CLAREMONT — All these years later, the moment is still clear in Mike Frazer’s mind.
He was mired in substance abuse and his life was headed nowhere fast.
But as he tells it, one night more than two decades ago, the faces of his children, then around 3 and 4 years old, suddenly flashed before his eyes. In an instant, something inside him shifted.
“That was it,” Frazer recalled in an interview. “I didn’t know it was, but it was a spiritual awakening.”
He acted fast, almost immediately checking into a rehab center. He’d attempted to sober up before, but this time, it was different: He now had a deep faith that girded him for battle with his own demons.
“The more my faith built, the more I saw God working, it gave me more reassurance,” Frazer, a Christian, said. “I know the good Lord saved my life. I see it every day.”
After getting out of rehab, Frazer went to his father, Max Frazer, who put him to work at Mr. G’s, a restaurant the elder Frazer owned in Ascutney.
There, Frazer said, he learned about the day-to-day running of the business. As his father inched toward retirement, he took on more work.
“We worked together and we built a relationship, which I had destroyed,” Frazer said in a July interview at the Daily Grind, which he opened in 2022 and moved to its current Pleasant Street location in 2024.
A few years later, Max Frazer, now 83, purchased Frazer’s Place and turned it over to his son. Max Frazer purchased the restaurant, located at 2066 Route 5 in Windsor, from a tax auction and ran it as Mr. G’s 2 for a little over a year before giving his son a loan to purchase it.
“I said, ‘Here, it’s all yours,’ ” Max Frazer, of Weathersfield, said in an interview at Frazer’s Place, where he works a couple mornings a week making toast.
He didn’t have any hesitation; his son had proven himself in the years they worked together.
“He’s done very well,” Max Frazer said.
More than a decade later, Frazer, 55, is well known in Claremont and Windsor for his two businesses: the Daily Grind and Frazer’s Place, which he’s operated for about 13 years. He’s also in the process of renovating The Hitchin’ Post, located at 121 Maple Ave., in Claremont, though his plans for the space are still in the works.
Their relationship now is, in some ways, better than it’s ever been. Max Frazer has watched his son grow Frazer’s Place and then start The Daily Grind, while working to renovate the Hitchin’ Post. His son said it’s taken a lot of time, energy and dedication to build his businesses — and God.
“I think he’s crazy,” Max Frazer said with a laugh about his son’s schedule and all he’s taken on. In a way, he’s not surprised. “A lot of people say, ‘To heck with it,’ but not him.”
‘The gift of sobriety’
Mike Frazer has about two dozen employees spread between the two businesses; some work at both while others stay at one location. And every day, Frazer works with his two children, Duncan, 26, and Jasmine, 25. (The siblings are a year and six days apart.)
Mike Frazer rushed from station to station at The Daily Grind, which seats 49, on an early September morning, helping to prepare orders for customers as the clock ticked down on breakfast.
He flipped bacon on the grill while cracking eggs — and jokes — with his employees. Occasionally, he’d stop to grab a water bottle from a cart full of them.
“This here,” he said looking around, “is the gift of sobriety.”
Days off are an anomaly. The Daily Grind is open Wednesday through Sunday and Frazer’s Place is open daily. Most days, Frazer splits his time between both spots. The pace, at times, can be grueling. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“This has probably kept me alive,” Frazer said. “Obviously, it’s kept me sober.”
Spend at least 10 minutes with Frazer, who says he’s been sober for more than 20 years, and soon he’ll be telling you his life story, his journey toward sobriety, how finding God led him there and has kept him there through his work at restaurants.
“I didn’t make the choice. He did,” Frazer said, pointing upward.
Frazer grew up in the Upper Valley, where his father owned multiple businesses including the restaurant Mr. G’s and Max’s Country Village Store, both in Ascutney.
His first job was at The White Cottage in Woodstock, where he started working summers when he was about 13 years old (he still remembers how much he made then: $1.83 an hour).
His drinking took off when he was a senior in high school. He graduated from Stevens High School in Claremont in 1989.
“It started out as a weekend thing, then it became every day,” Frazer said. Other addictions, including those to heroin, crack and prescription pills, followed. “Alcohol was the base of everything.”
In the early 1990s, he owned a recycling center but he couldn’t function well enough to keep it open.
“Addiction was the main priority,” Frazer said. “It was what I focused on.”
Frazer, who is divorced, is open about his successes and his failures, acknowledging the chances his family gave him over the years as he worked toward sobriety.
“I’m not ashamed,” Frazer said about his openness about his past and his sobriety. Before he got sober, people talked in the community about his behavior, he said, while he tried to keep to himself. Everyone knew anyway, “because I was out of control.” He had a few misdemeanors for driving while intoxicated.
Frazer made multiple attempts to become sober. Sometimes, he’d last a month or two, but inevitably went back to drinking.
The years when Mike Frazer battled addiction were difficult for his father, as he saw his son spiral. Max Frazer tried to encourage his son to stay sober, but was often at a loss for what to do.
