This is going to hurt

They always warn you: This is going to hurt.

But no one ever explains how.

They don’t mention what it costs to build a dream from the ground up.

They don’t tell you that you’ll lose friends — not in one dramatic falling out, but slowly.

You’ll stop getting invited.

You’ll say “I can’t” one too many times.

Eventually, they’ll stop asking.

They don’t tell you what it feels like to have no money but still tip out your team, to dig through your glove box hoping there’s a five you forgot about so you can eat after your shift.. because honestly I cannot bare to ask our staff to make us anything at 9 PM.

No one prepares you for what it’s like to employ family — to be the one who signs a check for someone who helped raise you. To balance gratitude with frustration. To smile through tears when you realize the person you love just clocked in late, again, and you’re the one who has to address it because no one else will.

They don’t mention the financial gut-punches — like the bill you forgot, or the tax you were sure you’d already paid.

You double-checked the books. You budgeted. You tracked every dollar.

But there it is. Again. And it’s due.. tomorrow.

No one warns you about the moments you’ll be standing in your own kitchen at 4 PM on a Friday, a third of your menu already 86’d because the week swallowed you whole.

The bank account's tapped — payroll just cleared — and you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to buy enough product to survive the weekend.

That’s when you remember why Brittany took the 4 AM warehouse job. Picking and packing orders in a warehouse an hour away like a machine in fluorescent purgatory. The moment she took a box to the side of the head — some careless kid launching it from his station like it was funny.

Britt still showed up for dinner service that night.

Still smiled at every table.

Still made it feel like magic, even when her body was vibrating with exhaustion.

And then there was the night I branded my palm with a sauté pan.

We were slammed. Gnocchi for table 23 was dangerously close to ruined — our last batch. I grabbed the pan without thinking, not paying mind that the towel in my hand was wet. For those who haven’t had the pleasure: grabbing hot stainless steel with a damp towel is like wrapping your hand in boiling mist and high-fiving hell.

The handle seared into my skin like it belonged there. I didn’t stop moving.

We don’t get to stop. Because we have no other option other than to make this thing work.

We live upstairs from this place — literally.

Studio 6 Bistro is in a house, and we made that upstairs home.

But when your home is your job, your refuge becomes a reminder.

We don’t just close for the night.

We brush our teeth while the dish machine drains below us.

We fall asleep to the hum of the hood fan cycling down an hour too late.

There’s no line between work and home. Just a staircase.

And when someone casually mentions that “the front could use a little landscaping,” it cuts deeper than they know.

Because that “curb appeal” has kept me up at night.

Because we see it.

But we’re still catching up on laundry from two weeks ago and haven’t had time to weed those incessantly annoying dandelions.

Because we’re too busy surviving.

The Bistro wasn’t built on good timing or easy choices.

It was built on emotional overdraft.

On compromise.

And no, it’s not just sore muscles. It’s missed birthdays. It’s one more “sorry I can’t make it tonight.”

It’s loving something enough to give it everything, even when you feel like you have nothing left.

We’ve lost time we can’t get back. Freedom we’ll never know again. But in return, we’ve gained something most people never will:

A place that is fully, undeniably ours.

And yes, it still hurts. But if you asked us today whether we’d do it again?

We’d grab the pan.

We’d take the box to the head.

We’d smile through the shift.

And we’d say: Hell yes.

Hungry as ever, reckless as needed,

Brittany & Brady