If you’ve followed along with us for a while, there is a good chance you know a bit about our story together. We’ve known each other since high school, are happily married with two sweet kids, Brody and Paislee, and are living out our dream as a husband and wife photography team. What you might NOT know? Well… this isn’t our first time working together!!
When Jon graduated college and moved back to Arizona from Texas, had one two things on his mind. The first was July 24th – the day he and Erica were finally getting married!! The second was finding a job to provide for them both. While he was actively looking for employment opportunities, Erica was able to get him hired on at the cafe she was working at. So there we were, two engaged people happily making sandwiches and coffees for busy dental school students. Erica had been working for the family that owned the cafe for over two years and seemed to effortlessly know exactly what needed to be done. Jon – not so much. There were multiple cases of, ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘I can’t believe you just did that.’ He tried hard, but it definitely wasn’t one of his best performances. Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t become a chef afterall!
One of our most memorable moments working together at the Straight A Cafe involved a language barrier and a humble superfood. Erica was killing it on the panini grill and Jon was taking orders and running the cash register. That’s when a student placed an order for a turkey panini, with no ‘ahv-ah-cah-doh’. Wanting to prove his value, Jon asked the student to repeat herself, and she happily repeated that she did not want ‘ahv-ah-cah-doh’. Instead of asking her to repeat the order for a third time, Jon relayed the order exactly as it was given to him.
“Hey Erica, one turkey panini, hold the ‘ahv-ah-cah-do!’
To Jon’s surprise, Erica didn’t skip a beat and served up the sandwich.
After the lunch rush slowed down, he had to know what the heck ‘ahv-ah-cah-do’ was. That’s when Erica started laughing hysterically at him. Avacado. She didn’t want avacado. As silly as he felt, he could only imagine how much more amusing it must have been to anyone who overheard him relay the order with the same accent as the foreign student!
We couldn’t be more happy that our career as restauranteurs didn’t work out! We would have served up a great experience, but the food…well, probably not so much!
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