NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — There are a lot of different reasons that people have decided to go into the restaurant business, but this one just might take the cake.
N-Town Wings at 2440 Pine Avenue in Niagara Falls is the city's newest eatery, with a story behind it the likes of which has seldom been heard before.
It involves Demitrius Nix, who ran for mayor of the city in 2023, and his bid to raise enough capital to keep his freedom.
"Either I raise the money or I go to prison," Nix told 2 On Your Side. "It's rough ... but my life has always been rough."
Twenty-three years ago Nix stopped attending school in the eighth grade, and was a 14-year-old living on the streets, surviving hand to mouth, when he shot and killed a man.
He claimed he was acting in self defense after the man, who previously attacked him and cut his throat, was chasing him with a baseball bat. He ended up going to prison for manslaughter.
"The front page of the paper had an article a couple days later titled 'Kids who Kill,' and there was a picture of me, and it made me out to be this big menace whose life would never be nothing," he said.
According to Nix, when he was released, his grandfather died and left him a home, which was crumbling and badly in need of repair.
With few skills, Nix set out to renovate it.
"I spent four years doing that, and then people started asking me to work on their houses," he recalled.
That was the seed for his company Nix Construction and Property Management.
However, last year while running for mayor, Nix also ran afoul of the law.
He was charged after going into a home on Pierce Avenue, where he'd been doing work for a developer, whom he claimed owed him money, and busting the place up.
"I didn't break in, I used a key. And I didn't go in to steal anything, but I did go in and break up everything I had fixed. And then I got charged for it," Nix said.
Nix eventually accepted a plea deal, saying it was the best thing to do for him and his family.
As part of the plea bargain, he needs to pay $32,000 in court ordered restitution by May 26 to avoid being sent to prison.
Nix, who has never cooked professionally before, says he's had to learn to "fry on the fly" and is using recipes handed down by his grandmother to prepare the wings, burgers, fish dinners, and sides he's now serving customers in hopes to avoid serving time.
All while still trying to keep up the contracting business.
"I don't open here until 2 p.m. because in the morning I've got a lot of contracting work to do. I have worked 19-hour days," said Nix, regarding the pace he's been keeping to beat the deadline to come up with funds in the two weeks since the restaurant opened.
However, there's no guarantee that even if he makes the restitution that he won't still have to serve time in the county jail.
He's not letting that deter him.
"Because now I have started a business that my family will get that will still employ ten people even if I go to jail," he said.
It appears he has a lot of people people rooting for him and not just the customers who've been coming in since word of the restaurant got out.
The person that owned the fryers from the restaurant that previously operated in the building told Nix to take his time paying for them, and the owner of the building is letting him operate for the first month rent free.
According to Nix even the developer, who he had the dispute with that lead to the criminal charges he now faces, has indicated a willingness to go to court on Nix's behalf and ask the judge for leniency, provided that Nix comes up a with a reasonable portion of restitution he owes by the deadline ... and as long he makes a good faith effort to pay the rest when he can.
"The support of the city is pouring out," Nix said.