Save my businesses from bankruptcy.

Even just $5 helps. No amount is too small. 

This story begins on April 7th, 2015. The night before was like any other night. I had fallen asleep on the couch while my husband Dan went to sleep in the bedroom. Around 5am, Dan shot me twice in the head, murdered the cat and commited suicide. I woke up dazed and confused and discovered their bodies. I called 911 and was airlifted to the hospital and spent the next several days in intensive care recovering. I never had a clue that anything was wrong. If there were signs, he hid them from me. We were together for over 19 years.

Dan's brother and my sister came down to Arizona where I was living at the time and helped me pack everything up and get my house on the market. Dan's brother suggested that I move to Moorhead, MN because they had just moved there a few weeks prior. I didn't have anywhere else to go so I contacted movers and made that my destination.

I purchased the Mrs. Field's store at the West Acres Mall in Fargo in February 2016. It was a nice store and it performed very well. It sounded like a great job and investment because everyone loves cookies. There are literally no unhappy customers when cookies are involved. I say it performed well, but only until I bought it. One month after I purchased Mrs. Field's, the primary road to the mall (13th Avenue South) shut down for construction for 6 months. All of the businesses in the mall were severely impacted. During that shutdown and the months that followed, 12 stores in the mall were forced to close their doors.  The road is open now but with all of the store closings we have lost about 25% of our customers compared to how the store was doing before I purchased it. Mall traffic is picking up but very slowly.

In February this year, my new husband David and I met with the Small Business Development Center about starting a restaurant. We spent a month going over numbers and spreadsheets and they provided financial forecast models of the proposed restaurant. It seemed like a dream come true. On paper, opening a restaurant appeared to be the obvious choice for saving Mrs. Fields and providing an income. We signed a lease on a property in May and opened for business in July.

So that brings us to today. I moved to Moorhead expecting to rebuild my life and start over but it hasn't worked out that way. It's been the opposite really. I am nearly out of money. I have sold my car, I have sold our home, we pawned our wedding rings and I have sold the last of any valuables that Dan left behind. I have nothing left to give.

I have spent well over $100,000 of my own money in the restaurant and over $50,000 in Mrs. Field's trying to keep it afloat while the mall works to entice new stores to open. Unfortunately I am approaching the end of my rope and I fear that we will lose everything.

What this money will do:
$50,000 will allow both Mrs. Field's and IDK Restaurant to remain open and operational for several more months. I have tried banks, I have tried investors and I have tried predatory lenders. None of them want to help new restaurants. Asking for help publicly is one of the hardest things I've ever done but I still believe in IDK Restaurant. I still believe the financial forecasts the SBA produced. I still believe we will make it. Our problem is most people do not know we are here, they do not know we are open. We need more time to tell people we are here, time to do more marketing, time to cater events and capture new customers. We need the chance to become a success. Your funding will also help support the jobs of over 15 people. I am extremely grateful for any help that anyone can give.