Even before there was a pay-it-forward board with prepaid dinner tickets hanging from it at the
Broadway Family Grill, owner Hank Ryan was determined to fill the community’s needs.
Ryan, who took over the South End restaurant in September, has a heart for serving the community in a whole lot of ways beyond hearty meals.
Inside the doors of the 2020 Broadway St. building, you’ll find a coat rack filled with hats, gloves, socks, and toiletries for anyone who needs them. His staff served up 200 Christmas dinners in just three hours in mid-December.
He partnered with others to support the community. At the end of January, Ryan says he joined with the Banaszak Family,
Skorupski Funeral Home and the Broadway Family Grill to offer free coffee to anyone in need of a warm-up.
“They’re buying the coffee, I’m brewing it, and providing the creamer and the sugars. The other company is providing the cups, so it’s a three-company team.”
Most recently, he added a pay-it-forward board.
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Photo courtesy of The Broadway Family GrillAt the Broadway Family Grill, customers can buy a meal for someone in need. The pay-it-forward board is just one way the restaurant tries to serve the community.He had talked about doing something to feed hungry people, but had not developed a formal plan. Then, at the beginning of January, a customer handed Ryan $30 to pay for six meals of pasta, red sauce, and bread.
“You know, we talked about that pay-it-forward board and he says, ‘I want to give you a donation right now.’ Then he says, ‘When are you starting?’ I said, ‘Well, right now I guess.’ And it’s been growing since then.”
The dinners are inexpensive and easy to prepare, but also hot and hearty.
“I have some people saying give them soup,” says Ryan, a 42-year veteran of the Air National Guard. “Have you ever been homeless and hungry? You don’t eat soup. You eat food that will stick to your gut.”
He says right now he has more meals paid for than there are people taking advantage of it. Ryan is trying to figure out how to get the word out to the people who need it.
Once he’s done that, he’ll move to another project.
“I’m all about helping,” he says.
“You have to pick and choose what you do,” he says, but what he does is serve the community and his neighbors.
“We have a blessing box outside. So right now we’re doing hats, gloves, socks, toiletries, and when it warms up a little bit more again we’ll put the canned goods back out.”
He doesn’t just help people in need of a warm meal or warm gloves.
'It says on my sign on the restaurant, 'Your Neighborhood Restaurant,' not mine. I want to be a good neighbor.'
- Broadway Family Grill owner Hank Ryan
Ryan also helps high school students needing job skills. He hires teens as servers and cooks and teaches them how to cook while instilling a good work ethic. Along the way, he hopes to gives the teens a sense of how to take care of themselves financially.
He also works with special needs adults through the
Bay-Arenac ISD’s Special Education program.
“They came in and asked, can you use a couple of students, and I said ‘Yes, I can, but I do not want them to be mopping floors, sweeping, because that’s not the only thing they want to know how to do. They’re not all going to be janitors. If you’re telling me I can teach them how to wait tables, be a hostess, to do more than just sweeping and mopping floors, I’ll take them.’ ”
Monday through Thursday, the ISD students work in the restaurant learning those skills.
Ryan says he’s more than willing to give a hand up, especially to anyone who is willing and wants to learn.
“It’s much easier to take a hand out than to take a hand up,” he says. “That means you have to go to work.”
Even as he gets the pay-it-forward board up and running, Ryan is making plans for a community garden in the spring. He also wants to bring a farmer’s market to the South End.
He’s learning as he goes. Ryan retired from the Air National Guard as a Sergeant Major with a wealth of experience in fundraising.
“We love doing fundraisers – softball, and baseball leagues. We did a lot of fundraising. I’m not afraid to go ask for money or anything else.”
He says when he took over the restaurant, he started by building a menu consisting of food he liked to eat and liked to cook. Branching out to serve the neighborhood came naturally.
“It says on my sign on the restaurant, “Your Neighborhood Restaurant,” not mine. I want to be a good neighbor.”