03/14/2026
Could there be a better or worse time for an owner introduction than roughly 30 months after the business vanished mysteriously?
Probably.
Hi.
I’m Tyler.
Apparently I have a knack for layering flavors that bloom late.
By October of 2010, I was halfway through age 30 when a buddy from back home lent me $10,000.
Wrote a dense business plan and took it to Regions — they said no.
Went to Pinnacle — they said go, holding the borrowed funds in a CD in exchange for access to a $45,000 line of credit.
Two personal credit cards maxed out to $15,000 total.
Add untold hours of free labor thanks to an excited bunch of family, friends, and acquaintances.
Throw in a handful of lucky breaks.
Six months later, doors opened.
Looking back, the math probably shouldn’t have worked.
Guess sometimes all it takes is a modest pile of cash, a questionable level of confidence, and just enough people willing to say, “Sure, why not.”
That’s pretty much how this started.
It’s barely the backstory.
The restaurant gradually became something closer to a beloved book series. Or a long-running TV show. Or a complex multiplayer video game where everybody skipped the tutorial. Or a dream.
People made memories that refuse to fade:
* The folks who discovered us and told others to try the food
* The youth who wandered in off the street and stumbled into a job
* The woman ordered the Grilled Chicken Salad (no tomato) for twelve straight years
* The cousin who took the first — and could’ve taken the last — order fulfilled
* The homeschooled boys who started out hiding in the sink, incapable of cooking a Pop-Tart, only to grow up and master every job in the kitchen
* The first stranger hired, a server with two shifts a week, who also once wore the pizza costume and boogied down by the road
* The unpaid worker who’d panic if a table sat and waited longer than zero seconds for menus, silverware, straws (AKA ‘The Sauce Mom’)
* The person who walked half a mile from work multiple times a week for Buffalo Sticks with quadruple bleu cheese dressing
* The best server in town,
who worked a crazy double
while 8 months pregnant
on our busiest day ever:
Mother’s Day, 2023
* The lad who went from dishwasher to server to Marine to regular customer and police officer
* The serial burglar who threw a brick through the front door only to steal nothing
* The girl who stood on an old upside-down pot to work the oven
* The men who softly wept when the Kitchen Sink went away
* The customer who clipped nails at a table
* The couple who celebrated anniversaries
* The handyman who fixed stuff for pizzas
* The guy always on a laptop in the corner
* The neighbors who chose to support us
* The child who ate 19 packs of Splenda
* The kid who fell in love with broccoli
* The baby who napped in a box
* The few who knew the price
* The two who could do it all
* The ones who never left
* The debt still owed
* The fans, really
See, Sauce didn’t have a single hero.
It had a great supporting cast.
The place itself was the hero. ⭐️
And there’s a lot more to the story.
So, if the hunger is real, then we just may find a way to restart our heart and keep feeding.
Anything is possible.
Stay tuned.
♥️🙏💚
