Bernie Utchenik, a.k.a. Botak Jones, the man behind the burgers and steak chain, cannot resist the opportunity to make mischief, even with a stranger.

When I cold-call him to get his wife Faudziah's contact number, he asks in a slightly offended tone: 'Is this such a male-dominated culture that you have to ask me for permission to speak to my wife?'

Before I can apologise, he gives her mobile number. He is just pulling my leg. His deadpan humour can be a little disorienting to those who do not know him. No-one understands that more than she does.

There was the time a typical Utchenik-ism in the menu caused a flap because the phrase 'you can't change the side dish in fish and chips, or else why call it fish and chips?' was taken literally by a member of the serving staff. She refused to let customers swap chips for something else, she recalls, laughing.

Mrs Utchenik, 46, known as Zee to her friends, has lived with his impish humour for over a decade.

'He won't give up making jokes,' she says, despite the head-scratching it can sometimes cause. It is a part of him she not only accepts but also enjoys, she adds.

Take their business cards. Hers says 'The Boss'. His says 'Thinks He's The Boss'.

Mr Utchenik himself puts her ability to 'get' him and his sideways outlook on life he liked about her after they first met.

He says: 'She had a very clear understanding of what comes out of my mouth. If I was joking, it was always taken as a joke. There was never any misinterpretation. It allowed me to be myself and bring us together in an intimate, intellectual way. It was very refreshing.'

They are today a team, both in marriage and in business. He's the incorrigible kidder who can put too much faith in the goodness of people. She is the wary one who reins in his tendency to be over-generous. He takes the business gambles. She's the one who throws in her lot with him, no matter what.

It is a bond that has held, even when they were on the brink of business bankruptcy and she says she has no regrets.

The couple own the majority chunk of Great Big Food, the company behind the Botak Jones chain of casual American-style eateries. There are 10 outlets, serving Cajun Chicken and Botak Burgers in HDB estates such as Ang Mo Kio, Bedok, Bukit Batok, Toa Payoh and Yishun. There are three Brewski Jones bars, co-located with the eateries in Toa Payoh, Bukit Batok and Bedok. The website and table cards bear the stamp of the managing director's dry humour.

They live near their Defu Lane office, in a small rental apartment in Rio Vista condominium in Upper Serangoon View.

Mr Mohd Yaccob Samat, 44, vice-president of operations with the company, has known the couple from the time they first met. He says Mr Utchenik's impulse is to give away more than he can afford, especially with staff.

'They came to Bernie with financial problems, like a mobile phone bill they couldn't pay,' he says. Ever the soft touch, Mr Utchenik would just give.

'Zee now steps in and says 'no', because they have to learn how to live within their means, like everyone else.'

Fittingly, she is head of human resources at Great Big Food, and handles salaries and work permits, working six days a week on average, while he works seven. If she held a normal 9-to-5 job, she would never see him, she says.

They got together relatively late in life. Both were bearing the scars of broken relationships.

Her impression of wedded life soured after her first marriage ended after 14 years. She has a son, 24, and a daughter, 19, from the marriage. She opted to have her ex-husband raise them instead of waging a custody battle, which would have made the bad situation worse.

She has not seen her children in years and misses them dearly. Their wounds are still healing, she says, and she is fearful of re-opening them if she contacted them before they were ready.

So she had to think hard about whether to take the plunge again with the 1.87m -tall, burly American.

She says: 'He is a man who means what he says. I felt very safe with him. He was the opposite of my past experience. I told myself that if I don't give it a chance, I may regret it.'

Detroit-raised Mr Utchenik himself went through two failed marriages. Both breakups took place in New Orleans, and he has no children from either marriage.

His last marriage, which lasted three years, ended in 1991, just after the time the oil industry engineer began travelling from the United States to Singapore and Malaysia, which would lead to his eventual long-term stay.

His first foray into the restaurant business was in Cherating, Malaysia. Forced by his company to take a hiatus because of an oil industry slowdown, he helped a friend run a restaurant. He always liked making people happy, he says, and that spurred him to open Bernie's in Changi.

But he had become pragmatic about commitment in relationships, he says. When he and Madam Faudziah began dating, he was already 44 and she was 35.

Being older and having gone through failed relationships meant each could take a clear-eyed measure of the other. It 'made this marriage different and kept us together through the tough times'.

He adds: 'We realise that we will probably not find anyone as compatible or as loving with each other as we are. And we are right. Luckily.'

Born Faudziah Mohd Ali in 1962, she was the fourth of seven children. Her father, now retired, was a teacher in a now-demolished Malay school in Loyang and the family lived in the school's teachers' quarters, in a three-bedroom house.

The grounds belonged to the children after school hours. There were trees to climb and space to run in. But her parents sent her to Changkat Changi Primary to get an education in English. There, she excelled in athletics, in particular, the 400m hurdles.

She later represented Singapore in the SEA Games in 1977 in Kuala Lumpur, and again in the 1983 SEA Games held here. She did not win a medal at either meet.

After her O-levels, she began working and when she met Mr Utchenik in 1997, she was a manager in a financial institution.

He co-owned Bernie's Restaurant in Changi Gardens, she worked nearby and was a customer.

It was not love at first sight, she says. At the time, her first marriage had fallen apart and he provided a listening ear. The last thing she needed was a romantic relationship, she says. He was a friend, a rock in a time of emotional upheaval.

'He is just such an honest and nurturing person,' she says.

The friendship evolved into something deeper, and he became a Muslim and married her in November 1998.

