Parents open fast food restaurant to give daughter with Autism Purpose!

Christine Coronado expresses her concern about what to do with her child with special needs once she reached adulthood and what indeed she did!

Jordan Coronado of Jordan’s Grab ‘n Go

Jordan's Grab and Go is a mom and pops convenience store. It serves up tantalizing recipes that the Coronado's discovered on their travels including healthy reduced carb and diabetic options.  Jordan's opened a year ago this New Years Eve.  My appreciation for Jordan's is based on its unique menu as well as the inspiration for its creation.  I sat down and talked with Christine Coronado, Jordan's mom. Hit play to listen to the interview.

Jordan’s Logo

Transcript

Marsh Naidoo (00:01):

Welcome to Raising Kellan, the podcast to motivate, inspire, and educate parents, raising kids with special needs. I am your host, Marsh Naidoo. Today we are podcasting on location at my all-time favorite mom and pop's convenience store. Jordan's Grab and Go here in Dyersburg, Tennessee. Jordan's is located on 1809 St. John Avenue, just off 51 Bypass. To say that the food here is unique is a total understatement. I love coming here. Jordan's is more about just food. It's about family. I heard about this store from a Facebook post that was basically celebrating Jordan's 23rd birthday. Christine, when was that? I think that was in October of this year?

Christine Coronado (00:56):

September of this year.

Marsh Naidoo (00:57):

September of this year! And curiosity got the better part of me when I found out that Jordan was autistic, that that's something as a mom that, and I know our listeners out there worry about is what are our kids going to do when they turn 21 and older? Will they be able to find employment? Will they be able to participate in their community? So when I met Christine and Jordan that day you guys actually provided me personally with a role model. Christine Coronado is an exceptional mom, to say the least. So Christine, welcome to Raising Kellan

Christine Coronado (01:44):

Thank you Marsh. Happy to have to be on your show.

Marsh Naidoo (01:46):

Thank you. First of all, before we get started, tell me about Jordan.

Christine Coronado (01:53):

Well, as you said, you met Jordan on her 23rd birthday, and so Jordan has autism. Autism is a spectrum disorder. As you know, there are individuals at the lower end of the spectrum in the middle and at the higher end of the spectrum. And Jordan's autism has manifested in such a way that she is on the lower end of the spectrum. So Jordan has severe communication issues. She needs one-on-one adult support 24/7 Jordan's was started just so that Jordan could have somewhere to go to. This has been our first year in business and about a week before her birthday, my son who runs the store asked me if maybe we should put up some balloons for Jordan. Jordan has never had a birthday party before. And so it started from a pizza and a couple of balloons to, we put it onto our Facebook page.

(02:55):

We tried to stay very active in the Facebook community. We run specials every day. We want everyone to know what's going on. And before it just turned out to be a full-fledged birthday party, like I said, and that's the first birthday party she ever had. And she's 23 years old. And so it's very, very rewarding as a parent and just as a member of the community. I mean customers, people that we didn't know before we started Jordan's, like your family, your little boy came in just so he could say happy birthday to Jordan on her birthday. And it just absolutely warms the heart to see the love in the community. She got cards, she got birthday gifts from people she hasn't even met before. And so like I said, this was just full-fledged birthday party. Autistic children, because of the communication orders, they tend to be isolated from their peers, so they tend to not get invited to birthday parties or in the event they are invited to birthday parties. A lot of times they could be the party wrecker because it would be an overstimulation. And autistic children tend to act out. We call them meltdowns. And so Jordan had gotten invited to a wedding one time and I was afraid she'd have a meltdown. So I didn't bring her. I was just a didn't wanna wreck someone's wedding.

Marsh Naidoo (04:19):

I understand. I understand. But Christine, why a store? I mean, what prompted you to open a store? I mean, it's a lot of hard work, I'm sure. And

Christine Coronado (04:30):

Well like everything else I totally understand made it how much work and time and money and effort it would take. When we first started talking about doing a business for Jordan, it was about 10 years ago. And the idea started off as just a very, very simple concept. It was just gonna be a coffee shop, and so we gonna be in downtown Dyersburg bought a piece of property, and by the time we got around to actually following through with the business, when Jordan got closer to graduating high school, two coffee shops had sprung up in downtown Dyersburg. So that avenue was out, we're too small to have a third coffee shop. And in a small area like that, we thought about secondhand stores and we had gone out. My husband is retired Navy, and so he was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. And we went out to visit him and we went to a convenience store, and I don't know if you've been out they run them on the East coast, It's called Wawa, Yes.

