Recovering from the floods will be a massive task. One Hill Country restaurant is focusing on the smaller picture.

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KERRVILLE — The distinct, earthy scent of bread wafted through Daric Easton’s restaurant and wine bar on the edge of this Hill Country downtown Saturday as workers and local residents filled the place with a typical weekend bustle.

But Grape Juice wasn’t open for business.

Instead, the place that normally seats about 55 people looking for a place to relax not far from the Guadalupe River was operating as a hub for residents and business owners trying to chart a new normal in the aftermath of Kerr County’s catastrophic and deadly July Fourth flood.

Piles of sanitary products, shoes, canned goods and countless other necessities are now just as common inside Grape Juice as the dining tables and racks packed with wine bottles. Residents whose homes were damaged or washed away came Saturday for boxes of food and household items. Or just for a roll of toilet paper.

At least 120 people died and more than 160 remain missing after heavy rain turned the Guadalupe into a raging monster that engulfed children’s camp cabins, RV parks, houses and weekend homes as people slept.

In the days since, Kerrville has become an epicenter for mammoth recovery efforts. While the armies of out-of-town volunteers, large nonprofits and recovery crews focus on large-scale efforts, Easton is going smaller.

“Our main concerns aren't the big projects, it is the dude with an acre-and-a-half of land right off the river that has to demolish his house and can't get hydraulic hoses,” Easton said Friday. “That guy is who we're focused on. The big guys can focus on the big problems. We can take all the little problems and see if we can find local solutions to those problems.”

Grape Juice’s role as a community hub in the heart of devastation, mitigation and rebuilding started even smaller. And immediately.

As the waters continued raging July Fourth and reports of missing and stranded people spread, Easton and his staff focused on what they knew how to do: feed people.

“It was just sandwiches and sandwiches and sandwiches. For people that lost their homes, people that were responding, people that couldn't,” said Phoenix Miller, a native of Kerrville who has worked at Grape Juice for the last three months.

As the day went on, the devastation and staggering human toll became clearer. That’s when Easton and his staff started to collect supplies.

At first Grape Juice focused on relief aid and made sure people had food to eat and whatever they needed to survive the chaos of the moment.

As donations from other parts of the state and country started to flow in, Easton said the bigger nonprofit organizations either did not have the community trust or the resources to reach people on the ground. With an influx of supplies with nowhere to go, Grape Juice shut down the restaurant and became the place community members could come to for help, Easton said.

On Saturday, Jesus Jr. Rodriguez, 52, and Philip Jimenez, 51, swung by to pick up gloves, cleaning brushes, toilet paper and some self care items they needed to clean out their houses. Their houses, though on the higher side of the river, started taking on water around 4 a.m. Unlike scores of others, they got out. But the river destroyed the homes.

“It's gonna be more or less a teardown, rebuild,” Rodriguez said.

While the restaurant is closed for business, Grape Juice has been providing meals to crews helping at Camp Mystic, Salvation Army volunteers and recovery workers — as well as any residents who need one. The restaurant is also sending out care packages filled with perishables and self-care items.

Since July Fourth, Grape Juice has prepared at least 10,000 meals, said Shane McRorey, the kitchen manager. Those have included hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, breakfast tacos, spaghetti, goulash, alfredo, burgers and deli sandwiches.

“What we're doing food-wise [is] just waiting for people to tell us that they need food and then we are figuring out what we have on hand and sending that stuff out,” McRorey said.

As the chaos from the initial days after the flood calms down and the long road ahead comes into focus, Easton is thinking about how to reopen for business — and remain a community hub.

“There's an immense amount of devastation and carnage, and it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of people to get through all of that,” Easton said.

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