As prices go up, Columbia restaurant owners buy groceries for unsuspecting customers
Like most restaurant owners — or home cooks, to boot — Kiki and Tyrone Cyrus have felt the crunch of the rising costs of food.
As Thanksgiving approached, they wanted to take that burden off of some people in their community.
The owners of Kiki’s Chicken & Waffles restaurants in Columbia surprised around 30 families by covering their grocery bills at a local Food Lion, just hours before folks began rushing to get potatoes peeled, turkeys basted and pies baked.
“Me and my husband, we wanted to do something different. You always hear about different organizations or businesses giving out turkeys or whatnot, but how do you know if they have everything they need for Thanksgiving dinner?” said Kiki Cyrus, who opened her first soul food restaurant with her husband in 2012. They opened a second location in 2019.
The Cyruses visited a Food Lion on Decker Boulevard the day before Thanksgiving and selected customers at random. Cyrus described one conversation her husband had with an unsuspecting customer, asking the woman in the checkout line if she’d gotten everything she needed for her Thanksgiving meal.
No, the woman said; she’d wanted to get some meat, but it was too expensive.
Tyrone Cyrus told her to go ahead and get whatever she needed. The bill was taken care of.
“She was just so happy,” Kiki Cyrus said. “People we touched that day, it was something different. ... When we went to the grocery store, actually hearing stories of people blessed by what we did was just awesome.”
Helping others fill their tables added an extra layer of thankfulness to the Cyruses’ holiday, Kiki said.
“It sure did, because when you think about it ... the people we touched, they just stressed to us — one lady told us she was living in a house, two bedrooms with 12 people, and people who don’t have as much to eat and an actual meal.” Cyrus said. “I really and thankful and grateful for what I have.”
Cyrus said they plan to make an annual tradition out of surprising people with holiday groceries at various stores in the community.
