FERGUSON, Mo. — There's a painted road that runs through Cathy's Kitchen in Ferguson, but if it symbolized the last five years, there would be a lot more twists and turns.
"I’m used to setbacks," said Cathy Jenkins, the owner. "Life always has a way of throwing you a screwball."
Last Wednesday, a power surge took out the electricity and multiple expensive appliances along with it.
"The fan over my hood, it blew that out. My prep table, totally dead, and I had to send everyone home," Jenkins said.
Then, just 24 hours later, thieves broke into her store and made off with her computer sales system along with the cash inside.
"It devastates you when it happens. I almost couldn’t think clearly," she said.
Devastated, but not discouraged.
"There were times we didn’t think we were going to make it through, you know, it was like breathing through a straw underwater and it is finally starting to feel good and come up and take a real breath," Jenkins said.
Cathy has been dealing with potholes and roadblocks almost from the beginning.
Not long after she opened, she had a front-row seat to the unrest in Ferguson.
"They threw my patio table through the front window there, and that was literally the only thing damaged," she said.
Her store was spared while many other businesses burned, yet the real damage of the demonstrations came months and years later.
"People didn’t want to come because they thought it was dangerous, they thought it was this, they thought it was that," Jenkins said.
Through it all, she stuck to what she's good at, incredible food and unfaltering optimism.
"They say they make you better and they make you stronger, it is really true," she said.
As far as Cathy's concerned, the road in her restaurant will always begin and end in Ferguson.
"I always say, anybody can lay down and die, you’ve got to get up and fight," Jenkins said.
She credits a lot of her longevity in Ferguson to great people in the community. She says, overnight, when she was notified of the break-in, Meyer's Construction came over at 2 a.m. to cover her door so she could stay open.
They've done the same thing, making temporary fixes inside the kitchen, until she gets a check from the insurance company to replace some of the damaged appliances.