PENDLETON — Kayla Henshaw said she hasn’t paid herself in three months.

When the 29-year-old lifelong Pendleton resident took the reins from the previous owner of Eden’s Kitchen back in June, the small restaurant on Southwest Sixth Street lost virtually all of its employees. Tax issues and supply shortages and prices only compounded the struggle to get her new business off the ground.

“It’s been tough to keep up,” said Henshaw, who has worked at Eden’s Kitchen since 2015.

Though federal COVID-19 relief funds provided some help, three months later, she has started a GoFundMe campaign, hoping to raise $5,000 and keep the business afloat. The account has raised just $170.

Businesses throughout Pendleton have struggled amid the workforce shortage that has swept the nation during the pandemic. Eden’s Kitchen is no exception.

Henshaw works 10-hour shifts starting at 5:30 a.m., in between taking her 4-year-old son back and forth to school. Some days she logs extra hours to make dough and ensure the cinnamon rolls are ready. To keep labor costs down, she works as many hours as she can.

“I’ve sacrificed a lot of family time and free time to be here as much as possible,” she said.

The restaurant makes between $800 to $1,000 per day, barely enough to break even.

She said the business would need to consistently exceed $1,000 to get by. Henshaw said she would need to cut labor to pay herself. But that’s not an option. She only has three employees: her mother, sister and sister-in-law.

And she has to be extra careful to not get sick.

“Staffing is just scary in general with COVID right now,” she said. “I have to be so careful and so responsible, because if I get sick, this place has to close, because no one else can be me right now.”

A national supply shortage has made things even harder. Henshaw said she often has to race to Walla Walla and back to get meat, lemon juice and many other supplies.

“I feel like I’m trying to beat all the other business owners to Cash & Carry before they take the last turkey or the last whatever,” she said.

Henshaw said she wants to give customers the quality experience the restaurant has dished out for years. She isn’t willing to settle for meager supplies. So, like several other Pendleton businesses, she’s upped her prices.

Meanwhile, she’s tried to spread word about her business, talking to locals and posting on social media. She said she continues to be surprised how many people don’t know about the business, but said Pendleton Round-Up week helped bring notoriety, even if it was stressful and busy.

“I want to eventually start paying myself,” she said. “I want to get us T-shirts with the business name on it. We’ve never had uniforms or anything. I want to build a brand for the place. We have big plans.”

Part of those plans is to expand the business to a new section of the building, which would extend Eden’s lobby. Henshaw said she isn’t sure how much that would cost, but she’s made the expansion a goal.

“We’ve been outgrowing this building for years,” she said, adding the current layout often fills with customers quickly and is too small to work in.

“It’s really tiny for how much production we do,” she said.

Growing up in a family where homemade meals were a tradition at big family gatherings, Henshaw has aspired to cooking high-quality dishes for residents. She said she has come to care deeply about the restaurant since becoming an employee several years ago.

“I know I’m not going to get rich doing this,” she said. “I just do it because I love it and I love making people happy with food.”