Photo: Tanya Constantine / Tetra images / Getty Images
When Chad Trainor’s wife Carol collapsed from a seizure last September, she spent most of the next eight months in the hospital in a coma. During that time, the teen employees that staff their Hudson, Wisconsin restaurant, Urban Olive & Vine, stepped up to keep the business running. Chad says he never asked them to take on extra work, but “they just did it.”
The teens, ages 14 to 18, took on nearly every role, arriving at 5:30 a.m., creating daily specials, managing schedules, training each other, doing office work, and even grocery shopping for the restaurant. Acacia Kunkle and Joe Stephenson, who are homeschooled, covered day shifts while the teens that go to public school worked evenings. Chad stopped in early each morning to check schedules before returning to his wife’s bedside.
Carol passed away on May 5th at age 58, and Chad closed the restaurant so the teens could attend her funeral. Afterward, they all returned to work, continuing to honor the woman who supported them in school and life. “Without them, the restaurant would not exist,” Chad says. “These kids became adults and ran our business and took care of me.”