Man puts restaurant up for sale to help pay for employee's brain tumor treatment

Man puts restaurant up for sale to help pay for employee's brain tumor treatment

 

You might call Michael De Beyer a Wunderboss.

De Beyer wants to sell his German restaurant, Kaiserhof Restaurant and Wunderbar in Montgomery, Texas, not because the rathskeller business has taken a turn for the wurst, but rather, he says, to help pay for treatment for one of his employees, 19-year-old Brittany Mathis. She was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a pingpong ball, reports KHOU-11.

De Beyer told the Courier he wants to sell his 6,000-square-foot restaurant and use part of the proceeds to help pay for Mathis' treatments.

From the Courier:

"I have listed my restaurant for several years and recently turned down an (owner-financed) offer for $1.3 million,” he said. “But now I want to auction it off at a reserve price (or minimum bid — 50 percent of the actual value) and anything above that will go to help Brittany.”

Mathis told KHOU-11 the problem started with a rash on her leg. She saw a doctor and was told she had blood clots. "They wanted to keep me and do CAT scans and MRIs," she said, "and the next day they came in and told me I had a tumor."

Mathis doesn't have insurance and has yet to sign up for the Affordable Care Act, according to the Courier. Her mother and sister also work at the restaurant. Years ago, Mathis' father died of a brain aneurism.

“Michael (De Beyer) has been a real blessing to our family,” Mathis told the Courier. “And he’s just always been there whenever we’ve needed anything.”

“I’m not able to just sit by and let it happen,” De Beyer told the Courier. “I couldn’t live with myself; I would never be happy just earning money from my restaurant knowing that she needs help.”

According to a post on Yelp, De Beyer opened the restaurant in 1997 with money he and his wife had saved.

Follow Mike Krumboltz on Twitter at @mikekrumboltz.