By Joseph Baroud, Reporter
The owner and head chef at My Father’s BBQ teamed up with Carson councilmembers to distribute more than 300 meals outside of their restaurant on a bright and sunny May 14. The restaurant also partnered with Meals on Wheels and provided them 135 meals to deliver to senior citizens all over Carson.
The owner Marvin Hardley and his sister, Chef Shalamar Lane, are long-time acquaintances of councilman Jawane Hilton and being a part of the Carson community, they were able to see how much assistance a food drive would be during these pressing times. They spoke to Hilton about it and, as it turned out today, they received the expected response from the community in the form of cars wrapped around the entire complex awaiting the scheduled giveaway of a homestyle bbq meal for the family.
“Jawane Hilton is a longtime friend of mine and My Father’s BBQ,” Chef Lane said. “I called Jawane and said, hey, we’re going to do this giveaway and he was delighted to partner with us. Donesia Gause, our city clerk, wanted to do anything we needed and then Monica Cooper, our city treasurer, also wanted to help. So, together, we put this together.”
The giveaway was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. with a line of cars extending from the back of the store, wrapped around the parking lot and out to University Drive. For an hour, Councilman Hilton, Chef Lane, Hardley and volunteers which included the store’s furloughed employees and the city got to work handing out food by 10:30 a.m. and didn’t stop until 11:30 a.m..
The process was quick and efficient. Each vehicle was asked to roll down their passenger window and drive up to one of three people placing the bags in the vehicles. As the cars stopped, the person distributing the bags would greet them and place the bag on the passenger seat or give it to the passenger if one was present. You could hear the “thank you’s” and “God bless you” from every vehicle as they drove away with a smile on their face and a great meal in their hands.
“We have been closed for three months now,” chef Lane said. “So we reached out to our employees, we let them know that we were going to do a giveaway to help the community. They were delighted. They actually began calling us and saying, look, we just want to come out and volunteer. The other volunteers you’re seeing are people from the community. All of these people saw the flier and we didn’t reach out to them, they reached out to us.”
The restaurant reopened on May 15. Their doors will be open Wednesday through Sunday between the hours of 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.. Due to the national shortages of meats though, Chef Lane wouldn’t be surprised if on many days they close a lot earlier due to selling out of meat. She and Hardley said they would like to rehire all of their employees, but know that due to long layoff time that could be difficult.
“We’ll probably lose some,” Hardley said about his employees returning to work. “They’ve been out of work for a while, so they’ve had hard times. Some of them have tried to go on unemployment. Some of them had to get other jobs in other areas. But we’re offering the jobs back to everyone.”
Even though restrictions are starting to ease a bit and things might seem to be looking somewhat close to normal, that reality might not ever return for many small business owners who have struggled mightily, or have failed, to keep their businesses afloat. Marvin and his sister know that the community is each other’s life line and contributions by all in some form is the only way they’ll return to a sense of normalcy.
“This COVID19 has thrown everything in a whirlwind,” Hardley said. “Restaurant businesses have been going out of business left and right, so we’re going to be struggling just like everybody else. We really hope to get the community’s support so we can stay in business and continue to provide our service and excellent quality food for everybody.”