TFB reopens in the garden
Dear Friends,
This past week marked a milestone for TFB as we reopened for business in our newly restaged garden space from a 1971 Airstream trailer generously loaned to us by Aaron and Stacy Franklin. Despite this wet chilly weather, we are overjoyed to be back. This being a moment of some gravity for us, and I’d like to point to two essential inflection points from this past year that made this moment possible, and encouraged us to reopen rather than giving up in the wake of the fire that torched our beautiful 100 year old building back in January.
The first of these occurred in the immediate aftermath of the fire when our friend Ilana put up a GoFundMe page which proceeded to bring in over $200,000 in just over a month. As February rolled on, we watched as money continued to pour into the account day after day. We were dumbfounded. The building that had housed TFB for 40 years was a smoking ruin. We had no idea what we were supposed to do next. And we had been feeling like we were on our own. Instead, our community showed up for us, showering love on TFB to a degree we could scarcely have imagined, and validating everything we had tried for years to stand for. We were, and continue to be, humbled by your generosity. It got us through the hardest part, reassuring us when we needed it most.
The second of these inflection points occurred in mid-April when Aaron and Stacy Franklin invited us to lunch at Franklin BBQ. Ostensibly, the purpose of this lunch was to compare notes regarding the fire Franklin BBQ had endured a few years prior, and to see if anything in their experience might prove helpful for us in thinking about how best to move forward. But in truth, in the days before our scheduled lunch, we had made the tough decision to close TFB and lay off our remaining staff. After consulting with our financial and legal folks, and taking a sober look at our finances, liquidation seemed the only sensible choice.
Still, Carissa and I were excited to eat at Franklin BBQ, particularly as guests of the owners. The appointed day arrived warm and hazy and we pedaled our bikes down there, cutting through the capital grounds and across on 11th street. Per the Franklin’s instructions, we met up at an old picnic table, hidden in a nook adjacent to an Airstream they use as an office, parked under the branches of the tall trees behind the restaurant. Drinks emerged from a nearby cooler and a large platter of smoked meats, potato salad, coleslaw, pickles and so forth appeared just as we sat down with Aaron and Stacy.
Our lunch was delightful, but we soon realized we would walk away with something we had not expected and it wasn't simply the use of a trailer. Rather, somehow as Aaron and Stacy related the story of their own fire experience, and Aaron told me a little bit of the founding story of Franklin's before moving on to an in-depth critique of that day's brisket punctuated by side stories of his real first love (playing in a punk band in Austin in the 1990s), Carissa and I found ourselves carried away by a strange and uplifting feeling that everything was going to be just fine. The lightness of Aaron's spirit is like sitting around a warm fire. His joy in the work and fascination with the details of slow cooked meat are infectious. And Stacy's love for and wry amusement with her husband's unbridled enthusiasm seemed to undergird and magnify the positive energy at the table that day.
As we laughed and shared stories, my dry, common sense, financial bottom line reasoning - the kind that advised me to close Texas French Bread permanently and get out while the getting was good seemed, well - silly. Worse, ungrateful. I mean - what else did I have planned this year, anyway? So what if this project looked difficult? Weren’t most things worth doing difficult? As I listened to Aaron talk, something in me shifted. All I wanted in that moment was to align with the crazy spirit magic at that table - to lighten everything up - to move off of the idea of always doing the financially sensible thing. At some point in our meal, the Franklins suggested we simply borrow the Airstream food trailer they had parked at their warehouse. It was fully decked out, currently licensed, and ready to go and somehow in the context of our conversation, this felt like a totally normal, ordinary offer to make, rather than the extraordinary, outsized act of generosity and trust that it actually was.
My point is, as huge as their substantial offer of support was, Aaron and Stacy put something even grander on the table by showing me and Carissa a fresh vision of how we might have fun and work from a place of lightheartedness and dare I say it, joy.
And by the time we pedaled back home, I had changed my mind about closing the business. It no longer felt crazy to be optimistic and hopeful despite the losses the businesses had sustained. Somehow, someway, the Franklins gave me permission to lighten up - to stop worrying so much about outcomes and having everything figured out. The rest you already know. We leased a commissary space. We put in an offer to buy back our garden space. And we set about figuring out how to reopen TFB.
So I’m as pleased as I can be to say that we’ll be baking a full slate of baked goods for the holidays again this year. Place your order before noon tomorrow and we'll have your pies, tea breads, rolls, and pastries available for pick up in the TFB garden on Wednesday. Can't wait to see you all.
Happy Thanksgiving,
murph