Olaf Growald
There’s an old saying in the restaurant business: You date people you work with, or you don’t date at all. This adage doesn’t apply to everyone who’s worked in a restaurant, of course. Some restaurants even frown upon couples working together. But for many in the restaurant industry, dating people you work with is the norm, especially if they work around the clock — the servers and bartenders whose livelihoods depend on working as many shifts as possible, the managers for whom 12-hour shifts are the norm, the owners who practically never leave. Work lives and social lives, eventually, become one. “If you work in a restaurant, your social life will most likely revolve around it,” says Mary Perez, owner of the Enchiladas Ole restaurants in Fort Worth and North Richland Hills. “It’s fun work, but it’s also hard, hard work. Naturally, you’re going to become attracted to someone you work closely with who is going through the exact same things you are.” To ring in Valentine’s Day, three local restaurant industry couples extoll the virtues of working together in a high-stress atmosphere — and the secrets to keeping their love alive.
Olaf Growald
Patrick Walls and Carolyna Rivas | Bartenders at Little Red Wasp
Sometimes love is immediate; other times, it takes forever. For Patrick Walls and Carolyna Rivas, it was somewhere in between. It took about a year and some change for the two — both bartenders at Little Red Wasp, an upscale diner in downtown Fort Worth — to go on their first date.
“He started walking me to my car after work,” Rivas says. “That gave us extra time to talk and get to know one another.”
“What about that party?” Walls interjects.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Rivas says. “We were both at this party, and there was a guy trying to talk to me, and I wasn’t into it, but he was really persistent. Patrick saw what was going on and came up to me and put his arm around me, acting like he was my boyfriend.”
Soon enough, he was. The two have lived together now for three years.
Walls, 34, has been in the food and beverage industry since he was 20, working at downtown spots like Dirty Murphy’s and Fox & Hound.
Rivas, 10 years younger than Walls, worked at Grace, Little Red Wasp’s sibling restaurant, before going to work at LRW; both restaurants are owned by Fort Worth fine dining maven Adam Jones.
Restaurant and bar employees come and go; it’s the nature of the business. But Walls and Rivas have stayed at LRW for seven and six years respectively. He’s now bar manager, and she’s a bartender who sometimes subs as a server.
“I think staying at Wasp for so long has a lot to do with how well Patrick and I work together,” Rivas says. “The fact that we live together, work together, spend most of our waking hours together says a lot about the strength of our relationship.”
The key to any good relationship is knowing the other person, front to back, the two agree.
“We can tell when we’re, how do I say this nicely, getting in each other’s way behind the bar,” Rivas says. “I can tell when he’s getting irritated with me, and I’m pretty sure he can tell when I’m getting irritated with him.”
“Yeah, she starts snapping at me,” Walls laughs. “If you’ve got six tickets for drinks to make and three bar guests, all you want to do is focus on getting done what needs to get done. If there’s someone coming over trying to help....”
“It throws you off!” Rivas says. “Because then you have to explain to them what needs to be done. Sometimes I’d rather just do it alone. But I do snap at people when I’m busy. I think I got that from him.”
“Yes,” Walls says, “that was originally my move.
“This is why it can be a little difficult for those in the restaurant business to date outside of the restaurant business,” Walls continues. “The demands a restaurant requires of your time, the physical and emotional demands — not everyone would tolerate or understand it. But if that person works in the restaurant business, too, they get it.”
Walls says he may be a service industry lifer. Rivas hasn’t quite set her sights on a career yet, although she shares the same passion for the F&B industry as Walls.
“One of my future goals would be to open my own business,” she says. “If I stayed in the industry, I could imagine opening a restaurant. I’m not sure how he feels about that.”
Good, it sounds like. “I enjoy educating people about food, beer, wine, and whiskey, so I would love to open a place of our own,” he says. “I could imagine doing that with her, definitely.”
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Nichole and Samuel McKern | General managers at Enchiladas Ole
Restaurant romances kindled by teens and young adults often flicker, then fade.
And then, sometimes, you stay married for 21 years and have three kids.
Both in their late teens, Nichole and Samuel McKern met more than two decades ago while working at Harrigan’s, a fondly remembered restaurant and pub, similar to Bennigan’s and Chili’s.
Samuel landed a job there as a server. Nichole had been working there as a server and was recently promoted to a trainer; Samuel was her latest assignment.
