Restaurant brings family together after cancer

ROSEVILLE – Before she died of breast cancer, Joe Messina’s wife told him to follow his dream of opening a restaurant.

Before he died of colon cancer, Becky’s husband told her it was OK to find a new family.

And that is the story behind Joe’s Family Restaurant in Roseville: two people, left widowed by cancer, who came together to raise a family and build something new.

“It was a hard time,” said Joe, who had found himself alone with four young children to raise after his wife’s death about four years ago. “But my wife always said I should go for it, and I saw it as a good way to raise a family and follow my dream at the same time.”

He began with a stripped-down stock trailer, purchased for about $200, out of which he sold homemade sub sandwiches. After a year of good sales, Joe was able to save enough money to buy a food truck, and he spent another two years hunched over in the heat and smell of oil, handing homemade meals through the truck’s window to customers on the street.

Around that time, Becky was at the bedside of her dying husband.

“My husband always knew, even then, that I wanted to be in a family,” she said. “So when he was dying, he realized that he wouldn’t be able to provide that for me once he was gone.”

Even as the cancer spread, Becky’s husband was searching the Internet to find someone who could help his wife.

By chance, he came across Joe on an Internet forum for cancer outreach.

Joe, who had seen his own spouse die of cancer.

Joe, who was out there building a life all on his own.

Joe, who was raising a family.

“That’s how we met,” Becky said. “My own kids were already grown and out on their own, and I got to meet Joe and his kids, and I saw that maybe what they needed was a mother figure in their lives.”

Joe was there when Becky’s husband was close to the end.

He was there at the funeral, standing at Becky’s side.

And he was with Becky as they drove home from the cemetery, Becky then walking into Joe’s house and never leaving.

“We got married a few months later,” Becky said.

Sometimes it can be difficult for the kids, who catch themselves calling Becky “mom” from time to time.

“But I always try to make sure the kids are open to talking about their mother,” she said. “It’s important for them to feel like they can talk about her. We go to the cemetery once a week, every Sunday, and sometimes I go out with them, and sometimes I just wait in the car, letting them have their time alone with her at the grave.”

It was a sad and unusual way for a family to come together, she admits, but when they opened up the restaurant last month, it seemed like maybe they had found a kind of peace.

Business has been good and getting better. The kids come in for breakfast each morning as Joe cooks up bacon and eggs in the kitchen, with Becky filling mugs of coffee for the early crowd at the counter. They live in a house next door and see the restaurant as an extension of their home.

So even though the food is made in a restaurant — subs and Italian pasta, burgers and steak, pork chops and baked chicken — the family knows they eat a home-cooked meal every night for dinner.

“I can honestly say, this is something I’ve always dreamed of,” Joe said, pausing to look around at the tables and booths of his own restaurant, the ceiling fans spreading the smell of fresh bread through the dining room. “And we don’t plan on leaving any time soon.”

epsmith@gannett.com

740-450-6772

Twitter: @evansmithreport

If you go

•What: Joe’s Family Restaurant

•Where: Zanesville Road in Roseville at the old Maggie’s Restaurant location