Support Grandma's Kitchen: Help Us Recover From the Flood

December 10, 2024 Update:

We'd like to THANK everyone who made a donation to our Go Fund Me! Your donations helped Grandma's Kitchen to make it a little bit longer! Unfortunately though, the business' need for continual financial investment since the flood that destroyed our Montour Falls location is far greater than the income we receive doing the business and so Grandma's Kitchen will be closing on December 15, 2024.

At this time, we do not know what the future holds for Grandma's Kitchen. The business is currently over $50,000 in debt and this needs to be addressed before any future plans can be made for the business. We will be selling our house to pay the debt and going from there.

Thank you again for your support, whether you donated to this Go Fund Me, attended an event, or stopped in at the cafe! We love you and appreciate your support of our dream!

Casey, Mike, Noel, and Emry

Original Post:

Hi friends of Grandma’s Kitchen!

You know those videos you’ve seen of the small business owners who do a happy dance every time they make a sale? Well, those videos are very real! With a business as small as ours, those sales-related happy dances happen because each sale is oh so important. We have no other backers or supporters behind us other than you - the people who have come to know and appreciate the experience we are trying to create at Grandma’s Kitchen!

We bootstrapped all investments for our Montour Falls location including investing all of our personal savings, Casey's retirement savings, all of our credit card availability, and personal loans - everything that we had. That location was destroyed in February of this year by a flood caused by a second floor dishwasher. The insurance payout was only enough to catch up the bills we had fallen behind on while we were not able to do our business, provide refunds to everyone who had purchased tickets for upcoming events, and then relocate our business to our new location. Unfortunately, nearly all of the monthly expenses associated with the Montour Falls location continue today and then there are the added expenses of the new location. This is on top of the fact that our Montour Falls location is now in desperate need of extensive work.

This is (nearly) our third calendar year in operation and because of that, we know many of the patterns that come along with our business. We knew that August and September would be hard months, but the end of August and September so far have turned out to be even more challenging than expected with extremely slow Drop-In numbers, events needing to be canceled, and other events selling minimal tickets. When comparing our sales for the first two weeks of August to the first two weeks of September, our sales have dropped off by 57%. We also know that our most challenging months of January and February are right ahead of us, but we also know that October, November, and December have traditionally been our best months - so that gives us hope!

Operating a small business has its challenges. It is a tremendous amount of work and a large investment of love, energy, and resources. Operating a small vegan business has its own challenges. On a daily basis, we hear people in the food court outside of our cafe subtly and not so subtly saying that they would never eat at a vegan restaurant. When many small businesses are struggling as people have less discretionary income to spend on enjoyment, your friendly neighborhood vegan establishments are especially struggling. Estimates have the percentage of the American population that is vegan at only 4% and the amount that is vegetarian as 5-8%. In addition to vegans and vegetarians, we have found that our food appeals to adventurous eaters who have come to love our themed five and six course dinners and individuals with egg, peanut, and dairy allergies since we never use those products in our kitchen. Still, this leaves many people in our community who are not yet ready to try a fully vegan meal.

We know that many people will say that we should quit trying and “just get real jobs instead.” We of course understand that this is the path that we will need to take if Grandma’s Kitchen is not able to make it, but we are not ready to go in that direction yet. We LOVE working as a family and getting all of our quirky ideas into existence. It makes us terribly sad to think of this light we are trying to bring into the world going out for good.

In the past 3 seasons, we worked other jobs to fund Grandma’s Kitchen, but we made the decision for this season to see if Grandma’s can support our family. Our current offerings require more than full time hours, roughly 70 hours per week each for Mike and Casey, so it is challenging to have other jobs on top of it.

So how can you, the friends of Grandma’s Kitchen, help us?

BRING A FRIEND

We really need to extend our circle of friends of Grandma’s Kitchen. If you have a friend whom you think might love Grandma’s Kitchen, please help us spread the word! One of our supporters brought one of her friends to an event and that friend has since become one of our biggest supporters, now bringing her own friends to events! When a business is as tiny as ours, absolutely every supporter makes a tremendous difference.

