Shanae

I want to take you back to June 5th, 2021.

I'm standing in front of this building, and as I'm staring at this building that I just painted red because I seek attention, I am looking at a $22,000 life after death DIY renovation that I had done, and at this point, I want to do a D.I.E.

I said, just kill the whole dream.

I don't know why I'm standing here doing this, but I'm getting ready to have a grand opening.

I'm getting ready to do a grand opening for a restaurant, a soul food restaurant at that, on the toughest block in Staten Island, in Stapleton, where the cars are driving by so fast, and there's only three other stores

what the hell did I just do?

As I'm standing there looking at the building with the big balloon arch over the door and I just roped every single family member that I possibly could

into taking orders from me and putting this grill on and getting the DJ ready and making sure that my tiny little soul food exclusive boutique owned by a family and owned and operated by just us was going to go well.

I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but I did honestly believe that I knew how to throw a party.

If the restaurant didn't work, I knew the grand opening would be fine because I just stuck my foot in my mouth by clicking on the button on my Facebook and inviting 4,000 people that I don't know.

I was sure that nobody was really going to attend because it was June 5th, 2021, spring into summer.

That was the pandemic.

I stood out front and I tried to get some ease about it as people started to gather around and it was like 10 people showed up and then it was 20 people showing up and then it was 40 people showing up and then it was I should have got a permit because there were 400.

This whole grand opening was a success.

And so I just knew that the 400 people that showed up for this grand opening would be my regulars that would keep my lights on.

Everybody was going to come back the next day and buy food.

And so I was excited about going into the restaurant the next day and cooking and having my kids there because these people just left and they spent time with me and saw me at this grand opening.

I had my kids sitting at the kids table and that was the table closest to the kitchen where they critiqued my recipes while we did homework.

I had no clue that this restaurant was really, I was in the belly of the beast at this point.

What should I do