Restoring Blackowned Ware Ranch Steak House

Hello, my name is Judy, my husband and I are the proud owners of Ware Ranch Steak House , located in the heart of the Roseland community in Chicago's south side. The restaurant has been in business since 1969, and has been a staple in the community and it has served as a go to place to celebrate and create fond memories of hundreds of families over the years. The restaurant was owned by a Greek family and we bought the restaurant in September of 2018.   When we bought the restaurant, our community was excited that this was going to be a Black-owned restaurant and continue to serve our community as a place to enjoy great food and create memories for countless special occasions.  We spent our years of savings to renovate the restaurant and  re-open it for business in November 11 of 2018.  Unfortunately, we have had a number of setbacks along the way, which has caused things not to run so smoothly. The city closed off the streets when the Gately People  building caught on fire. Shortly after, construction began to fix the streets along Michigan, causing limited access to the Ranch  at times. We closed on March 20 following the State's guidelines of a quarantine lock down and until just recently we open back up following reopening guidelines. Our restaurant was vandalized on June 8th,  a fire was started upstairs and smoke caused a lot of damage. We really need to make  repairs to our entire restaurant. Your donation will help replace what was  damaged by the fire. We will like to fix the damage that has been done as soon as possible so that we can continue to serve the Roseland community and whoever else  would like to eat there. The restaurant is the only sit down restaurant in the community. It has history, it holds a lot of memories for the community, even those that have moved to other communities often come back to eat at the Ranch, as it is locally known, to relived those memories and create new ones with their children. We have lived in Roseland for over 22 years also  within walking distance  of the  restaurant. We understand that 'The Ranch' is bigger than us, the legacy it has is something special that we love and value.  A legacy we would never want to see tarnished.