ATTEND AN EVENT

We LOVE planning events and seeing our ideas come to life. We love the enjoyment many people get from our uniquely themed, delicious, home cooked five and six course dinners! Upcoming events include: Murder Mystery Five Course Dinner, Oktoberfest, Eat Like a Bird: A Six Course Dinner Benefitting Wildkind Care Wildlife Rehabilitation, Pumpkinpalooza, Junior Chef Day Camp, Spooky Halloween Five Course Dinner, Garlicpalooza, Emry’s TikTok Trend Six Course Dinner, Drag Brunch, Around the World: A Five Course Dinner Benefitting World Central Kitchen, Doll & Me Tea Party, Thanksgiving Dinner, Ugly Sweater Twelve Course Dinner, and Celebrate the Season featuring a Six Course Dinner and Live Holiday Music. The dates and menus for each of these events are available on our website at www.grandmaskitchenarnotmall.com/events . We hope that you will join us! Our events are generally on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Use discount code HELP to save 10% on all event tickets purchased through September 30th.

COME TO DROP-IN

Our Drop-In hours offer a seasonal menu. Our fall menu features chili, a line of baked potatoes, a line of Impossible hot dogs, a seasonal soup, shepherd’s pie, an array of scratch-made bakery items, and more! Menu selections always feature local veggies from farms in our area. DoorDash ordering is available for delivery during this time. Local beer and wine is also available.

PURCHASE A GIFT CARD

We offer digital gift cards online and physical gift cards in our cafe. Please consider giving the gift of Grandma’s for any special occasion! Right now, we are offering 20% off all eGift Card purchases. This discount will be applied automatically. If interested, please visit https://www.grandmaskitchenarnotmall.com/gifts .

DONATE TO THE KINDNESS WALL

Our Kindness Wall is a great way to help Grandma’s Kitchen while helping the local community as well. When a Kindness Wall donation is made, a notecard is added to the Wall with the amount or item donated. Others are then able to select one of those cards from the Kindness Wall and redeem it for a bakery item, beverage, or whole meal to enjoy for free. If interested in donating, please visit https://www.grandmaskitchenarnotmall.com/kindnesswall .

ASK US ABOUT CATERING OR HOLDING A PRIVATE EVENT

Grandma’s Kitchen is available to cater your next special event. We are also available to host private special events at our location. If you’re interested, please check out our Formal Event Catering Menu, our Casual Event Catering Menu, and our Private Event Menu at https://www.grandmaskitchenarnotmall.com/catering .

RESERVE A HOLIDAY PIE OR COOKIES

The holidays are nearing and we have Thanksgiving pies and Christmas cookies available by pre-order. If you’re interested, please visit https://www.grandmaskitchenarnotmall.com/holidays .

DONATE TO OUR GO FUND ME

Thank you for visiting our Go Fund Me page! We appreciate you checking us out! The amount of money we truly need to get out of the mess caused by the devastation to our Montour Falls location is many tens of thousands of dollars, but literally every dollar helps us make it another day. Any amount would be very much appreciated. $8,000, which is the goal we set for this campaign, would help us pay a number of large bills that will be due in the near future related to the cafe.

THANK YOU

Thank you for reading! Thank you for considering offering your support to our small business. It means so much to our family.

MORE ABOUT GRANDMA’S KITCHEN

In case you’re just learning about Grandma’s Kitchen, the cafe, bakery, and special event space is owned and operated by Mike and Casey Easterling along with our two kids, Noel and Emry. We opened in Montour Falls, New York in October 2021 and rsuffered a devastating flood in February 2024. We opened at our new location in May 2024.

Our concept is inspired by Casey's two Grandmas, Leila Jenkins and Marge Kellar. Casey grew up cooking with her grandmas and loves and misses them dearly. Casey and Mike wanted to honor these wonderful women by creating a cafe that serves plant-based/veganized versions of their favorite recipes along with other family favorites. Grandma’s Kitchen can be found on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads under grandmaskitchenmontourfalls. Our website is www.grandmaskitchenarnotmall.com.

Grandma's Kitchen is community focused. There is a Kindness Wall in the cafe where guests are invited to purchase any menu item, add it to the wall with a kind message, and then anyone else can come and take the offering from the wall and enjoy their selection for free! Grandma's Kitchen hosts free community events including a compassion-themed book reading series for kids and Cookies, Carols, and Lights, an event featuring Christmas caroling, a selection of Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, and hot cider. Grandma's Kitchen hosts a series of benefit dinners with the hopes of raising funds for nonprofits in our area. Grandma’s Kitchen composts all food scraps and uses compostable to-go containers as well as reusables for in-person dining in order to minimize our impact on our environment. Grandma’s Kitchen purchases fresh produce from our local farms. Grandma’s Kitchen strives to be a welcoming and inclusive space for all to gather for a meal that “tastes like Grandma’s, only vegan!”