About Jason Dady
Jason Dady is a Kearney, Nebraska native, Texas Tech University BA graduate in Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management, and California Culinary Academy alum who has been one of San Antonio’s defining culinary forces since 2001. After staging at Stars Bar and Dining in San Francisco and honing his skills at Beringer Wine Estate in Napa Valley, he returned to Texas and launched The Lodge Restaurant of Castle Hills with his brother Jake and wife Crystal, introducing San Antonio to one of its first upscale tasting menus. That was the first restaurant in what became the Jason Dady Restaurant Group, a family-owned operation helmed by Dady as chef and owner, Jake as COO, and Crystal as CFO. Over the following two decades he opened BIN 555 (2004), Tre Trattoria at the San Antonio Museum of Art (2007), Two Bros BBQ Market (2009, named one of Texas Monthly’s Top 50 BBQs in the world), Range (2017), Jardin at the San Antonio Botanical Garden (2020), Tre Pizzeria Boerne (2024), and Mexico Ceaty.
Dady has been named Best Chef in San Antonio by the San Antonio Current and San Antonio Magazine (2013, 2018), 40 Under 40 Rising Star by the San Antonio Business Journal (2008), and is a James Beard Foundation Award Semifinalist (2012). He is a San Antonio UNESCO Chef Ambassador and has appeared on Food Network’s Iron Chef Gauntlet (2017), Beat Bobby Flay (2017), and BBQ Brawl, as well as Travel Channel’s Delicious Destinations by Andrew Zimmern, Food Network’s Man Fire Food, and The Today Show.
Episode Overview
In this episode, André Natera sits down with Jason Dady to talk about what it actually takes to hire 196 people in one week, and what that kind of staffing challenge reveals about how he runs his restaurant group. The hiring blitz is not a hypothetical. It happened. And the fact that the Jason Dady Restaurant Group was able to execute it speaks directly to the systems, culture, and community relationships that Dady has spent more than two decades building in San Antonio.
The conversation covers Dady’s full career arc from The Lodge’s tasting menu origins through the expansion of the restaurant group, the family ownership structure that keeps decision-making fast and values-driven, and the philosophy behind opening concepts as different as Two Bros BBQ Market and Jardin at the Botanical Garden. They also talk about what San Antonio has meant as a market, what it means to be a UNESCO Chef Ambassador, how television appearances like Iron Chef Gauntlet and Beat Bobby Flay actually affect a restaurant business, and what Dady has learned about building a team that can scale without losing the familial culture he built from day one.
Topics covered in this episode:
- How the Jason Dady Restaurant Group hired 196 people in one week and what that required operationally
- Building a family-owned restaurant group with brother Jake as COO and wife Crystal as CFO
- The Lodge Restaurant of Castle Hills and how it introduced San Antonio to fine dining tasting menus in 2001
- The philosophy behind opening radically different concepts: BBQ, Tuscan Italian, Mediterranean, and fine dining
- Two Bros BBQ Market and what Texas Monthly’s Top 50 BBQ recognition means for a restaurant brand
- What it means to be a San Antonio UNESCO Chef Ambassador and how it shapes his approach to the city
- How Iron Chef Gauntlet, Beat Bobby Flay, and other television appearances affect a restaurant business
- Building a team culture that scales across multiple locations without losing its familial quality
- What twenty-plus years in one market teaches you about running a sustainable restaurant group
Guest
@chefjasondady
@chefjasondadyrestaurants
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