WACO, Texas — Nathon Woods has been cooking his whole life. After years of serving great food to friends and family, they convinced him to open a barbeque restaurant.
"I wasn't too hype about it at first, but I decided to go ahead and give it a try," Woods told 25 News.
He opened Waco-based In The Woods BBQ in December of 2021. For six months the restaurant took off and Woods felt it had a successful start.
The now empty restaurant offered Waco residents food and helped him build a legacy with his children.
"They were my biggest supporters," he said. "It really hurt because that's what I wanted to leave for them."
Despite the original success, money started to get tight after the restaurant was broken into numerous times in less than six months.
"It kept happening and it was back to back," Woods said. "Literally every other week or so somebody was breaking the window, they were going. They stole cash registers back to back."
He was constantly replacing food, windows, and equipment before he finally decided it wasn't working anymore.
"It was like fix a window, replace food, pay the rent shop home, replace a window, replace a cash register," he said. "It got to be too much."
The restaurant is now closed, but the dream is not dead. Woods is raising money to start again, but this time in a food truck.
"It's a little bit of help, a little bit of support," he said. "If we can get that, I can go back to doing what I was doing."
Back to cooking and back to bonding, but this time he hopes in a more secure environment.
