Florida chef Donell Stallworth is getting praises after helping to save the life of 78-year-old customer Charlie Hicks.
Some stories stop you for a moment. This is one of them. It did not start with sirens or headlines. It started with an empty chair.
Charlie Hicks is 78 years old. For more than ten years, he ate at the same Florida restaurant twice a day. Every morning. Every afternoon. Same seat. Same routine. Same smile. The staff knew him. The kitchen knew him. And chef Donell Stallworth knew something was wrong the moment Charlie did not walk through the door.
Charlie never missed a day. Not once. So when breakfast passed and his seat stayed empty, Donell noticed. When lunch came and Charlie still did not appear, worry set in. This was not normal. This was not Charlie.
Donell could have ignored it. He could have said, “Maybe he’s busy.” He didn’t. Instead, he trusted his gut. He knew Charlie’s habits. He knew his rhythm. And he knew something felt off.
“We open the doors up, Mr. Hicks is there to greet us,” Donell Stallworth, a 45-year-old chef at the Shrimp Basket, told the outlet.
But in September, the regular missed his informal reservation several days in a row. Stallworth said that was enough indication to know “something was wrong.”
At first, the staff phoned his home, and Hicks said he was sick. So, they delivered his gumbo to his apartment. Hicks insisted they leave it at the door because he didn’t want to get anyone else sick, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
On the third day, though, his phone went straight to voicemail.
Stallworth told CBS News he originally feared the worst. He left in the middle of his shift and drove straight to Hicks’ apartment.
This goes beyond the fake customer-worker relationship we experience at restaurants.
He knocked on the door repeatedly, but there was no answer.
“And right when I was going to turn, I heard something, a voice, just like, ‘Help’. And then I opened the door up. He was lying on the ground, and I didn’t know what his condition was — that was the scariest part right there,” Stallworth told the outlet.
His “best friend” had fallen, broken two ribs and was severely dehydrated.
The septuagenarian was hospitalized during his arduous recovery, but the dedicated staff at the Shrimp Basket endeavored to keep his spirits high and delivered his usual order daily.
After he was released, they went the extra mile and helped Hicks find and move into a new apartment right next to the restaurant so they could keep an eye on him.
This is commendable!
“He said that Donell had saved his life. And I’m pretty sure that Donell and [the Shrimp Basket staff] saved his life. Donell has been texting him and visiting him. Apparently, they’re best friends,” Hicks’ niece, Christina Neeper, told the Pensacola News Journal.
“We made a connection. We made a connection,” Hicks told CBS News.
By December, the regular was back at the Shrimp Basket, chatting with Stallworth at his usual table.
Stallworth told the Pensacola News Journal that they usually start off by talking about “The Andy Griffith Show,” then let the conversation flow from there.
“I’m glad to have you back, buddy,” Stallworth told Hicks when he entered the Shrimp Basket for the first time since he was discharged from the hospital.
Stallworth told CBS News that having Hicks so close “is the best thing going.”
“He’s that uncle. He’s that grandfather. He’s that best friend. He’s all in one,” Stallworth said.
In a world that moves fast, Donell slowed down and noticed an empty chair. That simple act saved a life.
