A romantic beginning

As people tuck themselves into the intimate corners of the restaurant for quiet meals and the sweet somethings of the evening, one couple at the Italian Kitchen will be too busy to notice. They probably won’t even be close enough most of the night to hold hands.

It seems somehow fitting that this elegant dining room, once the St. Regis Cafe and then Luigi’s, became Bryce and Lyndsay Kerr’s on a day designed for romance. Imagine the dreams shared with the meals in the decades the space has hosted Spokane restaurants.

Two years ago today, the Kerrs stopped thinking about the day they would run their own restaurant and bought the Italian Kitchen.

“Valentine’s Day was the day we stepped in … It was Feb. 14, 2005,” said Bryce Kerr, who has been working in area restaurants since he took his first dishwashing job at age 16.

“It was a Monday,” added Lyndsay.

“We had a brand new menu.” Bryce said. “We came in that morning and had a record night. It was a good day to start if you’re going to do it. You might as well jump right in.”

The Kerrs are the first to admit the experience has been a bit closer to the night terrors than anything else, although certainly worth the sacrifice.

Just ask Lyndsay, who gets up at 5 a.m. to clean the restaurant and scrub the bathroom toilets while the kids are still at home in bed. There are three children in their blended family – Connor, 11, Cayden, 4, and Caylee, who is 9 months old.

“I do that because everyone is still asleep and then by the time I get home nobody knows I’ve left,” she says.

When she returns, it’s Bryce’s turn to head to the restaurant to oversee the morning catering jobs, lunch and dinner preparations, and, well, everything else. Restaurant ownership is something of a shock to even the most experienced managers. Bryce worked for eight years as the general manager of Spencer’s at the DoubleTree, even traveling to help open restaurants for the hotel company. He also spent a year working for Black Rock, overseeing the four restaurants at the exclusive Coeur d’Alene development.

“You never really know what you’re in for and then the bills come,” he said. “It’s certainly an eye-opener.”

Less than a month after taking over, Bryce spent two nights sleeping on a bean bag next to the water heater to try to find the source of a mysterious leak that kept flooding one of the bar booths. It turned out to be a problem of water pressure that was only happening after-hours.

“Floods seem to happen, water overflows, oven doors break, ovens stop working,” Bryce said, listing the challenges they’ve faced. He admits he’s not a handyman, but he has learned to try everything he can (starting with consulting with Lyndsay) before calling someone to come fix it.

“Literally your mood lives and dies with whether we are busy or not,” he said. “If we’re busy things are terrific. If we’re slow, it’s like, ‘What’s going on – are we OK?’ “

The couple trade off so they each can have some time at home with the children when they’re not working at the restaurant. They both grew up in Spokane, and their families are here, which helps. Lyndsay’s sister works for them.

Even the kids pitch in. When Lyndsay was in the last uncomfortable months of pregnancy with Caylee, it was Connor and Cayden’s job to gather the dropped napkins and silverware under the hard-to-reach tables.

They sacrifice time together as a couple, Lyndsay said. Sunday night is the only night they’re together as a family right now. “It’s definitely a challenge. We were sitting down just yesterday mapping out a more clear schedule for us so we can have some adult, marriage time.”

But they have an ambitious plan for paying off the business loan in the next few years and then hiring someone else to run the restaurant. “We decided that we were going to sacrifice for a few years and then scale it way back,” Bryce said. “We’re on track to do that.”

If anything, the challenge of balancing business and family has left Bryce hoping for even more. Ultimately he imagines opening an elegant steakhouse with a jazz club in the basement. Lyndsay said she’ll be there every step of the way, if that’s what he wants. But she points to Caylee, who is sitting in the highchair while her brother Cayden entertains her with tickles and silly faces.

“This is my dream,” she said.