Corey Judd's story of a broken window, and broken dreams, appeared in Monday's sa国际传媒 -- a sad tale of how his week-old restaurant, opened on a shoestring budget, had been jeopardized by an act of mindless vandalism. Someone had broken Cabin 12's plate glass window and Judd didn't have the $1,000 to front the repairs.
Judd, determined to keep going, opened the Pandora Avenue eatery as usual Monday at 8 a.m.
The first call came at 8:02. I want to make a donation -- I want to help fix your window, the caller said. Judd was stunned.
As soon as he put down the phone, it rang again. This caller was disabled, and wanted to know if Judd could pick up a donation.
And on it went, all day long, readers calling up or walking through the door. Maybe 30 or 40 people came in, handing over $20, $30, $40 at a time. The company that installed Cabin 12's locks wrote a letter, thanked Judd for choosing them and paying cash on the barrelhead -- and included a cheque equal to the price he had paid.
At one point, a large man filled the doorway and introduced himself as a bouncer with his own security company. I know what it's like to start from scratch, he said. Here's a thousand bucks.
"I'm at a loss for words," Judd said yesterday, sitting at one of the restaurant's tables. "I've never been a part of or seen anything like this." The money is up to maybe $3,500 now and keeps trickling in. Judd says he doesn't want to take advantage of people and is turning them away. "I've probably turned down about $1,200 or $1,300." Some tell him to keep the money, to give the business a bit of an operating buffer. Some tell him to help his 15 employees, many of whom were drawn from life's margins, and many of whom poured sweat equity into what Judd vows will be a nurturing, respectful workspace. Surplus donations are being diverted to the restaurant's supplier, North Douglas Sysco, whose Kick One In program benefits the Mustard Seed food bank.
"It says volumes about the community," says Judd, who looks a tad dazed by it all. He hasn't slept in a few days, kept up by a combination of workload -- the lighting and plumbing need tweaking -- and adrenaline. The staff have been shot through with energy by Cabin 12's near-death experience and miraculous salvation. "There's a feeling in here of 'how can we fail?'" Failure looked like a distinct possibility when that young man, for reasons unknown, punched out the restaurant's window and disappeared into the night. A broken window might not sound like much, but in this case it looked to be enough to push the brand-new business over the edge. Golfer Lee Trevino defined pressure as playing for $10 when you don't have a dime in your pocket; think in those terms.
Judd himself figured he was close to the precipice after his old restaurant job disappeared in March. So he used a Facebook group to scrape together $10,000 from family and friends, then depended on donated elbow grease to open Cabin 12 as a breakfast-and-lunch eatery in the 600 block of Pandora on April 10. Then came the broken window.
Then came the outpouring of support, dozens of good-hearted strangers countering the damage done by a single wanton act. Judd has written a bunch of donors' names on a white board in the back, but says he's at a loss when it comes to figuring out how to thank them.
"You're looking at someone who built something out of nothing in a month and a half and almost saw it disappear," Judd says. "A month and a half ago I was facing the street, and now my dream has come true."
