All
My favorite topic.
And Selena Garcia is here with me.
She is the owner of a brand new restaurant in Kenosha called Mrs. C. Every time I hear your name, I want to say...
Gomez after it and I gotta I gotta write it down because I'll say Selena Gomez I know I will during this thing because that's the way my mind brain thinks So first of all before we begin who's missus C?
I'm missus C. So my name is Cassandra Our preferred we call Cassandra.
That's my middle name and I thought it would be cute Just just call it missus C. How
Cassandra
Well, this was my father's dream.
He always dreamed of having a restaurant.
He used to love to cook.
But we thought about the idea years ago when I was younger and then he started having heart attacks and strokes.
So I felt like, you know, this is what I wanted to do to pay tribute to him.
His life and what he taught me of cooking.
So I thought it would be a good idea.
Ice
to say.
Ice cream.
So we have a built-in ice cream parlor.
We do funnel cakes, deep fried Oreos.
Oh, state fair.
Yeah.
And we have a combo right now for 10.
So lemonade, funnel cakes, Oreos for 10.
So you get your chews, Oreos, or funnel cakes.
an ice cream with lemonade for Ted.
It's a, it's batter.
Oh, you want batter on it?
Okay,
you.
And it's round and the people love it warm, like.
Very warm.
They absolutely love it.
It brings people back to deep fried Oreos.
So we do regular mint, Reese's and chocolate deep fried Oreos.
It's got the usual chocolate wafers like Oreos, but the cream inside is 11 herbs and spices flavored.
That's disgusting.
It's available only in China right now.
It's hard to believe that concoction wasn't made in this country.
But wow, doesn't that a fried chicken Oreo cookie?
Then it just doesn't sound appetizing.
Right.
Maybe that's why it's only available in China right now.
That's a good idea.
So your menu is soul food, barbecue and ice cream.
Now, for people that know what soul food is, describe it.
Soul food is like.
greens, like yams, dressing, like things that a lot of us minorities eat for holidays, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, but it's on our menu for every day for, you know, soul field.
We have a lot of weekend specials, Sunday specials.
We have catfish.
ribs, barbecue chicken, Philly steaks.
Oh, Philly
attention.
I
chicken or beef.
So, um, yeah, that's just a small pork chops.
Oh, you got everything on
I came up with the menu.
I have a cook named Kodak.
He comes up with a lot of recipes.
He's a really good cooker, so I'm very grateful to him.
I wish he wanted to be here, but he couldn't, but anyone can come in and say hello to Kodak.
He's a really good cook.
studio.
I
For about a month.
Oh, it's brand new.
Okay.
Yeah.
It is very nervous, but hopefully people come out and support.
before?
Done restaurant work when I was younger.
OK.
So I could appreciate the work I did when I was a teenager.
So going back into it, it feels different.
But, you know,
We don't eat the fast food stuff.
We don't eat anything with a name we recognize.
We always go to places we never heard of before, just local businesses.
And we discovered so many great places across America.
to eat because it's just, it's a local place.
You'll never run into it.
This is, it's a one and done.
Y'all never run into you again.
But, and that's what, you know, we love going to local businesses and eating local food from local establishments like yours.
Well, that's great.
We're going to talk in just a moment.
Do you feel comfortable talking about the rest of this?
Sure.
Okay.
We're going to talk about, you had a very interesting, but tragic life.
We're going to talk about that in a moment.
And we'll talk more about the restaurant because people come and go in the morning.
I want to make sure they hear every.
bit of it.
Plus this will be podcast later today as you miss any of it.
We're talking to Cassandra Garcia and I just, I want to say Selena Gomez.
I'm not going to say Cassandra Garcia from a Mrs. C restaurant.
That's why she gets to see Cassandra and is located in Kenosha 22nd and 54th Street.
Soul food and ice cream, barbecued ribs, chicken, pork chops, you name it, and yams.
Yeah.
You know, I don't eat vegetables in life.
Yams, which are sweet potatoes, one of the few things I'll actually eat.
Carrots, yams, other than that, I don't eat vegetables.
And believe me, my mother tried.
This is not, you know, something where I just made a conscious decision.
I've told this story a million times.
At the dinner table, she buy accident, she gave me a plate of peas with my dinner.
And immediately she tried to take them off the plate and my dad said, he's going to eat them, leave it.
I was like seven years old already.
I was being bullied and eaten this food and I didn't eat it.
They went down to watch TV in the rec room.
My brother, my mother and father, two hours later they came up and I didn't eat it.
And he said, dad, I'm not being defiant.
I just, I know I won't keep it down if I eat it.
He said, go to bed.
That was the one time my mother actually put vegetables on my plate except for carrots and stuff.
She didn't put greens on my plate ever again because.
We don't want to go through that mess again.
But to this day, I just, I know my daughter eats everything.
I don't know that skipped me and just went to her and, you know, my wife eats everything.
I just don't.
And her garden, I'd love to eat stuff from her garden, but it's tomatoes and rhubarb and all stuff I would never touch.
We're talking to Cassandra and Cassandra Garcia.
She is the owner, operator and proprietor of Mississippi restaurant.
Mississippi's restaurant is in Kenosha, 22nd.
and 54th Street, soul food, and ice cream.
