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As customers devoured burgers, employees buzzed around filling glasses and clearing tables. The gentle roar of the customers’ voices and the clanking of dishes subsided just a few times this weekend, giving Mrozek a chance to think about the pair of tragedies in her life over the past two years and how things have worked out.
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Shawn Mrozek, left, owner of Shawnee’s Bar & Grill in Rushford, Minn., waits on customers, Nathan Peterson, right, and Dave Clobes on Sunday. Shawnee’s opened last Tuesday at the former site of Rushford Bakery, which was owned and operated by Shawn and her husband, Scott. (Photo by Paul Solberg/Winona Daily News)
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“It feels great, being my own boss again,” she said. “It’s been incredible.”
Shawnee’s opened Oct. 28 at the site of the former Rushford Bakery, which was owned and operated by Shawn and her husband, Scott. The restaurant fills a need in Rushford, the owner says, but it also represents a fresh start for Shawn and her children in a town that tragedy almost drove them from.
Shawn and Scott moved to Rushford when they purchased the bakery 12 years ago. It was a natural fit: Scott was a baker, and Shawn had bookkeeping and management experience. Both wanted to own their own business.
That dream came to an abrupt end in September 2006, when Scott passed away after a short battle with lung cancer. Shawn lost her baker and her partner.
She soon put the bakery up for sale. The business where the couple worked side by side, day after day, just brought back too many painful memories.
“It was three months before I could even walk through those doors,” Shawn said.
Shawn planned to sell the bakery, pay off her home just outside of Rushford and consider moving elsewhere with her two sons, now 13 and 15 years old. Maybe she would go back to school to become an accountant or cosmetologist, she said.
The bakery was still on the market when the flood hit Rushford in August 2007. Floodwaters wreaked more than $100,000 in damage and left Shawn reeling.
“I was just trying to figure out, ‘What am I going to do now?’” she said.
In the weeks after the flooding, as family and friends helped Shawn clean up the destruction, one of her friends floated the idea of starting a bar and grill at the site. The idea struck home with Shawn, but she needed to get her sons’ opinion about staying in a town that was the site of so much tragedy.
“Was it time to leave Rushford behind?” she asked.
The boys said, “No,” and Shawn moved toward making Shawnee’s a reality.
The restaurant served more than 250 people on both Friday and Saturday, Shawn estimates, and most were Rushford residents. As word spreads about Shawnee’s special sauces and the burgers being served with a side of nachos and cheese, she hopes to draw from beyond city limits.
“It’s like anything in life, you just have to keep fighting,” Shawn said.
Dustin Kass may be reached at (507) 453-3513 or dustin.kass@lee.net.
grim reaper wrote on Nov 4, 2008 12:14 PM: