COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Westerville loves Sue Shields, owner of Yogi’s Hoagies, but she never really knew that until the pandemic took her business away.

In desperation, she changed her outside signboard to read: “Sue says help me stay, eat here today.”

Westerville South alumni Michael Corrigan saw his favorite sandwich place’s plea for help, drove over to Yogi’s Hoagies, took a picture of the sign and made it public on his Facebook page.

Within a day, supporters poured in to help Sue’s business — Westerville’s branch of Yogi’s Hoagies — buying their favorite sandwiches.

“Some nice person put us on the Facebook thing, and people just kept coming and coming,” said Sue, who is in her 80s and has owned the business for 28 years. She said before the post business had dropped off, and all the taxes are going up, and there weren’t any customers.

“I don’t know how not to work,” Sue said.

Michael Corrigan explained to Sue that he’d seen her plea, drove over from work, took a picture of the sign and posted it. By 10pm on Monday night, Corrigan had 1000 shares, and by Tuesday at lunchtime that had doubled to more than 2,000.

“My business depends mostly on the drive-thru orders, and I’ve had my phone off the hook since noon,” said Sue. “We’re just in a wonderful place now. The parking lot has been filled, the store has been filled, people are so nice.”

“I called in about a year ago,” Michael remembered, “before COVID, and she had this voice recording on apologizing that she couldn’t be here but her daughter was in town for a visit and she was going to take five days off. that’s one of the main reasons that I posted it. She’s such a nice lady.

“The sign has been up since the 80s supporting athletics, band, anything in the community. I always enjoyed the food. When I played football, I’d walk over here and get a huge sub. Restaurants are having a hard time right now and this one shouldn’t go anywhere,” Corrigan said.

John Rader has been coming to Yogi’s Hoagies for 28 years. Scott Logsden said he dropped in for lunch because Sue has always supported the marching band, and he went to Westerville South. He put the post on the Westerville Band page, and the music boosters.

“We love Sue!” shouted a customer in the shop, when she said: “I didn’t know people cared that much.”

Every person in the lunchtime crowd put up their hands to show they’d seen the post.