Right off the bat, the two knew they were polar opposites. “She was very strong-willed and firm, and she told you exactly what she was thinking and exactly what I was doing wrong,” Samuel says. “I’m much more of an easy-going, laid-back kind of guy.”
“A push over,” Nichole injects with a laugh.
Olaf Growald
Over time, Samuel became a trainer, too. Though their personalities were dramatically dissimilar, their yin-yang sensibility brought them together. “The dichotomy of our personalities worked so well together,” she says. “Some people who are opposites like that would drive each other insane. But for us, it was appreciating and respecting each other’s differences. One completes the other.”
The two would eventually step away from the restaurant industry. Samuel focused on a career in music, touring and recording with several prominent local Christian rock bands. Nichole turned her attention toward a career in teaching and coaching. They married and had kids. The two even started working together again as pastors. Insert a “The End” here, and you’d have a nice little love story.
But their story doesn’t stop there. The two recently rejoined the restaurant world, both as general managers for the twin Enchiladas Ole restaurants in Fort Worth and North Richland Hills. On the hunt for someone to manage the properties he had invested in, Nichole’s boss, Derrek Drury, looked no further than across the room, offering the job first to Nichole, then, upon her recommendation, her husband.
“Neither of us ever thought we’d be back in the restaurant business,” Nichole says. “But it’s just like riding a bike. You get back on — you know what you’re doing in a matter of seconds.”
Landing the jobs is, says Samuel, more confirmation the two belong together. “When you work in a restaurant with somebody, you get to see the foundation of a person, especially if you’re a manager,” he says. “Your feet are constantly held against the fire — a cook messes up an order; that’s on you. A guest isn’t happy. That’s on you. One of your employees doesn’t show up for a shift — guess who gets to deal with that?
“Even when she was 18 or 19 years old, she could handle these tough situations,” he says. “That’s how I knew then that we were meant to be together. We handle situations differently, but we wind up at the same place. And that’s how I still know we’re meant to be together.”
Olaf Growald
John and Brandi Berry | Owners of Berry Best BBQ
Restaurant owners John and Brandi Berry are the faces of unwavering faith — to their business and to one another. Over the past few years, their resilience, as both a couple and restaurant owners, has been tested over and over, and each time they come through, stronger than ever, they say.
After opening the original location of Berry Best BBQ in Watauga five years ago, and winning accolades from barbecue lovers near and far, including this very magazine, the couple was forced to navigate some very rocky waters.
In 2019, the restaurant caught fire, causing significant damage to the smoker and restaurant. The restaurant was closed for weeks for repairs.
The fire forced the couple to close a second location they had recently opened at North East Mall. The cost of repairing the first location killed the second location, they say.
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Then, of course, there’s COVID-19. The pandemic was in full swing when the couple moved their Watauga store to a bigger and better space in North Richland Hills. Like a lot of restaurant owners, the Berrys had their fingers crossed that the pandemic wouldn’t rage on as long as it has.
Despite the life-changing setbacks, their restaurant — “one of our babies,” they call it — continues to do well, and they do, too.
“We depend on each other,” John says. “When things happen, we don’t blame each other. We don’t take it out on each other. We don’t criticize each other. We’ve got each other’s backs.”
Their faith plays such a strong role in their day-to-day lives that it’s no surprise to learn they met at church. Brandi, John says, was the pursuer.
“I was talking to a buddy of mine at church when she came up to me and said, ‘He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord,’ and then she walked off,” John says. “Like, who is this walking up to me and quoting scripture and then walking off?”
A hairdresser who felt an immediate connection to answer the question. The two became good friends, then started dating. Their first date was at a Chili’s.
The couple married six years ago. Between the two of them, they have a Brady Bunch of six kids.
About a year into the marriage, John brought up the idea of opening a barbecue restaurant. Egged on by his friends, who swore by the brisket and ribs John smoked on game days, he asked Brandi if she’d be interested in going into business with him.
“She was not on board,” John says, laughing. “We had just gotten married. We were about to have a baby. She was like, ‘no way.’”
Over time, Brandi came around, and the two were off and running. John handled smoking the meats; Brandi cooked the sides and desserts. That’s still the case today.
“We’re there every morning of every day we’re open,” Brandi says. “We’re not yet at the point where we feel comfortable letting other people do the cooking for us. Plus, it gives us a chance to be together. That’s been my favorite part of this — being with my husband.”
