Family food doesn’t necessarily lead to family feuds
Many veterans of the restaurant industry liken working in the kitchen, serving tables, and spending hours with the same people every day to being part of a family. But for those who own and operate restaurants with their brothers and sisters, their restaurants are tru extensions of their homes and families. Sibling-run restaurants are places where the ties of brother- and sisterhood can sometimes be tested, and the line between professional and personal relationships is blurred to near-invisibility.
When we set out to write a story about these restaurants, we were expecting to hear salacious tales of sibling rivalry and middle-child syndrome. But for the restaurateurs we spoke with, working with a brother or sister (and sometimes both) instead has brought them closer, made them recognize one another’s strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately solidified their bonds. For these teams, the recipe for a successful working relationship is a balance of trust, creative compatibility, and complete honesty.
Trust me
For sisters Carla and Christine Pallotta, co-owners of the North End’s Nebo (90 North Washington Street, Boston, 617.723.6326), the best part about running a business together — this is their second go at it; they worked together at the Reading hair salon Carla opened when she was just 22 — is their confidence in each other. “It’s very hard to trust that somebody is going to love something and care as much as you do, and work as hard,” Carla says.
Babak Bina and his sister Azita Bina- Seibel, owners of Lala Rokh (79 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, 617.720.5511), Bin 26 Enoteca (26 Charles Street, Boston, 617.723.5939), and the new Bina Osteria and Bina Alimentari (581 Washington Street, Boston, 617.956.0888), agree that familial trust is the bond that keeps their nearly 20- year-old business relationship booming. “I trust him with my eyes closed,” says older sister Bina-Seibel, “so I never question what he does.”
Not only do Bina-Seibel and her brother have complete faith in each other when it comes to carrying out the vision they have for their restaurants, but the same is true of their finances. In a business where gobs of cash are constantly changing hands, it’s refreshing not to have to worry about getting burned by an unfaithful partner. “Our lives depend on each other,” says Bina. “The trust comes a lot more easily because she’s my sister, so we can really concentrate on what we’re doing.”
The twentysomething duo behind Financial District eatery and bar J.A. Stats (99 Broad Street, Boston, 617.357.8287) also think confidence in each other is the crux of what makes for a successful — and smoothly-run — endeavor. “You have to go into business with someone you trust,” says Jimmy Statires, the older of the Stats. “And who do you trust more than your brother?”
Bob and David Kinkead of Sibling Rivalry (525 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.338.5338), who put dueling cooking styles at the heart of their restaurant’s menu, say their dynamic is ideal for working together. “We have a very good relationship that’s high in trust and low in drama,” David says. In the restaurant business, he says, “there’s a lot of transient people, and unfortunately, people who are not trustworthy. We don’t have that; that’s totally eliminated from the stress of running a business.”
Checks and balances
When people refer to their better halves, they’re not usually talking about a sibling. But in the cases of the teams we talked to, working with a brother or sister draws out the best in them. “We are, in a way, an apple split in half,” says Bina of his professional relationship with his sister. “My fault is that sometimes I get too many balls in the air at once. We really help each other by filling in what the other person’s weakness is.” But, he admits, his sister’s weaknesses are few. “She is one of the strongest people I know. She is relentless in making sure what she’s imagined in her head is delivered.” Some might consider that a fault, he notes, “but a weakness? No. It makes her who she is.”
Bina-Seibel sees her brother in a similar light, and says that one of the qualities she most admires is his ability to bring equilibrium to their operation. “He never lets his emotions get in the way of business decisions. Even though he could be boiling up, he keeps his cool. I’m hard- headed and he’s more rational; that brings balance.”
The de Magistris brothers, the trio behind Dante (5 Cambridge Parkway, Cambridge, 617.497.4200), attribute working well together to their diverse job experiences. “They went to school and did other things,” says Dante of his older brother, Filippo — whose resume includes stints at a bakery, a sculpture foundry, and making and selling wine — and his younger brother, Damian, a former maître d’ at New York City’s Town restaurant who holds an MFA in writing. “That’s why they’re the smarter ones in the family,” he jokes, “and I’m stuck cooking all the time.” For them, this division of the workload — Dante in the kitchen, Damian at the front of the house, Filippo running the wine program — is successful because they each focus on their own fortés. And perhaps more important, it ensures that they don’t often get on one another’s nerves. “We have different areas of expertise and focus,” says Dante. “If we were all in the kitchen, it wouldn’t work — three cooks messing up one stew.” At Nebo, the Pallotta sisters’ divergent — but equally fun and boisterous — personalities lend themselves to a distinct separation of responsibilities: Carla works the front of the house, greets customers, and handles most of the business side of Nebo, while Christine spends more time in the kitchen, ensuring that food preparation and delivery go off without a hitch.
