Craig Daily Press

Photo by Hans Hallgren

Andy Snow, kitchen and banquet manager, pauses for a moment Saturday before taking a final burger to one of Bad to the Bone’s regular customers. Snow will stay on as part of Cugino’s staff when the restaurant opens in the same location in April.

Photo by Hans Hallgren

Carrie McMahon, from left, Shaun Arthurs and Sandy Hicks pause for a moment as a regular stops in to give them a tip. A last appreciative act to thank them for all they’d done, he said.

Photo by Hans Hallgren

Jonathan Hicks, left, and Shaun Arthurs laugh as they prepare burgers and hotdogs for Saturday’s customer-appreciation day.

Photo by Hans Hallgren

Tammy Strahan hugs Josh Lawson on Saturday. Tammy and her husband, Jerry, said they have been coming to the restaurant since it opened 10 years ago.

Craig — The unblinking eyes of Carrie McMahon betray the fact that she is trying to cope.

It’s not about Bad to the Bone closing after nearly a decade.

“It’s about breaking up the family,” said McMahon, 24, a waitress at the restaurant for the past three years. “It’s about missing Josh.”

Josh Lawson owned and operated Bad to the Bone for the past decade. He closed his doors for good Saturday.

To McMahon and others, he was more than an employer.

“He was a father figure to me,” McMahon said. “We’re all like family here, everyone of us.

“The fact that I can call Josh at anytime, and he’s always there. He’s helped me financially with college. He’s helped me with where I’m going in life.

“It’s heartbreaking. Absolute­­ly heartbreaking.”

Before finding a place at Bad to the Bone, McMahon spent her time drifting, she said, working at one place for a few months, quitting and moving on.

Bad to the Bone, and her friends there, made enough sense to her that she planned to stay on after earning a college degree in education if Lawson gave her more responsibility.

Bad to the Bone made her learn.

“Pride,” McMahon said, assessing the person she was and the person she is. “I’ve learned about pride. I now know what it’s like to be part of a real team.”

No titles mean anything to teams like this, said Andy Snow, 22, whose official title is kitchen and banquet manager.

“This is a jack-of-all-trades job,” he said. “I still wash dishes here.”

A lot like McMahon, Snow once judged jobs as time-fillers, ways to get money for spending. Bad to the Bone changed him, too, he said.

“I worked at Holiday Inn first, started out there as a dishwasher,” Snow said. Bad to the Bone “opened my eyes to cooking. My father lives in town here, but Josh is definitely like a second father to me. Josh took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew.”

It wasn’t about business, Snow said. Lawson helped him buy a home for his wife and son and buy a new truck.

It wasn’t always like that, Snow added. It wasn’t always a family atmosphere at Bad to the Bone until Lawson took a trip two years ago.

“Josh used to be a different person,” Snow said.

“At first, Josh was business, business, business. He came back one day from a trip and realized his staff wasn’t just his staff.”

A trip in January changed Lawson’s life as well. It convinced him to leave Craig after 12 years.

“New Bern, North Carolina,” Lawson said. “I found a brand new restaurant, never opened, on the water in a beautiful, small community surrounded by so many opportunities.”

Lawson intended to move into Apple Jacks but coincidence presented itself with an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

Driving through North Carolina, Lawson stopped at a gas station for directions, he said. He asked the counter person if there was any property for sale in the area.

“I had no intention of buying a business at this point,” Lawson said. “I just basically stopped to find a place to eat.”

His curiosity pointed him to what he considers the best opportunity of his life: a possible 300-seat, five-star steak and seafood restaurant on one of the farthest inland points of the intracoastal waterway and the Atlantic Ocean.

“It was 48 hours of absolutely amazing fate and destiny being slapped in my face,” Lawson said. “I have the opportunity to do anything I want. I can literally go anywhere in the world and pursue any business, opportunity or adventure I want.

“My heart tells me to chase dreams.”

Lawson didn’t deny his age was a part of the decision to leave Craig.

“I’m just getting older,” he said. “I’ve never been married, don’t have any kids, and I don’t know if I want to spend the rest of my life in Craig.”

As much as he loved Bad to the Bone, Lawson felt himself changing in a way he didn’t want.

“Somewhere along that path I lost touch with myself,” he said. “I got caught up in the American way of the greed. It wasn’t about quality of life; it was all about the money.”

He became obsessed with expanding his business, he said, which eventually pushed him past his patience when plans didn’t work out.

Despite problems at the end, Lawson said Craig won’t be far from his mind after he leaves. Neither will the staff or the customers he said he let down.

“This was not just a business; this was a family, a life for all of us,” he said. “That’s the most damning part — I feel like I’m losing my family. Although they’ll always be with me, we’ll no longer see each other on a day-to-day basis.”

Neither McMahon nor Snow is angry about Lawson’s decision.

“I wish he would have built a new restaurant by all means,” Snow said. “It just didn’t turn out like that, but I’m not going to hold that against him. He’s always wanted a place like the one he’s getting. I’m happy for him.”

It’s the 23rd hour now, the last day open before Saturday’s farewell party.

Soon, the remaining staff will have to move on and start training for Cugino’s — an Italian restaurant that bought the Bad to the Bone building and agreed, after Lawson’s request, to take on any people from Bad to the Bone who wanted a job.

“Today’s going to be one of the hardest days I’ve ever worked,” McMahon said. “It just tears us apart that Josh is leaving. That’s about it.”