About how we got started

Once upon a time, there lived a woman named Debra Ellsworth who lived in the historic Bouldin Creek area of downtown Austin. Debra loved to throw large parties at her home with people mingling and munching on a variety of goodies. She was very active with the Austin Jaycees Community Service Organization and took her volunteer role on the Board Of Directors very seriously as she oversaw countless Community Service Projects.

As a graduate of the UT Fine Arts program (Studio Art), Debra utilized her artistic abilities through her work in architectural graphics. After 15 years in the field, she used her distinctive design techniques to create complete sign packages for entire office buildings, created custom logos in many different mediums and worked with architects designing numerous outdoor signage projects.

One of the many remarkable people that impact her life was Donald Polise who owned a successful business called The Garden Spot Deli. After 4 years of close friendship, Donald became ill with Lymphoma. Through his long physical challenges, Debra and Donald became closer with regular dinner visits between their homes. Donald’s parents visited from Florida many times for extensive stays. Debra still cherishes the afghan Donald’s Mom knitted for her during her pregnancy.

After a couple of years Donald became very ill. One evening in 1996, Debra, her husband Mark, and their 10-month old son Grayson visited Donald in the hospital. That day the doctors told Donald that he would not be able to work anymore. He told Debra he needed to quickly sell the Store, as he was worried about his Dad struggling to run it. Donald told Debra what his financial expectations were and told her to pass the information on to help find a buyer.

God works in mysterious ways! The bottom line is 3 ˝ weeks later Debra was in the restaurant business! Even though she had no training in the restaurant industry, her creativity, passion for food, experience with event planning and her love of people were necessary tools she used to become a strong & successful presence in the this ever changing restaurant industry.