Killing time during a slow shift about 10 years ago, one of the servers at Guy and Mae’s Tavern folded a dollar bill into a paper airplane and sent it flying. It never landed. The plane got lodged between a couple of ceiling panels and was left there, dangling. Then somebody else came along and crammed a few more dollar bills into the ceiling next to it. Eventually, customers started to follow suit, standing on barstools and taping bills to the walls of this rural Kansas barbecue joint. Then came COVID and a lot of uncertainty about the future of Thompson’s adored but isolated restaurant. So, the decision was reluctantly made to crack open their unique piggy bank: all that cash on the walls. They tore it down like party decorations after a holiday. It amounted to $4,500. Between that and a Small Business Administration grant Thompson secured, it was enough to get Guy and Mae’s through. Nearly three years later, the pits are still firing five days a week, and this middle-of-nowhere ...