Crespo Funeral Home

But one day, Joel Crespo looked up from his desk and realized he'd been working in the funeral business for seven years."The whole notion of a career at the funeral home terrified me," explains Crespo. "They even offered to pay for me to become a funeral director and I was like, 'No, no, no.' It was a good job. I had full health insurance, paid vacation, and it was the kind of job where I had the comfort of not having to take it home with me, so I got roped in. But at what point do you accept your destiny that this is what you're meant to be?"Though it's difficult to imagine Crespo as destined to be anything but a culinary superstar, there was a time when the restaurant industry was not even in the cards. The man who would eventually co-found Guerrilla Street Food always had a passion for food. However, in college, he found himself making other plans. He went to school for film and television production, then promptly moved to Los Angeles where he got a job working on The Drew Carey Show for three seasons, as well as music videos and the TBS concepts "Dinner and a Movie" and "Movies for Guys Who Like Movies."Crespo had already been contemplating whether he wanted to stay in the entertainment industry when fate made the decision for him. In 2002, his father passed away from cancer and Crespo decided to return to St. Louis to take care of his mother and help her navigate this difficult time in her life."I was at a crossroads then," Crespo recalls. "I'd been in LA for four years, and I needed to reevaluate what I wanted to do. It was a tough business, and it was expensive living there. I saw this as an opportunity to both take care of my mom and see if it was really my calling."Back in St. Louis, Crespo did temp work, always looking for an opportunity to make some extra money. When a staffer at the funeral home that buried his father came to their home following the service to finalize some details, Crespo randomly asked if the company had any jobs available. The next thing he knew, he was hired, quickly moving from parking attendant to office direct... (Riverfront Times)