It’s common wisdom not to take your work home with you, but that can be difficult when you are married to your business partner. For two couples, the Jackmans and the Siteks, who own several local restaurants, the balancing act between the professional and the personal can be difficult at times, but it can also make the trials and tribulations of the restaurant industry worthwhile.
David and Lydia Jackman own Wildweed, the critically acclaimed, pasta-centric restaurant recently named on Esquire’s list of “America’s Best New Restaurants.” The Jackmans’ marriage has its roots in the food world; they met in 2018 at a Nashville bar called Dino’s. David, who had previously worked in Nashville, was visiting from Vancouver, while Lydia worked at Dino’s but was preparing to move to Cincinnati.
“Lydia was working at both Dino’s and Henrietta Red,” David said. “She made me a cheeseburger. We got talking and the rest is history.”
After Lydia moved to Cincinnati, David came to visit her and loved the Queen City as much as she did. During the pandemic, they opened a restaurant in Nashville, but when they had their daughter, they realized that they wanted to raise her in Cincinnati. The community they’d had in Cincinnati made that decision easy.
After running the Wildweed pop-ups since 2018, the Jackmans opened the restaurant Wildweed in 2024 — but the restaurant’s roots go much further back. Both Jackmans have several years of restaurant experience — 22 years for David and 12 for Lydia — so the journey from working in restaurants to owning one was a natural progression. To the Jackmans, ownership means creating ideas as well as executing them. The Jackmans are involved in both aspects, but they have different roles according to their strengths.
“David definitely is creative with culinary. We can both cook but he’s definitely a little more skilled than I am in that regard so he takes over a lot of the creation,” Lydia said. “My role is more guest relations. I help with production.”
Cincinnati culinary power couple Anthony Sitek and Haley Nutter-Sitek echo that sentiment. Anthony handles back-of-house operations, such as creating recipes, while Haley has traditionally handled front-of-house operations before stepping back a bit to raise the couple’s children. Together, they can see their vision come to life and understand each other’s stressors.
“If he has a bad day, I mostly know what caused that. It’s a deeper depth of understanding because I get it because I was also there,” Haley said.
Haley is a Cincinnati native, and after meeting in culinary school and moving around a lot, the Siteks finally settled in Cincinnati. They felt that in Cincinnati, they could achieve the work-life balance they needed, and they wanted to get in on the rising food scene. They opened Crown Republic Gastropub in 2018, expecting to stick to one restaurant, but diners liked their made-from-scratch approach so much that they agreed to take over space after space, and piece by piece their empire grew. The Siteks are at the helm of Crown Restaurant Group, which owns Losanti, a steakhouse that prides itself on effortless elegance; Rosie’s Italian, a nod to Anthony’s Italian heritage and New Jersey upbringing; Crown Cantina, a Mexican restaurant with an entirely gluten-free kitchen; Five on Vine, which combines elevated techniques and comfort foods, like Crown Republic Gastropub; Young Buck Deli, which serves casual, accessible lunch options; and the soon-to-be-opened Marigold, a British-style public house with English and Indian flavors. The diverse options found within Crown Restaurant Group focus on foods that are at once familiar and accessible and unique and elevated.
“The only way to sustain ourselves, really, is to grow,” Anthony said. “If we were to only have Crown Republic to this day, we would go out of business, due to the ebbs and flows of the market. We have been really blessed with our staff. They have grown with us and want to grow further.”
Running a restaurant with one’s spouse can be wonderful, as it means having a support system to depend on. However, it can be challenging, especially with children in the mix. Any relationship, be it romantic or business, comes with conflict.
“I think the biggest challenge can be finding separation from work,” David said. “Making sure work stays at work and doesn’t come home with you.”
“I try not to ask him about every single thing that happened during services as soon as he gets home from work,” Lydia said.
To keep their work life separate from their family life, the Jackmans set up strict boundaries. Sunday is the day where they leave work at work and focus on family life.
The Siteks are still learning to balance their business partnership and their marriage and parenting their three children. Although they spend a lot of time together at work, they don’t always have time to connect. The Siteks live near Kings Island, and the commute allows them to decompress, talk about their days and discuss their needs and expectations.
“We need that 35-minute commute because it gets us ready to get to work, and then that decompressing time to get home,” Haley said.
“With the state of the industry, that’s probably put the most strain, because it’s hard for us to step away, especially me, from operations if they’re not going well and allowing the team we’ve put in place to fix them,” Anthony said. “With the ebbs and flows over the past couple of years, it has made it difficult, but we have figured out how to navigate it together.”
Wildweed, 1301 Walnut St., Over the Rhine. More info: wildweed-restaurant.com.
Crown Restaurant Group, crgcincy.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Feb. 5 print edition.
This article appears in Feb 5-18, 2025.