Meet Chad Dillon, the founder and owner of The Boiler Seafood and Crab Boil, a Black-owned restaurant based in Atlanta. The restaurant is renowned for serving fried lobster tails, fried king crab, fried catfish, hushpuppies, and more.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Dillon, whose parents are from Jamaica, has always had a thing for entrepreneurship and market gaps. His entrepreneurial skills helped him to spot the market gap and bring the seafood boil experience to Atlanta.
“I found that as Atlanta’s outskirts were growing in the seafood boil industry, the actual city of Atlanta hadn’t been tapped into,” he told Travel Noire. “So I created and launched a seafood boil restaurant, The Boiler Seafood, in Atlanta’s most prominent neighborhood, Buckhead.”
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Prior to that, he had wanted to be a franchisee of The Juicy Crab but was denied, according to Travel Noire. This led him to risk it all with his concept, resulting in the birth of The Boiler Seafood and Crab Boil.
To start his restaurant business, the 31-year-old acquired a building lease in Atlanta’s prominent Buckhead neighborhood in August 2019. Despite the pandemic, he remained resilient and determined to bring his business vision to life.
The restaurant was eventually opened in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. The firm soon gained popularity, becoming Buckhead’s number-one seafood and crab boil restaurant. After less than two years in operation, his restaurant has already generated $8 million in sales.
“I am a thinker and innovator, so even without a culinary background, I enjoy finding voids in the business market and creating solutions; creating restaurant concepts from ideation to execution, coming up with new menu items, and creating amazing customer experiences,” he told Travel Noire.
“I’m also very hands-on. I spend about 10+ hours a day being in the restaurant, running errands, and handling needed logistics for the restaurant.”
Dillion launched his restaurant business with no culinary background. What is more, he has managed to build The Boiler into an ATL hotspot. Meanwhile, the restaurant has welcomed some celebrities, including Allen Iverson, Offset, Queen Najia, Ja Rule, and others.
Dillon credits his early success in the restaurant business to his dedication and consistency.
