On today’s episode I welcome Jeff Byrd and his daughter-in-law Lauren to discuss their restaurant Two Birds Taphouse in Marietta Georgia. The restaurant is truly a family labor of love. Jeff, his wife, his son and Lauren joined forces to open Two Birds in 2016. Jeff was a recently retired attorney and had no previous experience in restaurants or hospitality and from the start took on the massive role of being the day to day operator on site, a job which he continues to this day. Lauren, who now lives in Brooklyn, had extensive hospitality experience coming into the project but had never opened her own restaurant. She is now the Director of Customer Success at BentoBox where she spends all day dealing with helping other people promote their own restaurants. On today’s episode we discuss the pros and cons of working with your family, what it's like to own a restaurant when you have never worked in one before and what it's like to own a restaurant from afar. We also talk about COVID and how it affected Two Birds and its staff, and the decisions they made that helped the restaurant make it through.