Cooking up Christmas spirit

Ron Cook has found unorthodox approaches can be effective.

Anyone who faced Cook in men's slow-pitch softball will remember a pitcher with a mechanical, herky-jerky motion with hesitations throughout. It played with the minds of batters used to a fluid, swinging motion.

Cook used the perplexing technique in a 24-year career, with his teams winning numerous state titles with his halting style front and center.

Now the owner of Stooges Restaurant in Jackson, Cook still is in his unique groove, doing it his way: unusual, uncommon, unorthodox.

On Thanksgiving Day, Cook, with the help of 17 volunteers, served up seven turkeys, four pork loins and all the trimmings to whomever called his restaurant and told him they would be there -- for a free dinner. He had 125 people show up.

It was a Thanksgiving tradition in its second year, one year short of his Christmas tradition, which started in 2015.

The 1974 graduate of Jackson has made it a point to make sure there's a little joy in the holidays for all, giving back to his community. It's a meal to nourish in more ways than one.

"I didn't want to do this as a homeless thing," Cook said. "I know there are poor families out there that need a meal, and I wanted to do that, but I wanted to target the people that are maybe just lonely on the holiday, maybe recently there's been a death in the family, and you've got the spouse at home for the first time, and maybe the rest of the family is off in another location. Maybe it's just husband and wife where the kids are not going to be home for Christmas that year."

Cook has been serving food in the area since 1993, when he opened Cook's Barbecue. He decided to get into the restaurant business after moonlighting with a catering service while working as a physical-therapy technician at Saint Francis Hospital for four years.

"Everybody went on about my food and said, 'You should do this for a living,'" Cook said.

He decided to take the leap after pulling off a 400-person event at the AC Brase Arena Building one year, opening his barbecue stand on Highway 72. He later opened Stooges Restaurant in 2001 on Highway 61, eventually moving to his current location on West Main Street in 2005.

He grew up in an entrepreneurial environment, working at his father's business, Cook's Fina, at a young age in Jackson. He credits his parents with instilling more than a business sense and work ethic.

"They taught me to do things for others," Cook said. "My mom and dad were the first to take a meal to a neighbor or friend's house upon hearing of a death in the family," Cook said. "I've done the same; it's how life was and is, being brought up in Jackson."

Cook said he got the idea of providing the free meals from Park-et Restaurant in Perryville, which he said has done so on Christmas for several years.

"Every year I'd see that and say, 'I want to do that.' I just never got it done until 2015. I decided Thanksgiving Day, I guess. OK, I've got the time to do this, and I can handle it."

He said a fundraiser event earlier in the year at the restaurant provided momentum.

The event, which featured 14 bands and held on a Sunday in March 2015, raised more than $8,000 for the family of Wyatt Glastetter, a 3-year-old boy who died a month earlier of a rare form of cancer. The family used the money to purchase blue iPads for other children diagnosed with the disease.

"That opened my eyes about what I could do just here in this little, small place to make something better for a little bit," Cook said.

He used funds from Stoogefest, an annual day of music at the business, to help provide some of the funds for the Christmas meal. He scheduled three servings, had Santa show up for one sitting, and fed 260 people.

"It was really a huge hit," Cook said.

He added free Thanksgiving meals last year, which was followed by his second annual Christmas dinner, which he intends to do again this year. He says it's open for all.

"We've had people, highly successful people, and it wasn't because I was doing a free meal, who came down here. They intended to come down and be around other people," Cook said. "They make a donation. They insist that I have a donation bucket out. That's fine. As long as everybody is at peace with that. If they want to donate, they can. But somebody that can't afford it ... I want them to take advantage of the meal."

Money donated was recently passed along to the Jackson Police Department's annual Community Christmas Drive.

Cook said the meals can accommodate 80 people in each of the three eating times -- 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. -- and will add more if necessary. There will be live music and carols each meal, and he said Santa will make a visit and distribute toys at the 1 p.m. sitting.

He said he will begin taking reservations starting Dec. 19.

"The community, it's a perfect place to live, and that's why I've stayed here I guess," Cook said. "The community has been good to me. When I've been in business they've been customers of mine, and what better way to pay them back than to do something like this.

"Maybe I'm not helping them individually, but maybe it's helping people they know and people as not as fortunate as we are, or don't have the family connections on Thanksgiving Day that the rest of us do. Just giving back after a life in this great, small town."