(05:35):

Okay. So Wawa convenience store is so much more than just a convenience store. They've got just every type of food you can imagine, but it's like a convenience store on steroids. But you can get ice cream, milkshakes, sandwiches, breakfast items, burritos, I mean, the list just goes on and on. And so the concept, I guess as we thought about it and as it evolved over time was like a scale down Wawa where you could have different types of food, things that could be prepared ahead of time because we do as have a very small staff, our footprint for the building is just a little over 1300 square feet, wild wise, I think generally are about 4,000 square feet. So we just wanted to have like you said, we're very unique here. We thrive on being unique. I like to be different. And so everything we do here has our own unique spin on it, and we try to do food items that you can't get in other places.

Marsh Naidoo (06:39):

What are your hours of operation Christine?

Christine Coronado (06:42):

We open at 10:00 AM Monday through Saturday, and then Monday through Thursday we are open until 8:00 PM Friday and Saturday we stay open until nine and we are closed on Sundays.

Marsh Naidoo (06:55):

You guys have been in business for about a year now. Give me your highlight. Give me one thing that stands out in your mind.

Christine Coronado (07:03):

Well, I've been very, very fortunate. So when we were trying to open, so it's my son and I have done a lot of talking and reminiscing recently of what we were doing exactly one year ago. Everyone else was getting ready for Christmas and I kept saying, We've gotta get the store opened. We had a real push in December, we wanted to open up before the end of the year. We had been working on it for three years. So it was definitely time to get the store opened. And so looking back now it was just the mad rush to get everything open. We started ordering food at the end of November the fall of last year is when we started working on the menu items. And so we were just trying to get everything right. And what I have found out with the business is that you can't have everything perfect.

(07:54):

I mean, when we opened, the gelato freezer had gone out. We had the gelato here, but we couldn't serve it. We didn't have the Hunt Brothers pizza, but by God we were gonna open and we opened December 31st. But of everything that's happened in the past year, I think what I'm most proud about is that we were able to partner with the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center and provide jobs and employment opportunities for special needs individuals. And honestly, Marsh, I'm embarrassed to say that the idea did not hit me until December of last year. I serve on the board here at the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center in Dyersburg. And as we were sitting at the board, I said, I started thinking about originally we just wanted this to be something for Jordan, and we thought we'd be able to run it without any employees. And with the size of the store and the items that we were planning on having for sale, I realized we would have to have some employees.

(08:53):

So I was sitting at this board meeting, it just hit me, Why can't I hire individuals from the TRC? So I had spoken with the vocational rehab consultant who absolutely had tears in her eyes and said to me, You have no idea how much I needed to hear this today. This is why we do this, and we're just gonna be so happy to partner with you and help you. And so over the past year, we've had some people and sometimes they come and go, and it's a way for them to develop some job skills because for most of the special needs people who've come to us we're their first employment opportunity. So the TRC provides job training and a basic skill set, but for actually putting that into putting it all into play is something that they need to have a job. So the TRC will partner with different employers. There's tax credits and different things that are offered with the employers to help to defray some of those costs

Marsh Naidoo (09:57):

For you all listing out there. Christine is actually a lawyer, and I just find that remarkable. How do you hold that down? Where do you find the time? I mean, how do you do it? How do you create that balance?

Christine Coronado (10:11):

I do stay very busy. The law office, we have an excellent support staff. There are other attorneys who help out with the workload. My personal assistant has done more for me than she has. I absolutely hate to ask them to do anything personal, but sometimes it's something like paying an electric bill. And I said, Oh, well, if you don't mind paying that, well, here's the electric bill for Jordan's. Can you take that too? And so I try really hard not to do that. But honestly, we're a small office here, six lawyers and three support staff, so less than 10 of us in an office. So we're all very friendly and they have all done things to help. When I've had to be here at the store when I should have been lawyering, they've brought cleans to me and I've done work here at the store. They've waited, they've brought things over for me to sign. So honestly, I couldn't think I could have been successful with opening Jordans without having the support that I have at the office. And I do really appreciate that.