From then on, she has worked at the various Bernie's restaurants, including the last one, Bernie Goes To Town, in Boat Quay.

In 2000, the venture imploded, leaving him and investors with losses and debts totalling $500,000.

She says: 'It was very very hard for him. It was very difficult to see him like that.'

He had to sell his Land Rover and Harley Davidson motorcycle to cover part of the debt.

'There was nothing left,' she says. 'I could have gone back to my family but when we married, he promised my Dad that he would always take care of me.'

He admits to being in deep emotional distress at the time, but not showing it to protect his wife's feelings.

Their finances shattered, the pair had to downsize, fast. They left their rental flat at The Riverwalk Apartments near Boat Quay and rented a room in the Changi Heights home of former employee and close friend, musician O'Donel Levy. From then on, it was hawker centres and instant noodles for meals.

She became a temporary book-keeper in a publishing house. He scrounged for work.

There were those who advised her to break up with him. She could carry on with her life without being yoked to him and his failure. Others told him to abandon his debt and her and flee to the US.

Neither option was considered for even a moment, they both say.

She says: 'People ask me why I was still with him, even though he lost everything. I did not marry him for money, I married Bernie for Bernie. Even if we lost everything, we would not lose each other. I couldn't bear the thought of not having him by my side.'

While he stumbled about in a dazed 'dream state', as he calls it, she helped him by offering tough love.

He says: 'She would ask me, 'Are you ready to give up?' I'd say, 'Of course not'.'

From being a media darling and poster-boy entrepreneur, he became a job seeker, applying for administrative assistant positions. People he met encouraged him to have another go at the restaurant business, not knowing how despondent he felt at the time.

'My reputation was doing a lot better than I was,' he jokes, ruefully.

Eventually, they both got on their feet again, working for friends at the Home Beach Bar in Robertson Quay and the biker pub-restaurant Handle Bar. Soon, his confidence - and the itch to run his own place - returned. In 2003, the first Botak Jones opened in Tuas.

He plans to pay off the small amount of debt left over from the Boat Quay closure when Botak Jones is more secure financially, he says. He is adamant about clearing that last bit of debt from his name. Two restaurants he used to co-own are still operating, in Changi and East Coast Parkway, but he has no dealings with them today.

Pilferage bled dry Bernie Goes To Town, he believes. He is not making the same mistake twice. Like many cash businesses these days, Botak Jones outlets are wired up with cameras. Surprise visits, close scrutiny of the books and taking into account customer feedback are other preventive measures.

Still, he blames himself for taking his eye off the ball at his former business and for being too naive about people. He is much more hands-on now.

There is one more thing on his agenda. He has to make her laugh at least once a day.

'It's my mission in life,' he says, in all seriousness, though, as always, it is hard to tell.

There is a thing that he does that never fails to crack her up. 'I could do it a hundred times and it will still work,' he says, gleefully.

It is this: He pretends to laugh. With her looking on, he demonstrates, mouthing a silent ha-ha while rocking and slapping his leg.

It works. She laughs.

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At ease with each other

They first met in 1997 when he went to the bank she worked in to open a personal account. It was close to Bernie's Restaurant in Changi Garden, which he co-owned at the time.

She was the bank officer assigned to his account.

At the time, it was all business. But working in the same area allowed both to meet casually. They found they had an ease with one another they could not find with anyone else, they say.

As their relationship intensified, the matter of tying the knot was broached in oblique ways. Both had come from broken marriages previously.

The first seed was planted one morning in 1998 after a prata breakfast in Jalan Kayu. They were on the way to his home in Changi Heights, when he asked her what she thought of marriage. 'It was not a proposal, he just wanted to know what my stand was,' she says.

She told him she did not like the idea, having just come from a long-soured but recently-ended 14-year marriage. He tried the same sideways tack again soon after, in another conversation.

'I told him I would let him know when the time was right,' she says.

On Valentine's Day in 1998, they met for dinner at Bernie's Restaurant. She gave him a present. It was a recent newspaper article about the eatery, encased in a frame. On the back was written: 'Will you marry me?'

It was a playful way of saying she would be his alone, if he wanted it.

But Mr Utchenik was leery of formal contracts like marriage. 'I had been married twice before and I can't say I was looking for a third one,' he says.

A few weeks later, he gave her a 1.3 carat emerald-cut diamond set in a platinum ring. She was shocked and elated, she says. He had overcome his reservations.

She said yes, but she had to check with her siblings and two children. After her divorce, the relatives advised her to be certain, but they also said that if she loved him, she should do it.

She says: 'They were worried that he might take me away to the United States. If anything happened to the marriage, they would not be able to help.'

He assured her parents the US was a holiday venue for him. Asia was home.

In November that year, they had a small traditional Malay wedding in the Tampines home of her parents.

He says he took the plunge because, in his mid-40s, he felt he had finally come to see - and accept - just how much hard work needs to be put into a relationship for it to last. He had 'grown up', he says.

'We found ourselves growing closer and talking about more serious things. I had never felt so at ease with anyone. It's the way a relationship should progress,' he says.

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SHE SAYS:

'He jokes with a straight face. It's his American sense of humour. He went for a brain scan and the results showed nothing wrong and the doctor said: 'There's nothing there'. Bernie said: 'Do you mean I'm brainless?''

HE SAYS:

'As a company director, she's frank and honest with me at meetings. She does it in a nice way. She'll tell me if I am rude or loud or overbearing, and I have backed off quite a lot over the years'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on September 22, 2008.