As AJ recovered, he wondered what he could do.  Roofing was out.

Then one day, he got a call. Would AJ like to run a cafe? It seemed
there was one for sale not far from home.

This Cafe was already established, and it had become a sort of
community gathering place. It was the local hang-out where meetings
were held and lattes were sipped while listening to the locals who
liked to play music.

And so, with every last bit of money he had, AJ bought the cafe.
Because he was so short on cash, he decided to name the Cafe, AJ’s,
because that was only three letters long, easy to make a sign for.

AJ opened  the cafe on April 1st, April Fools Day! He thought that was
very fitting, because he’d never run a cafe before.

And, just as he opened, the economy in Michigan went into a deep
slump. The biggest industry around AJ’s Cafe, by far was all related
to the domestic 3, automotive field. Whether you owned a bakery, cafe,
clothing  store or barber shop, you made your living, or not, based on
how well Ford, General Motors or Chrysler did. Where AJ’s Cafe was,
when they hurt, everybody hurt.

Stores began closing all around. People were losing there jobs in
record numbers. Everything, except unemployment lines were grinding to
a halt.

AJ’s started to feel the crunch too, like just about everyone. What to
do, AJ wondered. His friends, neighbors and customers all began to
feel the pinch. Something had to be done. AJ’s couldn’t run without
customers!

One morning, in December of 2008, one of AJ’s customers came into the
cafe and was very worried. “Do something, AJ, he said. I’m going to
lose my job”!  But what could AJ do? After all, AJ might have gotten a
small name for himself by having some pretty quirky events at the
cafe, like a fifty-hour Danny Boy marathon, and a  democratic primary
for the presidential election, but AJ was just a small guy with a
small cafe in a small town near Detroit.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, AJ said; if anyone makes a promise that, on
their honor, the next car they buy will be a domestic 3, Detroit-born,
Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler, I’ll buy them a cup of coffee.”

And the next thing you know, everybody started talking about the cup
of joe for a promise to buy a Detroit-born car, pledge.

we ought to have a celebration or a party or , HEY WAIT! We could have
a concert! AJ’s cafe is the perfect place to have a musical concert
that can bring awareness to the Detroit automotive industry, AJ
thought.

And that day, AJ got an email from the Guinness Book of World Records.
The email suggested that AJ’s Cafe could attempt to set a new world
record for the” longest continuous concert by multiple artists.” The
current record stood at 216 hours.

AJ knew that the city of Detroit and the surrounding area was teeming
with musical talent. He had seen personally the great talents of so
many performers at his own cafe. Why not, AJ decided. We’ll do it!

And so, AJ called his friend Butch and they decided that they would
call there effort “The Assembly Line Concert.” It was a perfect name
to pay tribute to the hardest working, grittiest and most determined
group of people anyone could know. The domestic 3, Detroit born,
American automobile workers. The musical talent would be equal to the
quality of cars they build.

On October 17, 2009, there was a party at AJ’s Cafe. The party was
called; “The Guinness World Record Recognition Party.” Officially, the
“Little Cafe That Could” DID! The new Guinness World Record for the
“longest continuous concert by  multiple artists” is a whopping, 288
non-stop hours; held by a little cafe in Ferndale, Michign, USA called
AJ’s Cafe for “The Assembly Line Concert.”

That would be a wonderful and inspiring story in and of itself, that
is, if that we the end of the story.

It is not.

Because no one, aside from the thousands of volunteers and performers,
really believed that the little cafe could do it. Not that you could