Marsh Naidoo (11:13):

Christina, I'm just a noisy someone. So I have to ask this. Do you have a specialty as far as being a lawyer? Is there a certain area of the law that you concentrate on?

Christine Coronado (11:26):

Yes and no. So for those of you that are listening that are not local, we live in rural, northwest Tennessee, Dyersburg Tennessee. And so there's less than 20,000 people in the city of Dyersburg. So being a lawyer in a small town, you do can't just specialize in one thing. But to answer your question, I have a few specialties. We do represent the cities here locally. We represent the Industrial development Board. We have some corporate clients that the firm has represented for a very long time. And then I also do divorces and I represent veterans. And then there's occasional personal injury cases that come in. So in a large city, it's very easy to do just one area of law, but since we're here in rural northwest Tennessee, you do have to wear more than one hat as a lawyer. Okay.

Marsh Naidoo (12:24):

What is your favorite item on the menu?

Christine Coronado (12:28):

Well, that changes from time to time, but since you're asking me today, it's gonna be the new Italian beef sandwich. And so I'll have to tell you a quick story about the Italian beef sandwich. Please do so we put it on to have, we wanted to have a sandwich available. We wanted a hot sandwich. So we bought pre-prepared Italian beef and toasted the bread. And it was good, but it wasn't great. And so my son said to me a couple weeks ago, he said, Mom, it's not selling as much as it used to. And it's okay, but it's not great. We're supposed to have great menu items, so I suggest that we either take it off or we make it better. And anything, since my son is the one that's here every day running the store, I take everything he says to heart. So I ordered it, I had it, and he's right.

(13:17):

It was okay, but it wasn't great. So we decided to revamp it. And so now what we do is we buy the beef U S D A choice beef, and we buy it raw and we marinate it for 24 hours, and then we cook it slow, we roast it in the oven for about six hours, we slice it, and then we marinate it for another 24 hours in ju. And so we make all of that ourselves. And so a lot of times when we do our product development, it takes us a while to get something right. Well, I'm very proud of the fact that the Italian beef, the first time around, the first roast that we made, we sold it. It was a 13-pound roast. We sold it in just a couple of days. We put it on Facebook. That first day. I think we sold about 15 sandwiches. And so two days after that, I think we were completely sold out. And so it's a very rewarding when you come up with a menu item and it's popular people, especially people who had the other one, they said, This is just absolutely over the top. So like I said, my favorite menu item does change, but right now it's absolutely the Italian beef sandwich.

Marsh Naidoo (14:31):

Christine, what I love about the convenience store as well is that it's very, very well thought out and you provide access in terms of your entry in exit points easy maneuverability for everyone to get around, as well as providing a seated area. And my personal favorite is the drive-through. So <laugh> that helps in these cold winter months. You and Christine, I could go on and on talking to you. What I hope we have this opportunity to talk and do a podcast again, I believe that you have so much that you could share with our listeners. And for those listeners out there, whether you are living in Carrutherville, Alamo Bells, Union City Halls, Bradford, you all need to come down to Jordan's Grab and Go. And as I said, I will be posting a blog on the Raising killen.org website. Christine, are there any last words that you would like to say before we stop or

Christine Coronado (15:42):

I just wanna say that it was a chance meeting with you and your son that day, but you've come in several times since then. And I do appreciate your support. Little businesses like ours, it's easy to go to the larger fast food chains, but the people that come here tend to wanna support our mission. And I know you wanna support our mission, you and your family, and I just wanna tell you how much we appreciate that and with what you're doing with the podcast. 20 years ago, there was not a lot of information for individuals with special needs, but now with the internet and podcast, there's so much more information. And I think that's so helpful for parents now who have to navigate through life. When you have a special needs child is any child is a lifetime commitment. But with special needs, there's a chance that you're gonna have that child with you for the rest of your life. And so I think it's just nice that you're trying to get information out there to provide information for parents, because us parents with special needs children are always looking for more information. So thank you for what you do also.

Marsh Naidoo (16:56):

Thank you, Christina. We are always stronger together, aren't we?

Christine Coronado (16:59):

Yes ma'am. Correct. Okay.

Marsh Naidoo (17:01):

Well guys, until we see you all the next time, this is Marsh Naidoo signing off.