All
right, we're talking food.
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
do you want me to call you Selena or Cassandra?
Cassandra
Cassandra, okay
Cassandra Garcia.
Yeah.
All right.
Cassandra's nice name.
I like that.
OK, so this is a brand new restaurant.
I don't know how people open up businesses because I've never owned a business.
What made you pick a restaurant to open out of all the businesses out there?
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.
Soul food, barbecue, and ice cream.
Ice
cream.
Move closer.
I want to hear every word you have
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.
I've seen it a million times at state fairs and county fairs, but I've never had deep-fried Oreos or anything like that deep-fried.
I don't know what it looks like when it's deep-fried.
What does it look like?
It's a, it's batter.
Oh, you want batter on it?
Okay,
I got
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.
We have a story this morning about KFC and Oreo have collaborated to create a fried chicken cookie.
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
steaks.
All right.
Now you got my
attention.
I
woke up
chicken or beef.
So, um, yeah, that's just a small pork chops.
Oh, you got everything on
there.
Yeah.
Okay.
And this restaurant's located in Kenosha, 22nd and 54th street.
And it's called Mississippi.
Who came up with the recipes?
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.
Too bad he's not here.
We could have had a buffet lined up for the
studio.
I
know, I know.
We normally don't allow food in here, but now I would allow food in here, a buffet.
So, okay, so how long has the restaurant been open for?
For about a month.
Oh, it's brand new.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that's great.
That's, that's gotta be nerving to open up a business because you never know.
It can go either way.
Yeah.
It is very nervous, but hopefully people come out and support.
Have you ever done restaurant work
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,
when my wife and I do our road trips, we only eat at local establishments.
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, that's the whole restaurant.
You have a good cook.
Yeah.
And we're talking when, say, soulful.
We're talking about some vegetables.
We're talking about pork chops, fried chicken, barbecue chicken.
What else did you say ribs?
Yeah, we also have wing it's weird He does a lot of wing so and an ice cream
parlor.
Yeah, that's the part of let's concentrate on that ice cream for
okay
I just lost 46 pounds.
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.
Oh, Racine, happened in Racine, okay.
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.
How long was it?
How long were you kidnapped for?
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
It's horrible now your hearing suffered mm-hmm and your eyesight suffered because of this.
Yes, you know why you know what happened?
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.
Now, the serial killers who they were captured eventually, they kidnapped you and they were sentenced to death.
One of them.
One of them.
I remember the name.
Alton Coleman.
Yeah.
I remember that name.
Yeah.
Who was the other one?
Uh, the woman Deborah Brown.
What happened to her?
Uh, she's in prison in Ohio.
For life?
Uh, yeah.
Okay.
Wow.
Yeah, I remember Alton Coleman.
I remember that old story.
I didn't know you were involved in it though.
Yeah.
You know, again, when you're a minor, they keep your name out of it.
Yeah.
How did they find you?
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.
I'm so sorry for you.
Let's talk about the restaurant again.
Okay.
Okay.
What made you pick food as a business?
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.
You have a daughter?
Yeah.
Free ice cream?
Yeah.
Oh, she loves it.
Yeah.
My mother owned
an ice cream parlor too.
I'd love it too.
My dad owned a pump company and that was no fun.
But imagine your mother owning an ice cream parlor.
Every day you go in there and you eat till you pop.
Yeah.
And there's no charge.
Wow.
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.
And by the way, bring me a bucket of wings too.
Yeah.
On the ice cream.
That too.
Wow.
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.
So, let me just quick recap here.
So, I don't want to miss this here.
It's called Mrs. C and the restaurant.
That's Cassandra's, your middle
name.
That's when you go by Cassandra.
Yeah, Mrs. C,
Cassandra.
And it's in Kenosha, 22nd and 54th Street.
Mrs. C can't miss it.
What are the hours?
My hours are noon to midnight and then noon to 3 a.m.
on the weekends.
3 a.m.
on the business after midnight?
Yeah.
Whoa.
Yeah.
Who will come in for the wings?
I'm fast asleep.
What are
you talking about?
I get up at 4 30 in the morning.
I'm not hanging around after
midnight.
Wow.
And you cook stays all night,
huh?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that's pretty neat.
Yeah.
How about you?
You're the proprietor.
You show up every day?
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,
she can work there.
Yeah.
Put it to work.
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
like
that.
And an ice cream parlor with waffles cones and every fried oreo, deep fried oreo.
I gotta get a deep fried oreo
one time.
Deep fried oreos with
funnel cakes.
I saw one at the State Fair once I was going to have it and they said, nah, but I should have taken it because you can't find them everywhere, but I can find them at your
place.
A lot of people love the deep fried Oreos.
Are the deep fried double stuffed Oreos or the single Oreos?
They're double stuffed.
Double stuffed.
Yeah.
Excellent.
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
Kodak.
Yeah.
Like the camera.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for coming in.
I thought maybe it was you had to come in like for breakfast and stuff there and you wouldn't be able to come in here, but search at noon.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, good luck to you.
Oh, thank you.
Thank
you, Sandra.