Mom Opens Restaurant To Help Son

El Paso Times:

After nearly seven years of watching her adult son struggle to get a job, Sharon Ausderau decided that she could no longer hope for employers to look beyond his disability and provide him an opportunity to be productive.

“His father died about seven years ago,” Ausderau said. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here to take care of him. I want him to have food and shelter when I’m not around.

“I don’t want him standing out in the rain holding a cardboard sign.”

Ausderau rented restaurant space inside the Joe John and Mark Club and used $4,000 to $6,000 of her own assets and $4,000 from an investor to help her son, David Barry Ausderau, open Get Crocked, a restaurant that serves customers daily and also offers home-cooked meals prepared in crockpots for families to take home.

David Barry Ausderau is one of the restaurant’s two paid employees. He takes the orders, handles the money and washes the dishes, while a hired cook prepares the food.

“I like taking orders and talking to people,” said the 40-year-old, who is employed full-time for the first time since 2000, when the company he worked for as a shipping and receiving clerk closed down.

The Ausderaus hope to someday open various locations, which will offer take-home meals and employ mostly people with disabilities.