Zachary’s employees are earning paychecks in a unique way

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Zachary’s Restaurant in Columbus is counting the weeks until they reopen.

A late April fire destroyed the inside of the building, forcing it to shut down.

Construction crews have been working hard to rebuild the beloved downtown restaurant.

Thanks to community support and fundraisers, Zachary’s employees are still able to pay their bills and although they’re not working at Zachary’s, they’re still working.

While work is underway for a bigger and better Zachary’s, employees are earning their paychecks by giving back to the community, that’s given so much to them, since the fire temporarily took away their every day job.

Zachary’s has been Doug Pellum’s life for two decades.

An early morning fire in April took that away from him, but he’s getting close to getting it back.

“We’re going to have a brand new restaurant now and on the inside, we’ve got exposed brick that we did not know was there that was covered up by plaster and once we got to pulling it off, after the fire happened, we realized we had some beautiful exposed brick now. Of course, the bar is going to be a little bit bigger. The patio is going to be a little bit bigger and everything is going to be nicer.”

When you’ve owned a business for 19 years, the employees become family.

Pellum’s goal has been to make sure that work family is taken care of, while the doors are closed.

Fortunately, he has a lot of help.

“The community has been so good to us in giving back with the fundraiser that we’ve had here, the fundraiser down at Huck’s, the GoFundMe account. We said look, let’s get out and get these guys doing something while we are closed and I came up with the idea, I said, ‘Look, let’s get them out to volunteer events.’ I went to my staff and I said, ‘Go find volunteer events out there that need help.’ ”

Pellum said employees are still putting in the same hours, and even though they’re not serving and cooking food, he still wanted them to earn their paychecks.

“We’ve got all of our employees. We have kept them on staff. We are paying them right now with the help of the fundraisers and the help with some insurance that we’ve got. We’ve got them out at the Humane Society, Habitat. We’ve got them at Salvation Army, the Genesis Dream Center, today. We’ve got employees everywhere. Every day employees are somewhere working getting their hours.”

“I can still go and do the things that I enjoy doing. I can still find different ways to pay rent,” said Zachary’s employee, Katie Newman.

We first met Newman the day after the fire.

At that time, she didn’t know how she was going to make it, but now she says everything is coming full circle.

She says the giving community is why.

The community Zachary’s is known for helping.

“Even on a bigger scale. It’s different when we are not at Zachary’s. We had all of the fundraisers where we gave back at Zachary’s and now, we are actually going out and doing things, you know, when we went to one place all the time and now, I’ve probably been to nine or ten different locations.”

Pellum says he’s looking around the first of August to open back up.