According to Christine, people — patrons and employees alike — tend to gravitate to Carla. “People absolutely love her,” she says. “She’s got such a personality.” As a result, Carla is often the pseudo-diplomat, the sisters agree. “I know she gets more upset than I do,” says Carla, “so I often act as the buffer between her and the employees.” The sisters are the restaurateur equivalent of complementary colors — they work well on their own, but together, they truly shine. Says Carla: “I think we balance each other out.”
The non-compete
Spending most of your waking hours with the same person — especially a brother or sister — must lead to some screaming matches, right? Not exactly. According to the siblings we talked to, brawls don’t break out very often. But the lighthearted, easy relationships the de Magistris brothers have with one another now came after years of spats typical of a house full of boys. “There was yelling, screaming, breaking mirrors,” recalls Dante. “We had this great game called ‘push off the bed.’ I’m surprised none of us has big gouges in our heads from it.”
“Well, I have a scar here,” Damian interjects, pointing to a spot above his eyebrow, “from hitting the corner of a wall in a pillow fight” with Filippo.
“People like to think it’s like a cooking competition,” says David Kinkead of Sibling Rivalry’s name and menu theme. “And they love that idea because of Iron Chef.” But in reality, the dynamic in the restaurant — and in the brothers’ personal relationship — is anything but competitive. “It’s just a regular, normal kitchen,” says David, “where we just execute two menus.”
In fact, the only notable disagreement the Kinkeads — two of a whopping 10 siblings — had was over something all brothers have surely argued about at some point: a flat-screen TV. David wanted to have a TV at the restaurant’s bar; Bob didn’t. So who won that little tiff? “There’s a big, beautiful television at the bar, and people come and watch sports,” says David, his smile nearly audible over the phone. The difficult part for the Kinkeads is that when their opinions do differ on something, there’s no higher authority to look to for guidance. “There’s no final say,” notes David. When you’re working with your older brother, you can’t tattle on him when things don’t go your way.
For their part, the Pallottas remember only one argument they had during the process of opening Nebo. “We’d bicker like sisters do, but the only fight we had was over the size of an olive-oil dish,” notes Carla. “Seriously.”
Nor are there many telltale signs of rivalry between the Statires brothers, who are just two years apart and grew up working in their parents’ restaurants in Manchester, New Hampshire, and playing on the same sports teams. They share the same group of friends, spend time together outside of work, and are steadfastly focused on their common vision for their business and the possibility of future expansion. “We used to fight as kids,” says Jimmy. “But we’ve grown past the physical part,” adds Andrew.
Still, while the bond between siblings will always exist, apparently so will the teasing. “My sister and I are still fighting,” Bina-Seibel jokes of the sister who helps her and her brother manage their Beacon Hill restaurants. But only about non- work-related things, of course. “If she wears the same jacket twice in a row, I have to pick on her about it. Or if I don’t like the color of her lipstick, I have to point it out,” she says. “She’ll always be my older sister, and I’ll always have to fight with her. That’s just the way it is.”
Bina-Seibel doesn’t often fight with her brother, a fact she credits in part to their six-year age difference. “It makes a difference in how the relationship develops,” she says. “He’s my little brother; we never had any problems.”
From this day forward
So now that these brothers and sisters have had the experience of owning and operating restaurants together, would they ever share the helm with a non- sibling? Having worked alongside her sister for years, Carla Pallotta says she would find it difficult to go into business with someone she’s not related to. “It’s about work ethic,” she says. “I know that if something goes wrong at 3 a.m., I’ll run to it and so will [Christine]. It’s my name and my reputation.”
“It’s [like] a marriage,” says Bina- Seibel. “So for me, it’s a very serious thing. It’s like, would I divorce my husband and go marry someone else? No. I’d rather be single.”