“It was terrible,” Max Frazer said at Frazer’s Place. “Then all of a sudden, he snapped out of it.”
Family businesses
Both Frazer’s Place and The Daily Grind have similar menus which are full of comfort food. There’s breakfast staples like French toast, omelets and breakfast sandwiches, with meals starting at around $9. (Eggs and toast go for $5.50.) For lunch there’s burgers, wraps, sandwiches, seafood and salads. Patrons can get a bacon cheeseburger for $11.
Frazer’s Place, which is open for dinner, offers pasta, stir fry and steaks. Liver N Onions cost $13.75, while Pig Roast Mac N Cheese is $15.75.
Jasmine Frazer designs the menus. She also bakes, including her popular French toast banana bread.
“It’s always different,” Jasmine Frazer, of Springfield, Vt., said in an interview at Frazer’s Place while taking orders at the breakfast counter. “You do the same job, but the customers, the experience is different.”
Perhaps the best part of Frazer’s day is the time he gets to spend working alongside his children. While they grew up around the restaurant business, he said there was never any pressure for them to join it as they grew older.
“They’re free to do whatever they want, but they’re very loyal,” Frazer said. “They are probably the two biggest assets I have.”
The siblings are a year and six days apart. Since they were kids, they’ve spent time at the various restaurants their dad has worked at, learning all aspects of the business.
“We grew into it,” said Duncan Frazer, who mostly works as a cook.
He learned by osmosis, in a way, by watching his dad over the years at Frazer’s Place.
“That’s all I’ve done,” he said in an interview at Frazer’s Place.
Since they’ve been working together for so long, they are so in sync. That was apparent when lunch orders started coming in at Frazer’s Place around noon on a day in early September.
During the lunch rush at Frazer’s, Jasmine Frazer can be found at the window taking orders, Duncan Frazer typically is behind the grill and Mike Frazer goes back and forth between the two spots while circling into the dining room to greet customers.
“He’s a character,” Duncan Frazer said. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into on a daily basis, but it’s fun.”
Hope and adrenaline
The fast pace of working at a restaurant appeals to Duncan Frazer.
Like his father, it’s helped him with his own challenges with alcohol. He said he has been sober for more than two years, an accomplishment he credits to his father and his faith.
“It’s set me down the same path,” Duncan Frazer, of Brownsville, said.
Over the years, Mike Frazer has made it a point to help people seeking sobriety. To that end, Frazer does not sell alcohol at either of his businesses.
His employees say it’s not unusual for someone to stop by one of the restaurants asking to speak to him. He hires people early on in sobriety. Sometimes, it works out. Other times, it doesn’t. He keeps doing it anyway.
Often, he posts on Frazer’s Place’s Facebook page about faith, trusting the Lord and spiritual connections.
Frazer prefers the term “spiritual” over “religious.” He has attended Christian churches over the years, but he prefers having a one-on-one relationship with God.
He still attends 12-step program meetings and tries to make it to one once a week.
His morning proclamations on Facebook about faith and life — paired with the restaurants’ specials — sometimes get dozens of comments and likes.
In those posts, he thanks God and imparts bits of wisdom like “don’t get caught up in something you have no control over” and “Remember doors that close are just as important if not more important than doors that open.”
“People reach out to him all the time and say, ‘This really helped me’,” Jasmine Frazer said.
Frazer sees his messages as being part of a community. It’s important, he repeats, to give people hope.
Frazer’s employees appreciate his candor. Shannon Vick, of Windsor, has been working at Frazer’s Place, which seats 37, for about seven years. While the pace was a challenge at first, Frazer was always patient and understanding.
Her boss, she said, leads by example. When he projects calm during busy moments, it permeates through the building.
“I love the whole family dynamic,” Vick, 53, said at the start of the lunch shift one September.
Frazer gets through his days by drinking around 15 bottles of water (his employees make sure he doesn’t run out) and up to eight cups of coffee. There’s also a fair amount of adrenaline, like when a big order comes in and it’s all hands on deck.
At one point during that September morning, when takeout and dine-in orders were getting busy, Frazer shouted out “All aboard” and those in the kitchen shouted back “the crazy train.”
“Nobody give anyone shit around here,” Frazer said. “It’s an all business kitchen.”
He laughed as he said it, though, and some employees working around him rolled their eyes.
During a brief lull, Krystle Lokey, of Springfield, Vt., started pouring jugs of maple syrup into small containers.
“We don’t serve the fake stuff,” said Lokey, 40, who has worked as a server at The Daily Grind for around a year.
“I’ve never worked for a boss who’s so considerate, who cares about us as people,” Lokey said.
Often, people who knew Frazer before he found sobriety stop by for a meal in Windsor. Among them are Weathersfield Town Clerk Flo-Ann Dango, whose daughter attended school with Frazer.
“I like it because it’s close to home, decent food and it’s always good to see Mike,” Dango said. “For him to go out on his own and be very accomplished is very nice to see.”
As the team transitioned from breakfast to lunch, Frazer took a moment to himself.
“It’s nothing I did,” he said. “It’s completely the good Lord.”
