Wasilla man swaps pawn shop for soup kitchen

WASILLA — Conrad Holler knows a good deal when he sees one.

In nine years as owner and operator of Rainbow Pawn, Holler has made thousands of them, buying and pawning television sets and tools, even the odd stuffed fish. Now he’s making the biggest trade of his career. Holler closed up his shop at Mile 49.5 Parks Highway on Saturday and will trade his cash register for a ladle.

After spending 26 years working the North Slope oil fields and nearly a decade in the pawn shop, the 63-year-old Wasilla resident is opening a soup kitchen for the homeless.

“What do I know about running a soup kitchen? Nothing,” Holler said. “But I didn’t know anything about the pawn business either. My wife thought I was crazy starting a pawn shop, but I did, and I know I can make this soup kitchen work.”

It’s a dream planted about seven years ago that has germinated since, Holler said. After a couple of years in the pawn business, he saw a side of Valley society he hadn’t noticed before. Many of his customers were down on their luck or homeless.

“You might be down for lots of reasons,” he said. “Maybe even some of your own making, but I’ve know people who have also just been kicked by fate.”

Now Holler’s organizing and cleaning out his 3,200-square-foot building and preparing for an Oct. 9 auction sale. After that, he’ll focus full time on getting Tater’s Café open before the snow starts flying. He has a board of directors and is working out the legalities of making the kitchen a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

“When I first put this building in (five years ago), this is what I built it for,” he said. “It was about four years ago when I started to really think I can make this fly. I know we need this by the people that I see every day. They’re off the radar of most people, but I see them all the time.”

Most importantly, Tater’s Café will have a veterans’ preference, which means Hollar wants to help vets who most need it. There are nearly 16,000 registered veterans in the Valley, and many are either homeless or hungry, he said.

“We have a lot of them that aren’t doing very well, for whatever reason,” he said. “They should have a good meal once in awhile.”

Holler’s ambition to open the Valley’s only large capacity soup kitchen is more than a pipe dream, said Susanna Morgan, executive director of Food Bank of Alaska. As the umbrella agency for state food banks, Morgan’s organization uses its buying power and government connections to supply food to many groups, including the Wasilla and Palmer food banks. She also is a major supplier for Anchorage and Fairbanks soup kitchens.

When Morgan learned of Holler’s plans, she became animated.

“I think the Valley has been desperately in need of a soup kitchen,” she said. “I think it will be a wonderful effort. (Holler’s) lucky to be in the Valley where there’s a whole lot of produce he can incorporate into his meals. In my ideal world, it would be closer to the center of Wasilla, but you get what you get. This is great, really great.”

The soup kitchen also has a fan in Laurie Kari, executive director for Family Promise Mat-Su, which focuses on helping homeless children. The Mat-Su Borough School District estimates about 800 of its students are homeless, she said. While Family Promise does what it can feeding about 15 people a day, the need is much greater.

Holler’s effort “could have a great impact,” she said. “Family Promise serves three meals a day, but we can only serve 15 people at a time. It’s very difficult to say no to people, very painful.”

The kitchen’s location, along the Parks Highway between Wasilla and Houston, could be a challenge, Holler said. But it’s one he is planning for. He’s been in contact with local transit companies and is working out a plan where homeless or others needing the soup kitchen can be picked up and dropped off.

He also has the support of Mat-Su Community Transit (MASCOT) Interim Executive Director Lamar Anderson. Financial difficulties forced MASCOT to cut back on some services, including its route from Wasilla to Houston. Perhaps a partnership with Tater’s Café could be just the ticket to help resurrect that service, he said.

“We can look at that,” Anderson said. “If there’s a need there we would certainly be interested. It really depends on the time of day. Right now, we’re still in the mode of making sure our operation is on a steady course. We had a route up north until we ran into our budget course last year.”

‘Five-star soup kitchen’

“This is the first in the Valley,” Holler said. “In the beginning, we’re probably going to be feeding around 60 people. I want to get a grant to put in a sprinkler system and want to grow. Beans Café (in Anchorage) started out feeding 28 people and their kitchen and building was way smaller than this. Now they’re feeding right about 400 a meal.”

He estimates Tater’s will need about $450,000 to $600,000 to cover staff and operations for the first two years. After that, it can be more creative in using the facility to also raise funds.

Although feeding people is his No. 1 priority, Holler has high hopes for what will be served at Tater’s Café.

“I like to say this is going to be the first five-start soup kitchen,” he said. “It’s going to be top-of-the-line.”

Tater’s will serve three meals a day, seven days a week, except for Christmas, Holler said. The homeless can eat breakfast and lunch at the kitchen, and will be sent off with a brown bag at about 2:30 p.m.

“The idea is to get them eating healthy,” he said. “I want to have potatoes at every meal. Potatoes are good, they’re filling and potatoes are cheap. I also want to run this thing on a one-week menu, so if you come here on a Monday for lunch, you’re going to have the same thing you had last Monday.”

One of the main reasons Holler is so confident in the quality of the food is his cook — Bob Bowers. Many in the Valley know Bowers as the longtime cook for the annual Christmas Friendship Dinner and as owner of Country Kitchen from 1995 to 2003.

Bowers said he can have the same feeling he gets at Christmastime every day.

“I’m so excited about this,” Bowers said. “It’s been a dream of mine for so many years. When I owned the restaurant, my wife got on me because I gave people food and didn’t charge them. I’ve really been looking forward to this. I get to help design the kitchen and set it up. Something like this has been needed in the Valley for so long.”

He’s also looking forward to showing he has skills in the kitchen that go beyond cooking turkey and ham once a year.

“Yes, sir, I can boil water without burning it, too,” he said.

Foot in the door

Along with feeding the Valley’s hungry, Holler hopes Tater’s Café can become a place that initiates more extensive help for those who need it. He also said those who believe having a soup kitchen in the Valley will attract more homeless may see there are other benefits.

“You have to understand that if I can’t sit down and talk to you, I can’t help you,” he said. “You come into the soup kitchen and you sit down and we’re eating lunch, and I know you’ve got a drinking problem, I can talk to you about getting funneled in the right direction to get some help.

“Now, there are some homeless for (whom) there is no help, but you still don’t kick them to the curb. There are some people who say, ‘Well, if they don’t want to work, let them starve to death.’ That’s not us. That’s why the United States is the way we are, because we don’t kick people to the side.”

Looking forward, Holler has grand plans that include possibly having a residential facility nearby and working with local agencies to help bridge the gap between homelessness and self-sufficiency.

“Really, my hope is to bring one homeless person in here and totally turn his life around,” he said. “That’s what my hope is — one. It’s worth all the trouble if I could turn one person around.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.