Ryan Cappelletti, Chef at Bartertown DinerAfter growing up in Olean, NY, Ryan moved to Grand Rapids in 2005-2006 [citation required].

In his own words from a 2011 interview with Criminal Behavior (Detroit):

Well, I was 19 or 20 years old, doing a lot of stupid shit; well, really 17-19. Just being the standard punk rocker: Going to parties, getting wasted, doing nothing. I didn't play in bands, I just drank with my friends and listened to records. I helped with some shows at that time and put on a couple, but for the most part just got wasted and said fuck society and spiked my hair really high hahahaha!

Then, when I turned 20, I got really freaked out; I felt like I was doing a lot of stupid shit. I grew up in a small city called Olean, NY, which is just a little bit out of Buffalo, NY, a major city. Olean was still far enough way that it was not a suburb, it was its own city. Olean was the kind of town that could swallow you up and toss you in some factory, and boom you turn 21 and you retire to the bar, and that was the last thing I wanted to happen.

So I found SXE and it was my escape from that life. I stopped it all; I stopped drinking and doing drugs, quit smoking and my life got turned upside down to say the least. Most of friends changed because without beer or whatever, we had nothing to talk about. We had no bond anymore, and that was really sad. When I got sober, the world hit me hard; I started to notice all the fucked up shit all around me. I was already off meat, but still not vegan. I noticed all the fucked up shit that happens in the world, and I really took it the wrong way, and the hard way. I got heavy into politics in a very closed-minded way. I just hated everything and could not understand how people could act that way. I really didn’t know how to handle it, so I became very hardline about a lot of things, to say the least. But all in all, this needed to happen to get me to the place I am at today.
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