through Kiva.org to raise part of it, and I put myself out there, and we waited. The people of Hutchinson responded quickly and we raised the last $5,000 in under 48-hours. These are people who don’t know me, although there were some familiar names involved. They believed in our story, our dream, and what we want to bring to the city.

What I realized is that I am the only one that was hung up on my past. And I had a thought that people actually allow for the criminal justice system to work. You so rarely see that sometimes people do great things after prison, and there are some incredibly amazing, and unfortunately tragic stories about people that go through the system and we seem to see only the failures. And this is why I am writing this post. I want to be an open book, and I want to talk with people that want to learn from my mistakes, and I want people to see the good that can come from somebody that once had no hope.

But, most importantly, I want my wife and I to show you what we can do. Both of us have been working in the foodservice industry for the majority of our careers, and we want that to be what truly shines through, and what is the real triumph over tragedy. We were inspired by you-the people of Hutchinson-when the article in the paper was published, and how you reacted. Again, I am the only one who had doubts, and I will continue to work on that aspect of myself.

In a few short hours, before this is even published, we will start our new chapter, possibly even a new book (figuratively.) We move forward as a family, and we only look back to see where we can improve. Our lives and our doors will be open for all of you, even before we open. We implore you to stop in when the lights are on to see what we are creating for you, and to share in our dream. We have a lot of work to do between now and early June, but we will always make time for you.

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you in life, and give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude”.-

Ralph Waldo Emerson