Golden Cafe Becomes Place Of Healing For Community
GOLDEN, Colo (CBS4) – In Golden, there is a tiny cafe with a big mission. Chris and John Ross own the restaurant, but it's the community that has taken over the décor in a celebration of life.
JC's Café features home-style cooking for breakfast and lunch every day of the week.
"We are a family run restaurant," said Chris Ross.
And they run the restaurant like a family. It's the kind of place where everybody knows your name. Even the décor is homemade, walls covered with the names and sentiments of people who've passed through.
"There's stories, upon stories, upon stories, upon stories," Ross told CBS4.
Like the story of the Domino's Pizza driver who was killed while on duty. Nathan Leon's wife left a prayer in his honor. Then there's the longtime customer named Rose, who put the names of her entire family on the wall, and then when she passed they came in and put her name next to theirs.
"I think it is very healing," Ross explained.
It started before Chris and John bought the place, with the phrase, "Light a Candle, Say a Prayer." Now, hundreds of candles line the walls each with the name of a loved one.
"These people feel like they have ownership of this place," Ross said.
"Chris, tell me what it means to you to have something that means so much to the people around here?" CBS4's Karen Leigh asked.
"I think we're really blessed here in this place. We try to be a blessing to the community and I think, we've been blessed by the community," Ross replied.
This story was originally published on CBSDenver.com on Jan. 31, 2019. It aired in the show "Together With Karen Leigh" on March 1, 2019.
