In January of this year a small, family owned restaurant opened in my area. The husband and wife, in their young 40s, are from the South. They decided to differentiate their restaurant fare by serving more traditional Southern food like shrimp and grits, shrimp po boys, pulled pork etc.
The place is quiet, spotless, the food is excellent and interesting, and the service can’t be beat. That’s easy because they had almost no customers.
They are located in a spot where few cars go by and they are surrounded by farms and crop land. Far off the beaten path, there is no reason for a car to drive in that area.
The place is 4.5 miles from my house – running distance. I can go there in the morning about once per week and have breakfast.
Often there is only one other customer – an elderly gentleman in his 90s.
He and I were talking privately and he said he was hoping they will stay in business and frankly he can’t figure out how they survived these past 3 months. I agreed.
So I did something. I secretly told the Food and Restaurant critic for the newspaper about the place and suggested she check it out. Well, she did. And LOVED it! She brought a staff photographer and wrote a very positive article. While there she told the owners that I was the person who told her about it.
The article showed up online on a Thursday and on Friday morning the place was busy. On Saturday there were so many people there was no place to park and she called me for help. I cleared tables, washed dishes, helped cook. On Sunday she had 2 high school kids working – children of friends. But they can’t work on school days. At one point there was a ½ hour wait to get in.
A second article showed up in the print newspaper a few days later and things really got crazy.
So… I have been helping any way I can, running to the restaurant supply store, setting up a door announcer, washing dishes, helping cook, clearing tables, etc.
After two weeks of this pressure, the 2 owners are exhausted. They have offered to pay me – which I have refused. I said I just want them to do well. A shrimp and grits plate is enough.
On one hand this can be the best thing that could have happened to them. On the other hand they are totally beat at the end of the day. They are now only serving breakfast and lunch and stopped serving dinner because they cannot physically keep up. They are trying to get help but they do not have time to even breathe.

I have been helping them for the past 2 weeks and the surge is tapering off but it is still busy.
Is it all my fault? What do you think is my obligation here?