Cynthia Campbell’s life is about to change. Her rounding tummy betrays part of the reason, and the environment she works in – Des Moines Bravo! Cucina Italiana, where she is the assistant general manager – explains the rest. Babies and the restaurant business are as compatible as a pair of sous chefs both jockeying for the executive chef’s approval.

Campbell and Jason Kapela, the restaurant’s executive chef, are excited about the approaching birth of their daughter, an event expected to occur around mid-April, but anxious about what it means for Campbell’s career. She almost certainly will have to step away from a job that has placed her in an elite crowd: women in front-of-the-house restaurant management positions.

In Chicago, where her job with a local chain put her in management positions at a dozen restaurants, she became accustomed to the “old-school boys’ club that’s all about shaking hands and rubbing backs” and had dealt with her share of disgruntled customers who couldn’t be placated unless allowed to vent to a male manager. “It’s hard for many female managers to get respect,” she said.

Though she says she enjoys that in her current job, a shortage of child care during the odd hours “restaurant people” work, not an impermeable glass ceiling, is driving her decision to either leave the restaurant, at least temporarily, or return from maternity leave in another capacity. “To be able to work the same hours is just not feasible in the restaurant industry,” she said. “Wanting to work 8 to 5 – that would be asking a lot from my fellow managers, but that is when day care is available.”

Campbell admits she’s “torn about it.”

“It’s going to throw a big corkscrew into things,” she said. “The next step would be general manager. I’ve always wanted a family, but it’s hard to find balance.”

Finding ways to spend time together away from work has been a challenge for Campbell and Kapela. Their shifts overlap, but start at different times. They try to schedule at least one day off together each week, but for the most part, their relationship has developed around their jobs. Both said that has strengthened it.

Working together in the high-pressure restaurant industry has given each insight into how the other handles stress without emotions clouding it. “We know more facets of each other’s personality than some couples,” Campbell said. “We see each other in stressful situations that are not personal – the good side, the ugly side.”

“We did a lot of good fighting before we got together,” Kapela said.

That “good fighting” stemmed from healthy disagreements on how to achieve one goal they agreed on – uncompromising high standards at Bravo! – and “that’s been good for the restaurant,” Kapela said.

To some extent, the conversation between the two still ref;ects some of that.

“I’m the boss,” Kapela said in mock seriousness.

“You’re a half-step ahead,” Campbell answered, her index finger and thumb almost touching as she illustrates the difference in their positions.

The playfulness of the banter belies the seriousness of the discussion. Kapela’s is the better-paying position of the two, so his offer to stay home with their baby is dismissed as a matter of economic practicality. “This could be a new chapter, where I’ll take myself off the floor and find something else,” Campbell said, exploring her options.

Regardless of which career path she takes, Greater Des Moines is home for the couple. She’s a Dubuque native who also lived in San Francisco, and he’s a Cleveland native whose career took him to more populous cities before he came to Iowa in January 2005. They think Greater Des Moines is the perfect size – big enough to offer diversions, but small enough that getting to them doesn’t eat up most of the day.

“Even before we met, I decided I was staying here,” Kapela said. “Big cities really start to wear you out. Take Dallas. No matter where you’re going, your have an hour commute.

“Chicago was the same,” Campbell said. “It felt like you were always in transit.”

They’ve found most of what they need here and are confident that what isn’t available today will be provided soon in a Central Iowa building boom that shows no signs of slowing down and is responding to the needs of the after-hours crowd.

As the service industry grows, savvy nightclub and entertainment venues are learning that workers in that sector “work hard and play hard,” as Kapela puts it, and have responded with “SIN,” or service-industry night, specials on Sundays and Mondays, nights that many restaurants are either closed or serve few customers.

“There’s no big sports team, here, but you can’t get a pitcher of beer at Wrigley Field, either,” Kapela said, praising the courtesy extended to beer-drinking Iowa Cubs fans at Principal Park. “Des Moines has everything you need.”

Well, almost everything. Campbell and Kapela are more interested in finding an around-the-clock child-care center than a bar that offers cheap martinis on Monday nights.