Dateline: 3 November 2015
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| Jimmy & Bekah in their future diner. |
My youngest son, James, and his wife, Bekah, are buying The Gathering, a small-town diner here in Moravia, New York. It will be officially theirs on January 1st of 2016. That's two months away. James & Bekah are pretty excited about it.
They don't have the money to buy a diner, but they have been given the opportunity to purchase it for a modest down payment and regular monthly payments for as many years as it will take to get it paid off. This opportunity has come by way of Bekah's parents who own the diner, and who have operated it for the past nine years.
The diner seats 80, is on the main road just outside town, and has lots of parking. The location really couldn't be any better. It's a nice little diner and has a good customer base.
I'm real pleased with this new development. A properly run small-town diner can support a family. And when a husband and wife work the business together, you have something rare and special in this day and age— a family economy.
Besides that, if you want to see a great example of community in action, stop by a busy, small town, rural diner (like The Gathering) some morning for breakfast, or at lunchtime. It's a beautiful thing.
Bekah's parents will help with the transition. Marlene and I are looking for ways that we can be a help too. I expect I'll be poking away at various small remodeling projects, and probably posting about them here on this blog. But the first thing I've done (earlier today) is set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise some money to help James and Bekah get off to a solid start with this new opportunity.
Go to Jimmy & Bekah's Diner Dream and you can read all the details. I hope that many readers of this blog will feel like helping with a donation. It doesn't have to be much. A lot of smaller donations can add up. And every one will be a big encouragement.
Thank you,
Herrick Kimball
Dear Herrick, James, and Bekah,
ReplyDeleteComing from a family whose uncles and cousins ran restaurants and pizzerias I wish you all the best and hope my modest donation helps to get you started. Next time we are heading up to RIT to see my daughter we will stop in.
Nick L
Best of luck to you. Will visit the GoFundMe link shortly, and will definitely stop in if I'm in the area.
ReplyDeleteHerrick, maybe you should consider making Planet Whizbang hard hats, too!
"And when a husband and wife work the business together, you have something rare and special in this day and age— a family economy."
ReplyDeleteYes! That sentence deserves emphasis I think. Those kind of family-run businesses are indeed special, and increasingly rare. For over 25 years my job took me away from my home and family nearly every day. Just about the only thing I contributed to our household economy was my paycheck. I finally found the courage to ditch that life and now my wife and I are business partners (running our farm) and we work together every day. It's a much better (and now family-centered) way to live.
It's great that this young couple are going to work and operate their business together. Well done. May their journey continue to lead them to success, happiness and contentment.
Nick, Jake, Bill—
ReplyDeleteThanks for your positive and encouraging comments here. I did receive an e-mail from a blog reader that was critical of this gofundme campaign. But several readers of this blog have been kind and generous with their donations, and with encouraging words for James and Bekah.
In short, the first day of the campaign has been really heartwarming.
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I'll leave this post up for the rest of this week. The weather is remarkably good for November, and is an ideal time to make more progress on resolving my "firewood crisis" (that I recently blogged about).
Thanks again!
Miss your blogging so much. Nothing to look forward to at day's end on the computer. No blog can take the place of yours.
ReplyDeleteHello Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteIt's so nice of you to pine after my blog. :-)
Thank you for that.
I'm kind of blogging, still, at the GoFundMe campaign. Yesterday I posted Update 9, titled, "I'm a Diner Toast Coward." I'm trying to post an update/story there every other day. Prior update essays can also be seen there.
In other news, my firewood crisis is just about resolved here. Such nice weather for November in the Northeast has been a blessing. And, today, I will be pulling my well pump and replacing it. We've been without water for three days. I would be blogging about that here, for sure, were I still blogging here. But this absence is only temporary.
Thanks again for the nice comment.