The new owners of sSs BBQ Barns Tamworth started their family at the award-winning restaurant - literally.
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Jacinta Benkoe, then an employee at the steakhouse, was dealing with a rough customer in the car park when she went into labour with son Joel.
Nearly 18 years later the Benkoe family are preparing to take over a restaurant that is more important to them than just its status as a Tamworth icon.
With just days until an expected opening night this weekend, 30-year chefing veteran Jason Benkoe said he's "absolutely nervous and excited at the same time."
"Hopefully we can get the punters [back] and look after them as they were before."
They're stepping into big shoes, he said.
The couple started their careers with Graham and Marlene Manvell, so it was only fitting they'd take up their torch when the founding family made a decision earlier this year to retire from the business.
"[sSs] definitely is [a family business]. That's the way we were brought up in it. They greeted us like a family when I first came up for an interview with Graham and Marlene," said Jason.
"They took me around the town and showed me the town and brought me out to the restaurant, showed me the restaurant."
They're keeping it that way.
While mum and dad prepare the Tamworth restaurant to reopen this week, Joel Benkoe is running the Coffs Harbour sSs franchise - while completing his HSC.
It's a lot more responsibility than you'd normally give an average 17-year-old, his parents admitted.
But Joel, who plans to study medicine, said he doesn't find the juggling act too much pressure.
"It is a bit of pressure to keep up the name and keep [Coffs Harbour] as good as mum and dad have," he said.
"I enjoy it - it's like a second home. I love the challenge, I love having a lot of things on my plate."
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Graham and Marlene Manvell, who founded the award-winning restaurant in 1993, closed the doors in February. But the restaurant, once judged as cooking the best steak in NSW, was given a second lease of life when it was taken over by the owners of the sSs Coffs Harbour franchise.
The Manvells semi-retired into low-stress jobs in February, with Graham moving on into a corporate role and serving as an international cooking judge.
