ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Every small business owner has a story to tell about why or how they got started, but it’s rare for that to include a day that made national headlines.

“I just wanted to be able to offer just a little bit of happiness to anybody that we can,” Alexis Salisbury said.

Salisbury wears many hats, including business owner. She and her husband, who are both alumni of the University of New Mexico, recently opened Roni’s Mac Bar on Central near UNM.

“It just takes us back, you know? We were those college students who were trying to find something affordable to eat but yummy at the same time,” she said.

However, Salisbury’s college memories also take her back to a darker time.

She and her brother, who was 10 years old at the time, survived a deadly mass shooting at a library in Clovis in August 2017.

“I went to the library to print a paper for college, and instead, a 16-year-old kid walked in and started shooting,” she said.

The gunman shot Salisbury three times – once in each knee and once over her heart. Her brother was also shot in the hand.

“I was in a wheelchair for three months. I’ve gone through countless hours of therapy and recovery,” she said.

That’s where she also wears the hat of survivor.

“I had a lot of healing to do from PTSD and trauma. And I was in a really dark place for a really long time, but I’ve done everything I can to overcome that,” Salisbury said.

Her long-term goal is to start a nonprofit to help survivors of trauma.

“There’s just an unspoken understanding that we all share. And if I can save anybody a day, an hour [or] a minute of having to feel the pain, I would love to do that,” she said.

Mac and cheese is just the start of that mission.

“While that is my story, and it’s pushed me so far. That’s not all I am, and that’s not all I’ll ever be.”

Salisbury added she and her husband prepared themselves for what could come along with owning a business on Central. Since they started leasing the building in May, they’ve dealt with broken windows, graffiti, fires outside of their front door and a broken lock box. They also said someone smashed a window of their car earlier this week.

Still, Salisbury said that doesn’t outweigh the love and support Roni’s is already feeling.