For the married couple who bought Lebanese Grill last year, adversity piled up quickly.

Zhila Rasouli and her husband, Sean Homa, thought the restaurant would pull in certain amount of money each month based on their conversations with the previous owner.

They quickly found out the business was pulling in only a fraction of that revenue, Homa said.

A few months into their ownership stint, they suffered another setback. Early one morning in August 2018, they received a call informing them a fire had started overnight. It destroyed their kitchen and damaged roughly half of the interior space, Homa said.

Today, there is no sign the fire occurred. The couple rebuilt the kitchen and remodeled the dining area. Rasouli said the space was made to feel like a home, not a restaurant. Revenue has also jumped closer to where they expected it to be at the outset, Homa said.

Rasouli and Homa are no strangers to overcoming difficulties.

In their home country of Iran, the law prohibited Rasouli from marrying Homa, who is Muslim, while retaining her own Baha’i faith, she said. So they left years ago for Turkey, where they married and applied for refugee status.

“It was hard to start another job, another hard time here,” Homa said. “But it is life. We fight for the love. We fight for the life. Now we are OK. But we don’t know what’s going on for the future. We just try to keep this business up.”

Their path brought them in 2010 to the United States, where Homa made his way into the restaurant industry while saving to buy a restaurant of his own.

Since taking over the Lebanese Grill last year, Homa and Rasouli have updated the menu. What was once a collection of Lebanese offerings has been expanded to include Greek and Persian options as well. These options include gyros, shawarma and falafel, among other dishes.

Homa said what has helped the business is the couple’s emphasis on fresh food and a welcoming, home-like atmosphere.