Local couples mix business with a commitment.

By Cerulla Daemon

Everyone, at one time or another, has looked at their partner and wondered if their marriage – or their business – would survive if they spent both their days and their nights together. Would it be a beautiful, seamless transition?
Six local couples have discovered the secret to combining the personal with the professional. Each of them boasts a long, happy marriage and a very successful business.
They’ve kept the romance and the bottom line alive and well. And, in of all places, the food industry, the most pressure-filled kind of workplace possible.

Slatterly and Grissa, who met in Paris, have managed to re-create the feel of dining in a small Italian village. The glassed-in outer rim tables are a sidewalk café experience without the noise or weather, and the garden feels like a grotto even in busy downtown Doylestown. Imported meats and cheeses from Italy are sold in their café across the street from the flagship restaurant, and the adjacent Pag’s Wine Bar has a modern, urban feel that is ideal for meeting over drinks and snacks. Unique offerings like the tuna pizza — not to be missed — set their menu far apart from typical American-ized Italian fare.
How did you choose the name of your restaurant?
KS: Raouf decided while listening to his music. He knew all about Niccolo Paganini, the virtuoso violinist who was from Naples. We thought it was perfect for the name and for the décor, which features prints of Naples.
Relocating from Paris to Doylestown had to be somewhat of a shift. Any interesting stories from that move?
KS: When we decided to open Paganini, we were the first restaurant in the area to have an authentic cappuccino machine, imported from Italy. The health inspector came to check out our place for certification and he didn’t know what to do about that machine. He had never seen one before.
Did you raise a family along with the business?
KS: A daughter and a son. Our daughter was born in Paris and recently returned to live there. However, Doylestown has been a big part of our children’s lives.
You traded up from the small place across the street to the imposing Flatiron Building and added the café and wine bar. Quite an increase in pace, with a family in tow.
KS: We opened our first restaurant in 1990 and set boundaries between our home life and the restaurant from the beginning. We had to or it would never have worked.

Kristin and Michael Meil
Meil’s Restaurant, Stockton, NJ
The Meils were destined to create a menu featuring some of the best home-cooked meals in the region. When most first hear of the restaurant — and sooner or later everyone does — they hear the name as “Meals.” Its location, on a busy intersection in Stockton, is not the kind of place you discover walking along the street. Yet it boasts a loyal following that grows yearly by word-of-mouth. Comfort food, yes, but created with a flair and the kind of finishing touches that are missing in your own kitchen. And are better enjoyed anyway with a group of like-minded diners.
Tell me about your journey together in business.
KM: Ah, the restaurant business. A love-hate relationship. An addiction.
It started in 1972 when waitress Kristin Kunkle met waiter Michael Meil at The Black Bass Hotel. It was a working relationship that quickly developed into a love affair little girls dream about. We were married in 1976. Michael is a Northeast Philly boy weaned on hoagies, so, in 1977, we opened Mike’s Hoagies & Steaks, just before the birth of our first child, Sarah. With the arrival of our second child, Anna, we sold the business and took restaurant jobs, alternating work and childrearing. Along came Adam, and when he entered the first grade, we opened our first full-service restaurant behind a bar in Lambertville. Our menu was a combination of my grandmother’s Pennsylvania Dutch cooking influence and the Gourmet magazines I devoured every month along with the carry-over hoagies and steaks.
In 1990, we moved upriver to Stockton. Our game plan was to serve people food they no longer prepare at home, breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week.
Our strengths and weaknesses complement each other very well, a polite way of saying we really don’t agree most of the time. When we are working together for any length of time, the employees tells us it’s time for one of us to go.
It is still an addiction. We’re surrounded by a great collection of artwork on the walls that we’ve traded for Meil’s food over the years with local artists. Adam is an electrical engineer and shows up on Saturday nights to wait on tables. Anna is a teacher, baking at the restaurant in the summer, and Sarah is a lawyer, with her office right across the street.
The day ends at home with our dog, Yogi, and the man I fell in love with 38 years ago. Now that’s an addiction I can live with.

