This Entrepreneur Achieved Her Dream Even After An Immense Tragedy
A brightly lit, brick walled, minimalistic, fine dining restaurant on 541 Edgewood Avenue in Atlanta. The story of Staplehouse is a tragic, yet inspirational timeline of a restaurateur who did what every entrepreneur should do — not give up. The idea came into place when co-founder Jen Hidinger married her then fiancé Ryan Hidinger. The two married straight after Jen finished college and then moved to Atlanta. While Ryan was working as a chef at some of the best restaurants in Atlanta, Jen and Ryan started planning something of their own. Ryan named it — Staplehouse, because the menu would primarily consist of good staples: fresh produce and whole grains. As a first step towards this startup, Ryan and Jen began to serve pop up style supper club meals: 65$ per person. Jen would email the menu to the people attending the supper on the Thursday of that week. Within a few weeks, the meals started selling out in minutes. As their pop up supper style meals were making good progress, Ryan and Jen were hit with bad news.
In 2012, Ryan Hidinger was diagnosed stage 4 gallbladder cancer. The doctors gave him 6 months to live and he was only 35. Jen and Ryan had a very strong partnership. They formed a network of friends who turned out to be beyond supportable. Ryan Turner, who was Ryan Hidinger’s boss at Muss & Turner’s, which is where Hidinger was a chef when he was diagnosed with cancer. Turner and his colleagues along with several restaurateurs added a donation line to their guest checks, that helped organize a fund raiser called Team Hidi. Within two months of this, this fundraiser raised more 275,000 dollars for the Hidingers. This money was still a lot more than they needed for Ryan’s treatment. So the couple decided to start a not-for-profit that would assist other people in the culinary industry who were facing crises — be it medical or otherwise. They called it The Giving Kitchen. Now they were working on two startups not one, and they decided that Staplehouse would be a subsidiary of The Giving Kitchen. A team was formed to execute the project and consisted of the following people: Jen, Ryan’s sister, Kara, who was assigned to be the restaurant’s front-of-house manager; and her then-fiancé, Ryan Smith, who had met Kara at one of the Hidingers’ dinners and he would be the person in charge of food.
On January 9, 2014, one year and 19 days after his diagnosis, Ryan Hidinger passed away. He was 36. The weekend after Ryan passed away, Jen got a call from the leasing office and they finalized the place to open Staplehouse. This was the same day when Jen and their friends were mourning Ryan’s demise. The excitement of Staplehouse’s newly signed lease, the Team Hidi fundraiser raised nearly $325,000. As media attention grew, The Giving Kitchen needed a public face. Jen Hidinger was a student at Indiana University, and had studied broadcast communications. All in all, she was the perfect person for this role. The Giving Kitchen is run daily by Stephanie Galer, a nonprofit veteran who was hired days before Ryan’s death.
Staplehouse finally opened in September 2015 and since then the accomplishments the restaurant has made have been endless. It was voted the best restaurant in the United States in Bon Appetite magazine, Jen Hidinger herself made the cover of entrepreneur magazine in 2016. Staplehouse made noise, everywhere from GQ to Vogue to CNN. In my personal experience, I’ve been to Staplehouse twice and I’ve eaten food that was beyond delicious.
In its entirety, Jen Hidinger’s story is particularly inspirational because she did what most entrepreneurs in today’s world should do; and that is, not give up. Her husband and her had a dream, and she went into achieving it, guns blazing even though he wasn’t around to see it flourish. This entrepreneurial initiative is not just a poster startup story. It is a torchlight example, of passion, innovation and hard work. It tells us that even in the hardest of all times, you can achieve what you want, if you truly desire it.
Written by Anushka Pathak
Emory Entrepreneurship & Venture Management | VP of Internal Affairs
