JUPITER FARMS, Fla. — Through the rough times of the pandemic there have been glimmers of hope with businesses that have adapted and succeeded.
One restaurant in Jupiter made it through on top but wouldn't have gotten very far without the help from the community it serves.
Reuben Thompson is a regular at Taylor Farmhouse Café and said, “It’s a tight-knit group. It’s like family, everybody sticks together.”
Lisa Bernard eats there a few times a week and said, “They kind of had our back so we wanted to have theirs.”
Taylor Farmhouse Café owner Elizabeth Taylor said, “The community fiercely supported us from day one.”
It's the only free-standing restaurant Jupiter Farms.
“This is the only thing that’s ever survived out here for a restaurant,” said Thompson.
Flashback to March, 2020 when restaurants were ordered to only serve a take-out menu.
Taylor and her husband took a risk.
She said they told each other, “If we can lower the prices and it’s affordable, if you can get the volume, then lowering the prices it offsets that. That definitely, definitely happened.”
“Our phone was going crazy, we could hardly keep up,” said Taylor.
The result: not one employee let go and a community that answered the call.
Bernard says a social media call to action got her moving.
“We told everyone at the barn where we board our horses that we got to start, make sure we’re going to this restaurant a couple times a week. So we made up for that and came more than a couple times a week,” said Bernard.
Thompson is now going to help to add on to the restaurant.
Plans to expand include doubling the size of the outside deck.
“It means the world to us because this is like, our area. It’s like a little town here we all stick together and support them.”
For more information about Taylor Farmhouse Café, click here.
