I know we have been saying for a while on our facebook updates that BIG changes were coming and to be ready. Everything happens in God's timing. The Grand Gourmet has been doing great and continues year by year to grow despite the economy issues. We knew that in order to continue to grow, we were going to have to make some big leaps of faith.
The first leap had to be to bring Aaron, my husband, on board full time. For 6 years I have run this company, for the most part by myself, while being a mommy and at the beginning working full-time elsewhere. While on the brink of having our 3rd child, and having 2 very active boys, we came to the realization that something had to give! We always dreamed of bringing Aaron on full-time but it's a scary thing to take away your family's secure income (even if it wasn't much). He had his last day at Waffle House November 5th!!
Probably 5 months ago we found this small warehouse for sale in downtown Jonesboro for $17K. It wasn't anything fancy and needed a lot of work but we had our hearts set on it. We tried and tried and every attempt was a failure. Somebody reminded me at one point that if we didn't get it, something better was around the corner. It was really hard to believe that...it seemed like the perfect location and the idea of owning it sounded awesome.
Well...in short, God is AMAZING!! Shortly after the disappointment of our efforts with the warehouse, we set our eyes on a little old house off of Jodeco Road that we had passed hundreds of times and never once thought about it being perfect for us...or just thought it was unattainable for us. It had been on the market for I think 2 years currently listed at $199K, which was definitely unnattainable for us. After speaking with the realtor and viewing the property, we learned that a lease was potentially an option and to make an offer if we were interested. I was extremely interested from the start. It definitely lacked in the storage area that we desperately need, but I never even thought about the possibility of having an actual venue to host events. & this little charming place would allow that! I was hooked but seriously did not for one minute think that the seller would even consider the offer that we would have to make. I thought she would laugh and we would quickly get a denial. The realtor/friend of the owner told us some about the history of the business and the guy that had run a very successful business here 3 years ago. After some tragic events happened, this place was left unnocupied and untouched basically for over 2 years now. Spices and food still remained on shelves. You could tell the end was abrupt and unplanned.
I think we offered and countered about 3-4 times with the seller via the realtor. To even be in negotiations was an amazing feeling for us. We finally got an email that the seller wanted to sit down and discuss some details with us...which meant to us that she had accepted our offer! The morning (which was this past Tuesday, November 15th) before the meeting, we decided to do a final walk-thru of the house and make sure of any last things we needed to discuss at the table. We were fairly confident at this point until the realtor told us they had been at this point 4 times in the past 2 years and none of them worked out. That brought us back down to reality and we tried to bring our excitement under control and come to the recognition that we may leave the table empty handed.
At 5PM, we met the owner with a commercial realtor and the realtor lady we had been dealing with. It was a quick meeting and a few sketchy things, but overall a very good meeting. Aaron got a phone call within minutes of us leaving from our realtor lady saying that out of all the tried negotiations in the past, she had never seen the owner this happy at the end. She loved us and all of our ideas and our passion. She wanted somebody to love this little house and have the passion that her husband had.
Today is only Friday and it's been not even 3 days from then. & we have the KEYS!!! We seriously could have never imagined this happening to us now. We have so much work to do to get this little place up and going. & as much as we hated Aaron's job at the Waffle House and couldn't wait for him to leave, it was definitely God that allowed him to have that job. Aaron has a degree in Business Management and would have never thought he would one day be a Waffle House Unit Manager. We could not have this place and do everything we need to do without all of the knowledge that Aaron attained while at Waffle House. Sometimes you don't know why God puts you through things, but you just have to have faith that He has a plan.
This is it...our new place!!!
3931 Jodeco Road
McDonough, GA 30253
Watch out because we are going to take the southside by surprise!!!
