About Sarah Heard and Nathan Lemley
Sarah Heard and Nathan Lemley are the chef-owners of Foreign & Domestic in Austin and Commerce Cafe in Lockhart, Texas. They met while working at Parkside in Austin in 2013 and took ownership of Foreign & Domestic in 2017, building it into one of the city’s most respected farm-to-table operations. In 2020 they opened Commerce Cafe in Lockhart, Sarah’s hometown, with the same commitment to sustainable sourcing and community-rooted hospitality. Foreign & Domestic celebrated its 15th year in 2025. Their work spans two distinct restaurant formats, a strong network of local farm relationships, and a kitchen culture built on care, ownership, and quality.
Episode Overview
André Natera sits down with Sarah and Nathan to talk about what the path from line cook to restaurant owner actually looks like when you build it together. They cover how they approach sourcing and why sustainability is an operational discipline, not a marketing position, the culture they have built across both restaurants, and how they think about waste reduction and foraged ingredients as real parts of a working menu rather than novelties.
The conversation gets into the leadership decisions that define an ownership relationship, how they split responsibilities, and what it takes to maintain quality and identity across two restaurants with different purposes. It is a grounded conversation about what sustainable restaurant ownership looks like in practice, built on over a decade of operating under real conditions.
Guest
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