Today we’d like to introduce you to Shelly Farrar.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Our family has been in the restaurant industry most of our lives. It’s been our passion and has since become our mission. When our son was 19, he came to us with a business plan and his life savings and asked us to help him open up a deli. We opened the deli in the Woodstock/ Townlake area, then after five years, were looking to expand or do another concept. That’s when we found the location for our first full-service restaurant and bar. We opened in a few short months as it was fully equipped and mostly furnished. There, we decided to bring our idea for a Southern comfort restaurant to life as well as our deli menu for our lunch menu. We kept both restaurants for two years then sold the deli.
In November, we will celebrate our tenth anniversary and wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for our beautiful community and supporters. We are very dedicated to helping our community and instead of using funds for advertising, we have committed to helping to support charities, schools, and churches.
Pre covid, we pursued buying our property and designing a bigger building, then covid hit, and we had to jump into survival mode and learn to navigate through uncharted waters. We opened a drive-thru window and offered groceries as well as family meals to go, gallons of sangria, and margarita mix. We also did some parking lot date nights
We purchased a piece of property in year six and opened another concept, J. Michael’s Prime. This is a fine-dining steakhouse concept and is named after John ( my brother-in-law) and Michael (my husband and son). We will be celebrating our fourth anniversary in November. We shut this location down for three months during covid but offered parking lot concerts and dinners in your truck bed or parking space. We also offered holiday meals to go and again, wouldn’t be here without the love and support of our community.
We donated meals to schools, hospitals, and fire stations. We had a saying, “if we are going to go down, we are going to go down helping people until we can’t.
We have a flying pig mural in Riverstone Corner bistro, and there, you can also find various flying pigs. The flying pig thing is kind of an inside joke as I used to say, ” I will go into business with my family when pigs fly”. Today, we are in business with our son, my husband, my brother-in-law, and our Cousin.
We are only as good as our people, and we have extraordinary people who work with us and we couldn’t do this without them. Maggie Israel, our executive assistant, but so much more has been such a blessing. She was a regular who became a friend, then hired on as our pastry chef and office manager. Now, when works remotely and handles various tasks, and keeps us organized. She’s a creator, an innovator, and go-getter and our superwoman. and like a daughter to us.
We love what we do and who we do it with.
Our son Christian and his girlfriend have a restaurant in Cartersville, GA named Table 20.
We moved into our new building at RCB in January and tripled in size and have a rooftop bar.
We purchased the property next to J. Michael’s Prime and plan to expand, add more parking, and possibly a garden and small venue.
We are working on bottling our salad dressing, sauces, spices, and seltzers.
Our Personal guarantee: If you don’t love it, we’ll make you something else. We care, You matter and We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.
We are committed to you, your families, and our community.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
With this industry comes obstacles. When we first opened, we heard things like “you will never make it” along with many other things.
We had equipment go down, power outages, water main breaks, equipment failure, leaky roofs, and more.
Then Covid and Post Covid. Supply and demand issues.
Navigating thru uncharted waters, kicking in survival mode, working with family, and defying our roles.
Learning from mistakes.
Growing pains.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We have Riverstone Corner Bistro and J. Michael’s Prime.
We build our business on relationships and community involvement. We give back every chance we get in every way we can. We never say we can’t, we say what do we need to do to make it happen. We genuinely love and care about our teams, their families, and our guests.
We love creating experiences for special occasions and love catering and hosting special events.
We truly spend hours a week working on how we can improve, evolve and make a difference.
We are most proud of people wanting to celebrate with us, people wanting to tell their family and friends about us and people who move away but stop in every chance they get. People who choose us. People who feel safe and comfortable. Very proud of our team who go out of their way to help each other and make sure everyone who comes through our doors feels welcomed and appreciated.
What makes you happy?
We love making others happy, love getting thumbs up from the little ones and it makes us happy to be able to give to others. We live to give… We love creating experiences and our honored when people choose our restaurants to celebrate special milestones and occasions. We are family owned and operated. We are blessed by our community and it is our hope we bless them back.
Contact Info:
- Website: rcbcanton.com
- Instagram: jmichaelsprime and rcbevents
- Facebook: riverstonebistro and Jmichaelsprime
