Cafe Owner Helps Women Recovering from Addiction on HGTV’s Home Town Kickstart Presented by People
Cheesecake is Jodie Martin’s “initial really like,” she claims.
“It can be how I commenced,” claims Martin, 51, the operator of Geaux Clean Bistro & Bakery in Minden, Louisiana. “Cheesecake retains a distinctive spot in my heart simply because it really is how God taught me to place my hand to one thing.”
When Martin was in her twenties, she experienced no concept what she needed to do with her existence right up until a guest pastor at her church sent a imagined-provoking sermon that turned out to be exactly what she required to hear.
“He asked, ‘What do you have in your household?’ dependent on 2 Kings 4 in the Bible,” she recalls.
“I sat in that services as a 25-year-previous just crying and stated, ‘Lord, I really don’t even have a home. I stay with my mother and father. But they have a cookbook that has photographs of cheesecakes, and I actually like those.'”
Inspired to make her lifelong aspiration of baking and cooking a reality, Martin started providing her prize-winning cheesecake by the slice in her stepfather’s pharmacy in Texas, inevitably opening a cafe of her possess, the at any time-common Geaux Fresh Bistro & Bakery.
Misty Swilley Photography Jodie Martin, proprietor of Geaux Clean Bistro & Bakery in Minden, La.
“God showed me the way,” says Martin, who is now married and has two teenage small children – all of whom will be showcased on Sunday’s episode of Home City Kickstart Presented by Individuals, when her beloved enterprise undergoes a amazing makeover.
“It is a large blessing,” she claims.
So is the aid her religion gave her to get clean up and stay sober for the previous 25 a long time, which she calls “strolling in victory.”
With God’s help, she says, “I was able to walk away from all of it.”
Now she is paying it forward by supporting other people who are just starting to “wander in victory.”
Due to the fact 2018, she has employed gals who have finished, or are finishing, a faith-centered rehab or restoration system and are living at Era House — a transitional residing place just blocks away from her restaurant — whilst they get back on their ft.
“Jodie’s do the job natural environment is a risk-free haven,” states Nikki Knapp, 34, who has labored at Geaux Fresh new for a few several years.
“She’s generally seeking out for everyone,” Knapp claims. “She just does things that she does not have to do.”
Courtesy HGTV Jodie Martin on HGTV’s Dwelling Town Kickstart
Martin’s bigheartedness captured the awareness of Home City Kickstart Offered by Persons, the new Ben and Erin Napier collection on HGTV honoring individuals who make a variation in their small-city communities with lifetime-changing renovations.
“They have been in a position to make a house that demonstrates much more of my heart and offers the group a attractive area to go in and dine,” states Martin.
When she and her spouse to start with commenced Geaux Refreshing, “we ended up boot strapping it,” she suggests with a giggle.
“I would constantly go into these other terrific cafes and glance all around and say, ‘If only mine have been to look as gorgeous.”
Now, not only is the restaurant beautiful to glance at, the kitchen is a great deal a lot more practical.
“The finest point they did was choose dead space and develop an additional space just for baking,” she says. “So it’s like I have a 2nd kitchen now which freed up a ton of place in our initial kitchen area because we incredibly cramped in there.”
Serving to Other people On Their Journeys to Cleanse Living
Every single weekday, Martin can be identified in her occupied kitchen whipping up mouthwatering paninis, salads, sandwiches, burgers, and selfmade soups, as properly as baking luscious desserts which include, of study course, her well known cheesecake.
But she’s also working challenging to help the women she employs stay clean and sober.
As soon as one particular Martin acquired that a single of her finest pals, Jordan Woods, was starting off Technology Property, she realized she needed to pitch in.
“That just resonated with me,” claims Martin. “I was like, ‘Those are the persons that I want to aid.'”
Misty Swilley Images Jodie Martin and her team at Geaux Fresh new Bistro & Bakery
Martin features the women positions at a time when they could have difficulties acquiring just one.
“This is about permitting them to start out placing their hand to a thing so they can start off to create confidence in them selves, find out about obligation and how to stay existence in a beneficial way,” she claims.
On top of that, she allows design how to offer with strain in a healthful way.
“When you have been in dependancy for so very long and a little something genuinely negative happens, in the past, what do we do? Very well, we want to go do some thing that numbs us out. And so now, we’re understanding how to deal with anxiety without all those matters in place, and so you will find a massive healing process that transpires,” she suggests.
“They’re allowed to have individuals days exactly where they’re having difficulties and they need prayer, since at any specified minute, one of the ladies is crying, due to the fact they’re getting a tricky time,” Martin adds. “With me, it truly is a safe and sound area, due to the fact they’re permitted to be them selves.”
And when it can be time to function at Geaux Contemporary, “we throw down in the kitchen area,” says Martin.
“I suggest they are cooking, they are baking, they’re washing dishes, they’re working food items to the buyers,” she says. “We operate as a spouse and children. It really is just like a large spouse and children kitchen area and we’re fixing lunch for people, for about 6 several hours a working day.”
Martin likes to do factors just so – “with excellence” – and desires her workforce to do the very same.
“I’m very individual about the presentation of the foodstuff we serve,” she claims.
If they minimize a sandwich in 50 % and the wrap splits, they remake the wrap. “If a purchaser picks it up and spills the wrap all more than them, perfectly, what kind of knowledge is that?” she suggests. “If we mail plates out, I want them spotless.”
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She provides, “So I instruct them to do anything with excellence and explain to them that the competencies they learn in this article will aid you in life and will aid propel you into your accurate calling.”
Her support is significantly appreciated.
“Jodie does all this for us for the reason that she loves us and cares for us,” claims Knapp. “She desires to see us do excellent in lifestyle and go the right way.”
The episode airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on HGTV and streams on discovery+.