01/17/2023
As most of you have heard I have closed up shop. It was a very hard and painful decision but I didn’t have much choice. A lot has happened in the world and in my world the past few years and I just couldn’t hold on. My son, Dustyn, was murdered in 2019, Covid hit in 2020 and I tried to hang on. We were doing okay. Scraping by but surviving. I had a baby and my sons trial was coming up so I decided to put the restaurant up for sale, it was time. It was profitable at the time and so I had a good feeling. I was approached by several buyers but one in particular was the one that seemed like the best fit. Brett Willard of Arista Catering. In June we had agreed upon a price and started the process. He wanted to take over right away and I was okay with that. He had to wait for his licenses to be approved so we signed a management contract where I would step away and his team would come in and run it and make all the decisions but still had to operate under my license. I was again okay with that. He seemed creditable. The first thing he did was send in his team, they were a joke! They raised payroll by 40% while dropping revenue by 10%. Came in giving raises like it was the Oprah Winfrey show. Yay for the staff but that made me so worried. We were just scraping by and with that drastic of a move I didn’t know how it would work. I expressed my concerns and I was told not to worry that Brett would take care of it, they even told me he would be paying the rent. Spoiler, he never paid the rent, 5 months. The deal was supposed to take 6 weeks, I could hang on for 6 weeks. Well there was always something that happened that made it go longer and longer. An issue with paperwork, liquor board needing more pictures, always something. In the mean time I was trying to make sure payroll was covered but fell behind on taxes. Again, I was told that Brett would take care of it all. Come November when nothing was resolved or finalized I finally hired a lawyer. Brett always told me not to waste my money on a lawyer and if I had any questions to let him know and he’s run them by his. Well I couldn’t sustain the restaurant anymore and was getting very scared. I used every penny I had and now had this huge tax debt looming over me. When I hired a lawyer Brett backed out. He no longer was interested in buying the restaurant. I was in shock. I just gave the very last of my money to a lawyer for Brett to turn around and back out. At this point I just wanted to be at the same spot I was before this mess, no debt. My lawyer told me it would cost me tens of thousands of dollars to sue Brett and I don’t have money like that. Brett has very deep pockets. Because of this I had to close down. I didn’t have any other option. Now I have no idea what’s going to happen. My sons trial starts in January 27th and I have to have everything cleared out and cleaned out by February 3rd. This man has ruined my life. I am so incredibly in debt now, it makes me sick to think about. Sorry for the rant but I wanted to get my story out. I am so very saddened by what’s happened. I put everything into building this place. So much sacrifice, love, passion, tears, money, time just to have this man come in and do what he did. I am going to miss you all and I want to thank you all for your support and loyalty. Please keep us in your thoughts next month during my son’s trial. I don’t know what the future holds but I learned a huge lesson here. ❤️❤️❤️