Capriottis Sandwich Shop

Here is my story and why I am looking for financial assistance. My name is Gina. My fiance's name is Paul. We took a big leap of faith and decided to build and open up a Capriottis Sandwich Shop which is out of Las Vegas. It is the second Capriottis in IL and is located in St. Charles. We spent 4 weeks training in Vegas learning everything we needed to know to run it while the shop was being built out for us.  August 17th, 2020 is when we officially opened after doing the whole build out and training and putting our blood, sweat and tears into this journey,  It came with many sacrifices, but was our passion. I am a chef for hyatt for over 16 years and food is my passion along with business. I also run my catering business for the past 8 years and when I got laid off I was making meals and delivering them to families in need around my area. I decided to make a bold move to having my own business and work for myself. It was a success. It was scary opening in the middle of Covid but as to my shock, we did great. Paul and I are very food passionate people, outgoing and always finding ways to help the community. We hired disabled kids to work a few hours a day also to learn life skills and it took a lot of our time but we felt was important incorporating into our business and also helping others who had a hard time getting a job because of their disability.  We did a lot of fundraising and charity events and donated meals to the homeless shelters around St. Charles and during covid, delivered home cooked meals to all the first responders all over the cities. Fire dept. Police dept. coroners and healthcare workers. Giving them meals to show them all the appreciation we had and understanding how hard their job was and to thank them for families they have helped. Helping others was a big thing for us. Business was really not affected that bad with all of our ways to get the food out to the customers safely and to their expectations and coming up with out of the box ideas and being creative. We gave the kids that worked for us, a lot of incentives and challenges like coming up with their own sandwich of the week contests and making each holiday fun and exciting so they would love their place of employment and take pride in their job.  We had a lot of fun and gained a lot of loyal customers. Sadly to say, Jan 11th 2021, I lost my fiance, Paul. We were doing inventory and closing up shop and he went down on the table in front of me. It was the worst day of my life. This took a devastating toll on me and I had a hard time returning to continue without him. New owners purchased the shop and they were from Indiana. They had a few young kids running it and the business just couldn't stay on its feet. They have decided to sell it and contacted me to see if I was ready to get it back and said they believed I was the right one to have this business and if it was to succeed, I was the one for the job.  I was in tears thinking that I had lost the store with all the work, time and sacrifices I had put into it. I wanted to store back to finish what we had started. To do it in his honor, with pride. I found a partner named Ritesh, currently owns wingstops in Indiana and we had decided that this is a great opportunity for us to get it going again. We have raised the money to purchase the business but I am short on my end some money to complete the cost of some equipment and capital start up. I am currently working at Hyatt, using my vacation days as I take time to put this together. I am so excited and passionate knowing this will succeed and I am willing to put all my time and effort into it again. I have the old employees waiting to start back up and want to take the journey with me. I do not want to let this pass me by and miss this opportunity because I am short funds. I am asking for this help to get me back into what I love and get this Capriottis back up and running. Please consider investing and having some faith in me. Thank you for your time.