Sylvia Chan, executive chef at Tin Drum, grew up cooking at her mother's side. “She's an amazing, amazing cook,” said Chan. “She loved friends and community and she always entertained.” Chan initially helped her husband, Steven Chan, launch Tin Drum's franchising program in 2001 in Atlanta. Now she has re-enlisted at the restaurant chain serving Asia's greatest hits, as the company's website says, after the couple and two new partners purchased majority control from a private equity firm. Still with only a dozen or so locations, they are beginning a second franchising push with Chan's creations on the menu she revamped.

It's not the typical midlife crisis for restaurateurs—to earn a master's degree in architecture from Georgia Tech with a focus on the future of retail. But that has been Steven Chan's unusual path for the last few years.