KERRVILLE, Texas (KXAN) — The day-to-day operations inside Grape Juice – a restaurant and wine bar in the heart of downtown Kerrville – are back to their roots of customer service, hand-selected wine and creative cuisine.
But just two months ago, the spot almost didn’t look like a restaurant at all.
The bulk of the building was covered floor-to-ceiling with all kinds of donations for people impacted by the devastating July floods that killed nearly 120 people in Kerr County.
Daric and Heidi Easton own the restaurant. You may remember, their daughter Luna made bracelets for first responders in the days following the flood.
“A lot of the functions we did as a restaurant translated really well into relief,” Daric said. “And I got to see members of my community really help and show up.”
While the restaurant is now more tables-and-chairs than broomsticks-and-non-perishables, there’s still a lot going on elsewhere – primarily operated by Heidi.
“There are still donations coming in and we are still very much in that as well,” she said. “I’ve been more on the warehouse side where we’re doing the donation stuff.”
You read that correctly. They’ve shuffled their relief efforts to a nearby warehouse so they can still help their community and run the restaurant at the same time. Additionally, Heidi is the general manager of a salon that also hosted pop-up donation events.
“I think we learned a lot. We saw parts of the community that maybe we had neglected, like being more community focused instead of being competitive with our fellow restaurants and wineries, being more collaborative,” Daric said. “The heart of this community is Kerrville for Kerrville, locals for locals by locals, and that’s kind of the sentiment we’ve taken out of this disaster.”
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