MACON, Ga. — In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Jonathan Keene received devastating news.
At around 3:50 a.m., he received a call that his restaurant, Keene's Kafe, was broken into.
"I really thought that my dream was over," Keene said in a Facebook video released Wednesday night.
However, due to the kindness of others, Keene's dream has been revived. All it took was a trip to Walmart and Kroger, hard work, and a lot of community support.
"Because of the community and local business owners and all of you guys, I just wanted to say that, as of right now, we will be open," Keene said Wednesday evening.
Early Wednesday morning, Keene released a nearly two-minute-long video that reverberated through the Macon community. His store had been robbed and, at the time, they weren't sure what the future would look like.
"Originally it was like seeing someone abduct your child," Keene said. "This is your purpose, this is your mission, this is your everything – and someone just came by and destroyed it."
Keene's Kafe, known for its biscuits and burgers, had only been in business for around five months. As a new business, they didn't have the funding to be able to handle such a dramatic expense like a massive burglary.
"We're a brand new restaurant, which means that we're pretty much day-to-day," Keene said in the morning of the burglary. "What we sell today is what we have got to resupply inventory tomorrow... I've put everything I've got into this business."
In the hours after Keene released his video, a GoFundMe page had been made for Keene by an admin of the popular Support Macon Restaurants Facebook page, Scott Redner. As of Thursday evening, the page had raised over $5,000.
"I saw what happened with his business and, having met Jon, and seeing that video that he posted, I just felt I had a platform to do something,” Redner said. “When he was talking in that video, I could feel what he was feeling.”
One person donated $1,000 anonymously to help Keene get back on his feet.
“I’m so grateful that people responded the way that they did,” Redner said. “There’s really an amazing amount of support… It's a totally different day for him.”
All that support had helped Keene's Kafe to get their doors open only a day after the burglary.
"We were able to secure enough to get a truck to cover us for another day," Keene said Wednesday night. "That means the criminals that tried to do something evil didn't win. Instead, positivity and love was the result of their actions."
According to Keene, the burglars drilled a 6-foot by 4-foot hole into the back of his building and then another 3-foot by 3-foot hole to get into the restaurant.
While he thinks that the Shell gas station next door was the intended target, the burglars threw open the doors to all his fridges and freezers, which made the fridges' internal temperatures too high to serve the food that was in there, Keene said.
For a restaurant, losing all of your food proves to be a very sizable expense, he said.
"The food that they spoiled, that's 70% of the business. Without that, you're out of business," Keene said. "Every day you're not in business is a day closer to going under."
But Keene managed to make the stars align so they could open up Thursday morning.
While they had originally arranged an emergency food delivery so they could open up their doors, that shipment wasn't able to make it until 3 p.m. Thursday, Keene said in a Facebook post.
Instead, they went on a quick Kroger and Walmart run to hold off until then. By around 2 pm, they had sold out of almost everything except hot dogs and fries, Keene said in a Facebook update.
"I want to take another minute to thank each and every one of my customers, each and every local business owner that reach out to me, everybody who sent a prayer for me," Keene said.
With the devastating state of the business when Keene first arrived Wednesday morning – the question of whether they'd be able to open their doors once again – Keene said that the outpouring of support has done something special.
"At this point, because of you guys, I may run it and cook it over here – but this is now Macon's restaurant," Keene said in the Wednesday evening Facebook post. "This is the communities restaurant. Because the truth is, without you guys we would not even be able to be open tomorrow."
Keene acknowledged that there is "a long road to get back to where we were," but he has a simple ask for the people of Macon.
"We are going to have to go back to square one," Keene said. "The only thing I can even ask of you is come and try my food, and if you like my food, please come and eat my food. I would love to cook for you. I'd love to serve you up."
Keene's Kafe is located at 6369 Thomaston Road if you want to try it for yourself.