Crust Issues Restaurant-to-be (?) Lore

Moonlighting at Rehana's

Grandfather's funeral

Sister's birthday brunch with husband

Best Friend's wedding at restaurant!

First time meeting husband's extended family from Costa Rica

21st birthday dinner!

Lunch with cousin and sister!

Cousin came into town at my college bar

Best friend from college

Going away lunch with high school friend

Dinner at McNally's (cousin's bar in Philly)

Lunch with great uncle and sisters

Lunch with Dad and godfather

Hanging out with my aunt's friends after the beach

Family friends in town from florida

Best friend's 21st birthday

Twilight midnight screening IHOP pregame

Moonlighting at Rehana's

Hi, I’m Erin. This article may have popped up on your feed because you follow Crust Issues or because we went to high school together and you still follow me on social media (class of 2016, amiright?). I’ve been working on my SEO for Crust Issues lately, and a lot of the talk is about blogging. There’s an annoying feature where AI can now write your blog post and I thought that maybe some folks would appreciate a genuine article about what I’m doing with Crust Issues and why. That might be the former magazine editor in me, though (shoutout to Such A Tease Mag and the ladies I worked with to write it!). 

I’d like to say I just had a calling for grilled cheese and that’s why Crust Issues was born. And while that’s partly true, it’s not the whole truth. I think I was probably eight when I made my first menu. My grandfather was a financial planner with his own small business, so I spent my time at my grandparents’ house making business cards on his cardstock and designing restaurant menus. My menus featured soybean milk and random assortments. I was a weird kid. 

Crust Issues was a random idea I had in high school that my friend (that I adore) called silly. Then there came a time, where after many side hustles all after the same goal of staying home with my kids, that I needed something with a little more substance. Even more so, I had just had two pregnancies almost back-to-back. With three small(ish, my son is 5) children, I needed something to feel like a person outside of being a mother. Which, at first, was so confusing in a sleep-deprived brain, because my favorite thing to be is a mom and sharing parenthood with my husband.

But over time, I had three kids in the span of 5 years, and as amazing as it is, I really just wanted someone to look at me as a random passerby. Like I’m just a girl slinging sandwiches and they’re not going to see me as a mom or a wife, just someone behind a griddle. Meals and cleaning at home, that used to feel like such a chore, I started to feel some joy behind again and creativity. Even writing has started to come back (obviously).

After all that word vomit, it basically means Crust Issues was born on a whim. Crust Issues is currently playing with its identity. I had such a good time popping up under tents last year but after moonlighting in a commercial kitchen, the ease of it has me itching for more. Pop-up events are great, but they’re hard on the back and a time-eater. On an event day, I get up and kids squared away, pick up my U-Haul, head to my storage unit, load up (where my FIL has to meet me because I can’t lift my Blackstone alone so pray for his back), then head to the event where I hopefully have some help to get the truck unloaded. Versus being able to just show up at a place of my own, it saves hours of my time, which I’m getting more and more protective of. 

It’s also more than that. Festivals and farmers markets are great but I’ve found that I miss a lot of the connection with customers that way. College me would beat my ass for saying it but I really do enjoy the connection behind people enjoying my food. There’s some interesting people in the world to talk to and a lot of that connection comes around food. As much as I love the griddle, I love coming out to the bar to talk to folks.

So many of our life events are spent in restaurants and bars. My first date with my husband was at a restaurant (thank you Red Salt in RVA). How many television shows are set in bars or finding love in bars? Your 21st birthday puking on your knees into a likely disgusting toilet, staring at the checkerboard floors. I can still walk the floorplan of the restaurant I worked at in college, see every nook and cranny in my mind. 

These restaurants and bars all have these pockets of community that are vital in the day-to-day relationships we keep. From the three coaches sitting together in a bar while I type right now to getting dinner with my in-laws later, our culture is so wrapped around food and sharing it. It’s even crazier to think about despite its place in our culture and the trillions of dollars it makes as an industry, it’s an industry that is so hard to succeed in. Which makes Crust Issues all the more scary of a passion project, hopefully to-be full-time job. I hope you enjoyed an internal rambling and some Crust Issues restaurant lore.