With Valentine’s Day approaching, PaperCity is showcasing a series of love stories. Not just any love stories but the sojourns of four Houston power couples who work together and combine the challenges and successes of professional life hand in hand with a loving home life. Next up: The Botellos.
Leonard Botello IV, local barbecue guru, owner and self-taught pit master behind TRUTH BBQ, and Abbie Byrom-Botello, TRUTH BBQ’s chief operating officer, have been an item for a dozen years and married for five. Founded in Brenham in 2015 and then reimagined in Houston in 2019, the barbecue juggernaut has earned national acclaim including Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition the past two years and a Top 10 ranking in Texas Monthly‘s Top 50 BBQ restaurants in Texas.
The duo met in New York where Abbie Byrom-Botello was vice president of marketing for Samsung. It took several loving years after she had moved to Houston before he took her on a trip back to New York City. They visited her old haunts and surprisingly on the doorstep of her former New York City apartment, he popped the question.
“My very thoughtful husband, who is more emotional than one would think, dropped down on one knee and said that he had ‘Brought me back to New York so he could propose to me where we originally fell in love,’ ” Abbie Byrom-Botello shares.
PaperCity: What are the challenges of running a business together and how do you over come them?
Abbie Byrom-Botello: Leonard and I process things differently, react differently and our operating speed is different. He is the artist, visionary, creator. He is the reason this train even exists. For me, I am structured, deliberate, decisive. And most of all a risk taker, where Leonard is a little risk averse.
These qualities work well for us, because we are in a space in our lives as business partners where we know each other so well that we instinctively pass the ball so to speak, without a lot of communication.
We are very in sync. But on occasion we aren’t, and the biggest thing we fall back on when that happens is trusting what our lanes are. At the end of the day, if one of us doesn’t agree, we nearly always defer to the person who is the expert in that particular lane. It makes it easier and clearer. . .
We may have different approaches or even want to make different decisions. But we are united no matter what in front of our team. That just boils down to trust, and once you have that, the rest is pretty easy.
PC: What is the best thing about building a business together?
ABB: Honestly, it can just be really fun sometimes. We both see the business so differently, and we both have such creative visions about the day to day and also the future. Those conversations and strategy sessions, planning . . . it can feel so exciting. Having spent a long time in the corporate world, I can tell you that it’s really fun for the conference room to be the dining room table and the team is you and the person you picked for life.
There’s something pretty beautiful about it. But the other thing is that building and running a business together can be very challenging. And doing it with your spouse can be the most comforting thing in those times — through it all you are partners and you have each other’s back.
Also saying Per my last email in an email to your husband makes things very amusing for me. And it’s the small things that bring great joy.
PC: How do you keep the romance in your marriage?
ABB: Don’t talk about work at home. Travel as much as possible. Don’t share a closet. Make sure to have too many bulldogs so you can bond over having too many bulldogs. (This Houston barbecue couple has three.)
PC: What is the most romantic thing your partner has done for you?
ABB: He cleans the kitchen every night. And he learned to load the dishwasher the way I like it. I PROMISE you, there is nothing more romantic.