Help Rebuild a Ransacked Local Business

On June 19th, I returned from my weekend drill with the CA National Guard and found the trailer for my small business, The Second Line, had been ransacked. As a result, I lost roughly $10,000 in equipment and was left with $11,000 in debt with no way to keep selling and pay those loans. I slid from shock to indignation, to stress, to acceptance—but through all of that, the problem felt personal, and so I wanted shoulder it alone. I’m stubborn, and hate admitting when I need help, and so I wrestled with creating this GoFundMe.

 

I guess the problem hasn’t changed—but my view has.

 

Over the past week I’ve been re-examining numbers, timelines, and directions to take The Second Line. It’s been lots of spreadsheets, but yesterday I hit the brakes on re-evaluating the data and instead looked at the soul of what The Second Line has always been…

 

I’ve been selling beignets on the Central Coast for one year. It started with a bank account of $0 and grew to a following of dedicated customers who loved the fresh-to-order beignets heaped with sugar and tinged with lemon. At face value, The Second Line might seem like a beignet business. Let me set the record straight—it 100% is not.

 

Beignets are my product. So far, they’ve been my only product! But The Second Line is really in the business of creating a Second Home—for regulars and tourists alike. A celebration. A community hotspot. And because I genuinely believe that, I had to accept that the loss of The Second Line was not just a personal problem, but a community problem.

 

If we raise $21,000, we will be back where we started—prepared to hit the markets, and keep the party alive. I’d rather not stop there.

 

Markets were always Phase I. A stepping stone to test the product, get some capital, and grow the following. Now feels like the perfect time to hit Phase II.

 

If we can hit $60,00 we can move to get a brick-and-mortar and keep the beignets flowing—fresher, faster, and tastier. I want to add specialty coffee (roasted on the Central Coast), live music and weekend jazz brunches; to bring the comfort of your living room into a coffee house. A vaudevillian center of expression, free-thinking, art, and intellectual discourse.

 

The bottom line is this: A Second Line is a New Orleans jazz parade. Historically, as a funeral procession moved through the streets, more celebrators would join at the tail end. The ones putting on the show were the Main Line, but the added party-goers were affectionately called the Second Line.

 

You all are The Second Line. And as anyone in New Orleans will tell you, there's nothing without The Second Line.

 

-Main Line