10/10/2025
Muddy Creek Corral is Closing Our Doors
Dear Sparta Residents and Friends,
I am writing this letter to let everyone know that Saturday, October 11th, 2025, will be our last day open for business at Muddy Creek Corral. Many of you do not know that my husband and I spent about 45 years owning and operating Civil Engineering, Land Development, Real Estate and Construction companies of which one is still in business in 5 states, which is still our primary source of income. We started Muddy Creek Corral thinking it would be a “fun” thing to do as we planned to retire from our current professions. We knew absolutely nothing about running a restaurant and thought how hard could it be compared to having hundreds of employees working in technical areas and on large-scale projects as we have. Our background consisted of construction and/or engineering of subdivisions, highways, bridges, railroads, airports, uranium enrichment facilities and even missiles bases (national defense work).
What a mistake we made! Running a restaurant is one of the hardest industries. The hours are long, over 12 hours minimum everyday…even when you are not open. Closed days are spent doing inventory, placing orders, shopping at the store, receiving deliveries, doing payroll, meeting contractors for repairs, maintenance, or improvements. Not to mention, unless you are fortunate to have a family-operated business, you will not have any time to see your family, friends, nor time to go to church. I know some would say why would you open a sports bar, restaurant, and entertainment venue. To tell you the truth, I did had a problem with selling alcohol and did not see us as being any different than restaurants like Olive Garden, Big Whiskeys, Chiles, or any other restaurant that may have offered an alcohol beverage with a meal. Some might have thought we were a hard-core bar which was far from the truth. Alcohol sales were a very small part of our revenue. We did not allow smoking inside our restaurant which really limited the likelihood that a heavy drinker would find our setting comfortable. What I have learned is that smokers and heavy drinkers want to relax and have their drink and not have to go outside. However, we did have a nice covered outdoor seating area with a big screen TV, Co****le and extra-large outdoor games like Connect 4 and Jenga. And many of our smoking customers did enjoy themselves in our outdoor seating area too.
Unfortunately, we never understood the physical toll the business would take on our health, mental and physical exhaustion. (I am in my later 60’s and my husband is over 70 years old.) Besides working at Muddy Creek Corral 80 hours a week starting this restaurant our time needed to be spent working at the civil engineering company and helping our son with accounting and estimates with whom we sold our construction company.
In closing, I want to express my gratitude to the Mayor’s family whom have been one of our best patrons, Gen (one of our servers & bartenders) and her entire family who made Muddy Creek Corral Gen’s escape from doing dishes for her huge family, our head bartender Shady and her husband who has been our Karaoke and Trivia service provider, Debbie who has been our daytime front restaurant manager, Aris who has been our kitchen manager and Kaleb and Joanna whom are newer employees who have been extra kitchen management support staff. (Additionally, Jeff with SignUs-Ozark, our sign guy who helped create our wonderful logo and other unique printing projects! Heather and Steve whose band performed at our venue and helped us hire other local bands. And Brandi, our daughter-in-law, who has helped with many miscellaneous projects.)
I wish all our faithful and hardworking employees and their families the very best and would recommend them to any employer seeking staff. We have been blessed with other wonderful employees who have been on this journey with us. Every one of them worked very hard for us. Unfortunately, the business being so new could not afford to hire a General Manager because the revenue could not justify that expense for likely a couple of years.
In closing, I should have known better. I am not a good cook and my favorite kitchen tool is the microwave. I hope that explains why I chose a limited menu (bar food) and would NEVER be a cook from scratch or home cooking type of restaurant. Additionally, I am an extreme OCD person (clean freak) and messes would feed my compulsion. Everyone would say we have one of the cleanest restaurants and even our bathrooms! I would wear those comments as a badge of honor. Funny, we could have saved ourselves a lot of money if my husband had taken me out for dinner and dancing occasionally. I love music and dancing!
In all humor and thankfulness please stop by and say good by to our staff and grab a bite to eat with your favorite beverage. Our building is for sale, and we will see over time what will become of the old Muddy Creek Corral. Blessings to All. Thank you for all the support and friendship. And remember to be kind. It is easy to hurt others from behind a computer screen. Support your local businesses and others in your community who are trying to make Sparta a better place.
Professionally,
Debra Brewster
Owner and Operator
Muddy Creek Corral