We'll talk more about the menu coming up.
But I said to you, how did you find a cook?
Because a cook is the whole restaurant.
If you don't have a good cook, you don't have a restaurant.
Yeah.
And you said, he just walked in the front door one day.
Yes.
The guardian angel just pushed
him in the front door?
Yes.
That's how I feel.
Like, I was very overwhelmed, like, opening the cafe.
And here I am thinking, I love to cook at home.
And, you know,
holiday meals and I had this and I got a little overwhelmed and this wonderful cook walked right into the door and helped me out and now I'm very happy about that.
Good.
And people love his cooking.
Yeah, we also have wing it's weird He does a lot of wing so and an ice cream
okay
So I like to talk about ice cream even though I don't eat a lot of it now I still like to talk about every once in a while.
Oh Yeah, but okay, um Here's something that's a little iffy to talk about but you said it's okay to talk about it.
So we will
And this is kind of an unsettling type story.
As a toddler, a young baby, you were kidnapped by serial killers.
This happened in Kenosha, but they took you to Illinois.
In Racine.
My mom worked at, I call, an in Salem town.
The old St.
Luke's, they did intake for patients for mental...
illnesses and they had an opiate clinic over there and so I cased in an emergency happened between my parents and like a mental care facility patient decided to pick me up from school and it just so happened they found out they were serial killers so and I'm in the car and
I was found in Illinois, so, and I.
I don't know.
See, a time period.
A time period, meaning like I witnessed and encountered a lot of the things that they did and what they were doing and I had to deal with it.
I remember.
Not wanting to close my eyes and remember not wanting to open my eyes because I saw a lot of gory things You know at such a young age that I had to deal with over the years
Well the hearing I in one ear they think due to
either injury or hearing the sounds of gunshots.
Yeah.
And I've been dealing with that such at a young age as well as my vision that was, I don't know, with help from people, but I was referred to as the deaf and the blind and I don't know how I feel about that.
But, you know, now I feel like it's time for me to talk about my own tragedy and not others try to tell it, but not tell the person who suffered the tragedy, which I understand it was withheld because I was a minor child, but, you know.
One of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, the woman Deborah Brown.
Uh, she's in prison in Ohio.
Uh, yeah.
Yeah.
How did they, my dad, um, and his friends and family?
the true story, which I don't even know if I should admit to, but I don't care anymore.
But I was my family kidnapped me out of foster care and changed my name because I was essentially with the serial killers family.
So they just kidnapped me.
I was a toddler and took me back home.
It was reported.
But we never talked about it after that, but everybody like meaning our neighbors and Some people in the community know about it.
So It's just what you got yourself together.
Yeah.
Yeah, I try not like to let my tragedy control my life, but it was a lot of things I had to deal with as a child, but I Had to power through it because
the things I saw a child should never see.
Like it was, I went through a lot, including a lot of abuse.
When that happened, I suffered a lot of injuries, but I'm dealing with it.
Again, I thought, okay, food, I don't know, I just thought it was a cute idea, ice cream, you know, cafe, something to pass, you know, to my daughter, you know, one day, like, you know, I was thinking, like, what type of business, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, she loves it.
My mother owned
Yeah.
She's like, bring me a milkshake home.
And I'm like, okay, what kind?
And I'm like, she's like, she likes chocolate.
She likes the mint chocolate.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
On the ice cream.
That too.
Yeah.
If my mother owned something like that, I'd be camped out there.
The kids would say, you want to play after school?
No.
My mother owns an ice cream parlor and soul food restaurant.
I'm not going anywhere.
I'm going there.
Man, that would be great.
Yeah.
Of course, you got to put the limits on.
You don't want to eat your business out of
business.
Right.
You can't be eating me out of house.
My mother would say, but yeah.
name.
That's when you go by Cassandra.
Yeah, Mrs. C,
My hours are noon to midnight and then noon to 3 a.m.
on the weekends.
Yeah.
Who will come in for the wings?
What are
midnight.
huh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
I try to stay till 3 AM, but sometimes it does not work.
But my cook is OK with those hours.
How old is your daughter?
My daughter is 18.
Oh,
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is that eating you out of house and home?
She can work.
Yeah.
Well, that's not bad.
Well, I wish you the best.
It's always tough starting a new business.
I've never had a business.
I never worked for the public before.
And it's tough, I know.
But once you get going and it's successful, I mean, that's good.
Let me just reiterate for everybody.
Mrs. C and it's a soul food restaurant.
They have barbecue wings.
They have a barbecue chicken.
They've got, what'd you say before?
Pork chops?
Ribs?
Ribs.
Let's see, pork chops, ribs, wings.
We also do Mexican food too.
So like tacos and burritos and things
that.
one time.
Deep fried oreos with
place.
A lot of people love the deep fried Oreos.
They're double stuffed.
Double stuffed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thank you very much, Cassandra.
I do appreciate you coming and sharing your story with us.
Okay.
And again, it's Mrs. C restaurant and Mrs. C's and located at 22nd and 54th Street in Kenosha.
Soul food, ice cream, barbecue, it's all there.
And with a great cook, too.
Shout out to his name again.
What is it?
Kodak.
Kodak?
Kodak
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, thank you.
Thank