Fountain Woman Turns Dream into Reality opening Gypsy’s Roadside Café

FOUNTAIN, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - Life is a recipe of sorts. Each ingredient can change the outcome dramatically. But when the right ingredients fall into place, it can make for something special.

Just ask Deborah Naugle.

“It’s not work when you love what you do.”

Deborah has her dream job. Cooking and serving food from her new restaurant. Gypsy’s Roadside Café opened up a few weeks ago. It started off as a food truck off Highway 231 in 2022.

“I was a food truck for about a year,” said Naugle. “The demand was so much, they started parking down the street.”

Now there’s a parking lot for customers, opening up the only sit-down restaurant in Fountain. Gypsy’s Roadside Café features all the variety folks could ask for.

“Gypsy to me is a wondering spirit,” said Naugle. “The southern fried chicken thigh sandwich. Philly steak and cheese. Fried liver and fried gizzards which we still have now.”

The restaurant serves breakfast and lunch items. But her restaurant dream is a reminder that believing is a good place to start.

“I literally had the faith of a mustard seed to start with and it grew and grew and grew. I knew I was going to have it. I can’t explain it, I just knew it was something I was going to have. It was already there in my mind.”

But always on her mind is someone close to the heart. Deborah’s mother, Rose, passed away several years ago.

“She’s been passed away three years that’s the reason why this is built in my mother’s honor. In our mother’s honor, my sister, she’s been side by side with me since we opened.”

Deborah keeps a picture of her mother in the kitchen as a reminder. A place in honor of her mom’s memory that dates back to her favorite memories with mom.

“She drew an invisible line by the door and said you can stand right there and watch me cook but you can’t touch anything, all you can do is watch. And I was just fascinated with just watching everything that she did. That’s all I wanted to do was to be like her and what she did.”

And that’s exactly what she did. Even taking it a step further.

“She wouldn’t believe it. She’d be very proud, she’d say that’s my girl.”

Cooking up a life you love, with those you love always by your side.

“It’s not really a business or a job if you do what you do. It’s just coming to your dream every day, it’s not coming to work.”

More on Gypsy’s Roadside Café here.

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