A few weeks ago at one of our favorite Sunday lunch destinations, The Dreaded One and I found ourselves talking to the owner, a lovely person by the name of Jo. We first encountered Jo a couple of years ago, soon after we moved into the area and wandered by the restaurant and peered through the window. The restaurant appeared to be closed, so we kept walking. Jo had seen us peering inside and came running out onto the street.
"Come back! We're open!"
We went back. Have been going back ever since. We love this place.
Since then, we've opened our cafe, Grumpy & The Dreaded One's Little Cafe Of Awesome. Steep learning curve, lots of hard work. Just the way we like it.
On this day, we told Jo about our previous Saturday, when our Saturday helper phoned in unwell and it was just down to The Dreaded One and me to go it alone again. Naturally, we got slammed.
Jo listened to all of this. Bear in mind here that this is a good restaurant. It's whole other levels above our humble operation. But when we finished talking about what a hard day it had been, Jo said wait here, hang on a second. She disappeared and returned with her business card. She scribbled her name and personal phone number on it and said that on Saturday mornings, she's available to work and to just call her if we need help doing whatever.
I could tell, she meant it. What a gorgeous, wonderful offer. We would never take her up, of course, but that she made the offer and meant it... wow.
Then today, Jo pops into the cafe. As well as her wonderful restaurant, she supplies other restaurants with wild mushrooms. She was delivering some to the nearby legendary Cutler & Co and dropped a few off to us as a gift.
And again said that the offer to help out still stood.
Some humans are just so amazing. They make you take a good look at yourself and want to be better.