Team Becca

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Rebecca June Cottam was the youngest of the ten children (plus one adopted Navajo girl) that our parents had.  She was 16 years old when we first opened in Brigham City as Melina's - a restaurant that our sister-in-law (Alicia) family had started in Afton, Wyoming.  Becca worked at the restaurant from the time she was 16 years old, and was the most wonderful, kind, sympathetic waitress you could ever ask for, and she trained dozens of servers to be just like she was.  When Becca was a senior at Fremont High, she was part of the student body council and she had to order a sweater that they all wear - you know the ones.  She had to submit a request for the sweater with her name monogramed on it, but when she filled out the paperwork her letter "C" in "Becca" (her nickname" were really elongated and to whoever stitched the sweater must have looked like "L" instead of "C".  End result?  Her senior year student body sweater came back with her name spelled "Bella" instead of "Becca".  Since we owned a Mexican restaurant, which she worked at pretty much full time, everyone assumed she had done it on purpose, and the Mexican cooks started calling her Bella from that day on.  

In 2005 we lost our baby girl, baby sister, and friend Rebecca "Bella" June Cottam. One of the moments we enjoyed most as a family after the viewing was when we gathered at our restaurant in the banquet room (by then we had built our current restaurant in Farr West) & our amazing employees fed our family. It was the first time since her death that we all sat, rested, enjoyed some good food, & took in the love we felt from all of you.

In 2006 we renamed our restaurant "Bella's" in honor of our sister.  It will forever be named after her.

Since that incredibly, indescribably sad day in January of 2005 we have had the privilege of providing that same service to many different families. Most were people we had never met, that now are life-long friends. Not that all death is not heartbreaking.  We have a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother who turned 102 years young in 2020, and when she someday moves on we will be saddened, but we will probably celebrate her life and her reunion with her husband.  The unexpected loss of a friend or family member is different.  It stings more.  Parents and siblings and other close family members forget to recharge their bodies with food.  We know.  We've been there and have done this.  We know the feelings because we're part of that community.  We have never charged for families that are going through this, and we will never charge them.  We will feed them, and love them and hug on them and relate to what they are going through.

There are families who insist on paying something, so we put it towards the next family we will feed, essentially paying it forward, because there are always families in need.  We are grateful to be in a position to do this, although it is never easy. We feel in a very small way that we are "comforting those in need of comfort", or at least offering some comfort food.

We extend this invitation. If you lose a love one, we would like to offer to feed you. If you're a neighbor or friend and want to help we've set up a donate button on our website because we've received so many requests for that.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve your family from our family here at Bella’s.  In honor and memory of our sister, daughter and friend, Becca - or how many of you now know her - Bella.