Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Poynter.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Where to even start, but way back at the beginning when GG bought this small town Cafe in 1985, putting her 6 kids to work. Enter myself in 1986, followed by 26 more grand children, and an ever growing army of great grand children. Creating a place where patrons became friends, who then became family. Serving quality scratch home cooking, specializing in breakfast cooked just the way you like it and was known for all those homemade salads at her Friday night fish fry.
The Parma Cafe was more than just Grandmas restaurant, it was home. Grandma lived right upstairs (where my family now resides), my mom worked at the restaurant, it became my first job, where I worked both part and full time on and off with grandma until right before she retired in 2015, when I decided to pursue other career paths, and my aunt and uncle took over the Cafe. Life happens and the Cafe closed in 2017, focusing on caterings until selling to my sister and I in 2019. Jessica (badass career Navy sister that lives in Virginia) called me when the Cafe first closed in 2017 and was listed for sale. I told her absolutely not. I saw the stress and wear and work, had young children and was happy at the 9 to 5. But my passion for feeding people never failed to surface and going into the 2019 year, I approached my family and my sister and we pushed forward on purchasing our families Cafe. Grandma loved what she did, and would say often she never worked a day in her life, but she didn’t want us to do this just for her. It had to be our own. GGs was opened November 13th, 2019. Focused on scratch, fresh, oven to table cooking and bakery, using quality, local ingredients and partnering with other local businesses and providing livable wages and flexible schedules for our employees.
It’s been a wild 6 years, filled with good days and bad. But ever learning and evolving. We try to keep everything as whole as possible, baking all our breads in house, and making many items from scratch. We use a lot of family recipes and have created so many new favorites. I have so many hopes and dreams for this place and community, its hard to keep them in line sometimes. But my Pop and I, a long with a pretty amazing growing team, are figuring it out and slowing growing into the dream of GGs.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not at all. Restaurant work is a career of passion for sure, but the challenges of not only being new to owning/operating a restaurant, COVID created its own challenges, a long with major changes to our family dynamic. Coming into this dream with my high school sweet heart, we learned our relationship couldn’t with stand with demand of my calling and dreams. a view years later, I have found my Pop, the bob to my Linda, sponge Bob to my Ms Crabs. and with Jerrod and our combine 6 kids, and ever growing funny farm of a homestead, we continue to feed our community a create a place for family and friends to gather
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We’re a small town restaurant. Specializing in breakfast mainly, but offering a little bit of everything. We make our own soups, get in good quality whole ingredients, prepping everything right in house. Our breads are either made from scratch or good quality local doughs that we proof, bake and slice. Coffee is delivered weekly and is locally roasted and ground in house. Eggs come from a local Michigan farm, in the summers we try to grow our own produce and support other local stands, with plans of expanding our little interurban yard in to a sustainable year round green house. All while trying to keep our prices affordable and our wages livable.
GGs is more than just a Cafe. It’s a coffee shop and bakery, we offer catering services of all styles and sizes.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Not sure I would call it luck, as there have been good and bad moments.
I have been lucky in the grace, the grace of slow downs in the quite moments, and the beauty in the chaos. It has allowed me opportunities to learn and grow as a person and business
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ggsofparma.com
- Facebook: GGs Cafe Parma, Mi