Estella and Dennis Foy
Dennis Foy, Lawrenceville, NJ
Fate played a role in helping the Foys to find themselves as business partners of the former Lawrenceville Inn after Dennis first consulted for a previous owner. They have successfully married their upscale New York City tastes with the availability of fresh, locally-grown produce from the lush farms of New Jersey to create a unique town and country dining experience. The ambitious but reasonably-priced menu is complemented by the contemporary furnishings in the four dining rooms of the two-story restaurant. Of special interest to Food Network junkies and those who like to be close to the action is the 16-seat, open-kitchen dining area.
Running a restaurant means long hours. Running it as a couple, how do you set boundaries between your home and work lives?
EF: The concept of lifestyle, rather than work-employment-occupation as a business life model, is more appropriate. Dennis and I have had many discussions concerning the conceptualization and differences between going to the restaurant and going to work; as work implies labor, which as a foundation for our engagement in this process, is not part of our lifestyle.
How did you meet and then decide to become restaurateurs?
EF: We met in NYC, in the late 1980s. Dennis consulted when the inn was originally established. In fact, he recommended at that time that the owner secure and acquire the rights to the name, “Lawrenceville Inn.” When called back recently to consult once again, we made an offer for the property.
How different are your days in Lawrenceville from the life you knew in New York?
EF: The standard reply would be the richness of the country air, the ease of travel, a slower pace; all the issues that address the quality of life, time in abundance. Yet, while we seem to be looking at the richness of just juiced oranges, in NYC, one approaches the glass with a straw, separating the pulp and occasional seed before sipping the nectar. Here, in the country, one is amazed that such freedom is made so readily available by a simple squeeze and that the separated seed, if discarded properly, will find a phoenix who unknowingly will replant the seed that in some future time will nourish yet another generation of recently released tree dwellers.

Marcia Durgin and Paul Rizzo
Crossroads Bake Shop and Café, Doylestown
Durgin and Rizzo have combined their considerable talents to create a variety of fresh-daily baked breads and pastries that are hard to find outside of a bakery in France. Renowned far and wide, their offerings put health first, but you would never know that from the sumptuous taste of their handmade, artisanal goods. Although the specialty cakes and pies are beautifully turned-out enough to give as gifts, their bakery items quickly become an everyday addiction for anyone who takes the first step into the inviting café and orders his first olive roll.
The philosophy behind Crossroads is very pure, incorporating good science and good taste. Are all decisions made jointly?
MD: Except for financial decisions, Paul and I work pretty independently. We have complete control in our own departments. Paul is in charge of quality control and product development in the bread department, and I am in charge of it in the pastry department and café. We consider each other to be “experts in our own fields,” so to speak, and try not to interfere.
What’s your secret for making it work?
MD: Well, I don’t know if it’s really possible to separate our home and work lives. But we have a few “rules” to help. One that the kids made up is that the there is no “bakery talk” allowed at the dinner table. For a while there was a penalty of 10 pushups if the rule was broken.
Also, Paul and I try to have a business meeting once a week. It can never be when the kids are home, or when we are at the bakery, so we have to grab the time when it becomes available. If we didn’t have this meeting, the stress of the bakery kitchen would just bubble over into the home kitchen.
One improvement we made recently is that we made Kim (our retail manager of 10 years) a general manager. She does a lot more of the interacting with Paul on day-to-day decisions, so I can focus more on the items that need attention, like new products and marketing.
Your olive rolls are the gateway bakery item for most of us. How has the deceptively humble-sounding morsel become your signature product?
MD: Paul and I both worked at a bakery in Boston that made an olive roll. It was really good, but we felt we could improve it. You can only pack so many olives in a bread before you destroy its texture. Hand rolling extra marinated olives into the dough was the solution.

Patty and Frank Lyons (top) & Kelly and Sean Vliet
The Continental Tavern, Yardley

The Vliets and Lyonses have created the sort of restaurant and bar that every neighborhood wishes it had. Superior versions of pub favorites, with discounted beers on Sunday, old-fashioned touches such as a ladies night, special pottages and an entrée menu for the hungrier diner. Clearly four “cooks” do not necessarily spoil the soup.
It’s complicated when two people make decisions. In your case, it’s four; two couples!
SV: Frank and Patty are Kelly’s parents and my in-laws. Interesting dynamic!
How do you divide the work?
FL: The first thing we did was to identify the duties involved in managing a restaurant. We created an organizational chart assigning each duty to a partner. We meet regularly to discuss major issues, but the individual duties are generally left up to the person responsible.
How did you ultimately decide to run a restaurant business together?
FL: Sean and [I] often discussed the Continental as an under-exploited business. In the summer of 2007, Sean learned that it was up for a private sale. We wrote a business plan as a means of analyzing the venture.
SV: We weren’t looking to get into the restaurant/bar industry. We all live close to the Continental and saw a very interesting opportunity.
Does work end when you go home — and vice versa? Are children involved?
FL: [We] have seven children. We’re not sure it is completely necessary to separate work from home. Having meals together on an almost daily basis is a big life change for us. We often use this time — especially during breakfast — to discuss issues regarding the business and to bounce ideas off of each other.
Most of our children have worked in the tavern since we purchased it two years ago, so it has become an extension of our home. We have even started having Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners there. This way we can fit the entire clan and have friends join us.
SV: Kelly and I have three children. We have learned to leave the restaurant at the restaurant. I take off one night of the weekend so we can have time together as a family. We are lucky to have found dynamic, smart employees who have assumed a great amount of responsibility.