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Save The Shanty Cafe!

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WE NEED YOUR HELP

We are reaching out to our wonderful Seattle community to help us during this difficult time. We purchased a historic building in beautiful Seattle to open El Charro at the Shanty, in honor of the building’s history.

Shockingly and sadly, we were scammed by a local contractor.

Who we are? 

We are a modest and loyal family with a strong presence in the Livermore, California community for over 15 years. Our business, El Charro Mexican Restaurant has been a local institution.  We pride ourselves in working with many local businesses and non-profit organizations over the years.  We continue to work closely with the city of Livermore to support the growing community.  Furthermore, our family has been in the restaurant business for over 40 years offering our customers an authentic food experience.

What happened? 

The Shanty Café first opened its doors in 1914. In continuing the legacy of a local eatery our family purchased the old Shanty Cafe at 350 Elliott Ave in Seattle in December 2016 to restore to a modern eatery and offer our Seattle community an authentic food experience with our family recipes.  We hired a local contractor Interstate Industries, Inc. who had a valid license and insurance bond giving us confidence in his ability to complete the project. Over the next two years, we paid the contractor a substantial sum to keep the project moving towards completion.  We began to question his progress and reasons for frequent delays.  To our dismay, Interstate Industries, Inc. abandoned the project that was still severely incomplete and not to code according to the City of Seattle.  Furthermore, he left the interior and exterior of the building completely gutted and our funds exhausted.  We have researched numerous avenues to recover our funds from Interstate Industries but sadly have been unsuccessful.

This reality has been detrimental to our family.

Where we are now?

For over a year we have been searching to find an honest contractor, acquiring legal advice, contacting the Labor Department, working with an architect and structural engineer to assess the damage to the Shanty building.  We continue to pay the mortgage and are doing our best to find solutions to restore the Shanty into an operating restaurant so we may serve our Seattle residents.  Our current total debt is $950,000 and do not have the ability to add additional debt and our combined savings to fund the Shanty building have been drained.


What we need?

Unfortunately, we cannot complete this project alone.  We need your help to complete our project and restore the Shanty. We currently do have APPROVED building permit and a health department permit and are ready to begin construction as soon as possible.

We are asking the residents and businesses of the beautiful City of Seattle for help with any monetary donation, building supplies, skilled labor to get this historic site up so we may serve the Seattle community.


*If you are able to offer services or building supplies, please contact us.*

We are grateful for any assistance the community can offer and we look forward to hearing from you if you should have further questions.  Thank you very much for taking the time to read our story and funding our dream to complete the Shanty project.

Contact us at [email redacted]

Organizer

Jose Madriz
Organizer
Seattle, WA

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