Couples In The Kitchen

It's one thing to run a restaurant with a business partner, but it's another thing entirely to run a restaurant with your significant other. More and more couples these days are opening restaurants together, though, and in a lot of ways it makes perfect sense. They get to spend a lot of time together, can communicate on a different wavelength than other business partners, and can share in each other's successes.

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It's not always a walk in the park, though. The hours are long, the job is stressful, and sometimes the line between personal and professional lives can be blurred. In the end, though, one thing is for certain: running a restaurant with your significant other is ultimately incredibly rewarding.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, we spoke with six couples who run restaurants together: Karen and Quinn Hatfield of Los Angeles' Hatfield's, Mary Catherine and Donald Mikula from New York's Salinas, Tiffany MacIsaac and Kyle Bailey from Washington D.C's Birch & Barley, Brookville Restaurant in Charlottesville, Va.'s Jennifer and Harrison Keevil, Lindsay and Jesse Schenker from New York's Recette, and Jenn Louis and David Welch from Portland, Ore.'s Lincoln Restaurant.

They all had unique stories to tell and individual challenges, but there were a couple overriding secret to success: the power of good communication, knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses, and having trust in one another. And while there are plenty of challenges, nobody we spoke with had any regrets.

Do you run a restaurant with your significant other, or do you know of any who do? Let us know in the comments so we can include them down the road!

Dan Myers is the Eat/Dine Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow him on Twitter @sirmyers.