Christy Ouei

I learned business in a tiny service station in Taylor Arkansas, not in a classroom or a boardroom. I learned it standing behind a counter praying the gas distributor would not show up again with that look in his eye. One day he walked in and said, “We have to turn this around. I cannot keep financing this gas for you.” That was the moment I broke. I cried every night for months knowing I was sitting under three hundred thousand dollars of fuel debt that I did not create but had to solve. I did not have the luxury of quitting. I had a son to raise. I had a business that fed my community. I had to figure it out. So I did.

I spent nearly two decades running that plate lunch restaurant inside the service station. I survived a divorce that left me with the store, the debt and the responsibility. I paid that debt off ten to fifteen thousand dollars at a time until every penny was gone. I fought to keep the doors open through years when the money never stretched far enough. By 2017 I was months away from owning it outright. Then it burned to the ground. Rebuilding would have required millions of dollars in a town of five hundred people. I had to make the kind of choice that crushes most people. I walked away and started over with nothing but grit, faith and the belief that I still had something left to build.

MuleKick was born because Burt overheard someone at the bank say he wanted to sell a building. That single moment turned into the next chapter of my life. Burt built MuleKick with his own hands. He built Lefty’s the same way. He runs the kitchen at Lefty’s, keeps both locations functioning and is the first call when anything breaks. He never had formal training in construction or culinary work. He is simply one of those rare people who can figure anything out and will work until the job is done. There would be no MuleKick and no Lefty’s without him.

When Covid hit just six months after we opened MuleKick, we had lines wrapped around the building. The community showed up in a way I will never forget. During the shutdown I applied for the liquor license and we reopened as a full service restaurant with thirty taps and a full bar. In 2023 Burt and I opened Lefty’s which quickly earned Best Of awards across multiple categories.

Lorenzo joined our team in 2021 and later stepped into a stronger role helping shape Lefty’s voice, menu engineering and technology systems. His work in data analysis and branding helped us modernize the business. In 2024 he was named one of Arkansas’s 40 Under 40 and two other team members earned 20 In Their 20s honors. For a business in Magnolia that was something special.

Those years shaped me. They showed me that restaurants do not fall apart because owners lack passion. They fall apart because owners lack systems. I spent twenty years learning that the hard way. I built nearly one hundred twenty five SOPs across both restaurants because I refused to let another owner feel as lost as I once felt. I created leadership layers, preshift meetings, communication systems and tools that made our operations predictable and sane. That work changed everything.

People say I am tough. People say I am relentless. They are right. But I also give people grace. I believe people can grow. I believe in second chances. I believe in telling the truth even when it is uncomfortable. And I believe in building leaders who will one day look back and say working with me changed their life.

I built The Foundry Model so independent restaurant owners can stop drowning in their own business. I built it so owners who feel like I once felt can finally breathe again. I built it so families like mine do not have to choose between survival and a life outside the restaurant. I built it because I know what it feels like to have no one to guide you. And I built it because I refuse to let other owners walk that road alone.