Chad Dillon

Chad Dillion is a restauranteur and tech entrepreneur born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from Howard University, Chad landed his first major tech position with a leading multinational tech corporation, Microsoft. After his time at the company, he created one of the first mobile music streaming and social apps, SongPlay, launched in 2013. After acquiring the app, he moved to Atlanta in 2015, continuing his entrepreneurial journey but expanding into the nightclub and hospitality space. In 2019, Chad stepped out on faith and opened The Boiler Seafood Atlanta in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Atlanta, Buckhead. The restaurant was a huge success, garnering over $7 million in earnings within its first year amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and is continuing to grow. Dillon’s portfolio includes The Seafood Menu, The Boiler, Sugar Baby Creamery, and more. Below is our conversation with Chad.

Q. What inspired you to get into the food industry?

A. I noticed a niche was missing. Crab legs were one of the hottest crazes when I came to Atlanta from New York. I noticed they didn’t have not one crab legs spot. So, there were no crabs in the whole vicinity of Atlanta. The closest thing was Juicy Crab, and that was in Smyrna. I got the idea that if I put some crab legs in the middle of the city, it would work, and that’s what happened.

Q. How did you find yourself gaining the capital to even open restaurants?

A. I had a social media app when I was in New York that was acquired by Microsoft. That gave me the capital to go into other business investments.

Q. What made you get into tech?

A. My app was more like a streaming app. I predicted streaming ten years ago, and I was always big in the music scene, like the nightlife scene. I predicted that music would go into streaming and the benefits of streaming, and that’s how I got into tech while just dealing with music.

Q. Are there other industries you would be willing to tap into?

A. I’m building six restaurants right now. Once all those are open, I plan to return to tech. I have a couple more ideas in the tech industry and more apps I want to launch. Once I finish with this hospitality industry, I plan to return to tech and real estate. I plan to revisit those two industries once I’m done with the hospitality industry. I’ve noticed many commercial properties I now lease and plan on owning. So, I want to own most of my commercial property. My next move is real estate, where I can own the land and be there for 30 years, a hundred years, and not depend on a lease. That’s my next big initiative to own property.

Q. What were some of the steps that you took to even get into the hospitality industry?

A. The concept was the biggest thing, being creative and creating a concept people would want to visit. So, I think the first step I took was building a brand and creating a brand I know people want to visit. So, it’s bigger than just the food. Like the food is good, yes, but I wanted to build a brand where it could be nationwide, franchisable, or something that everybody knows. So, when I started the boiler, everything in it was clean regarding the logo. Everything was commercial, the design of the place, the phrase we used, the slogan, everything was more commercial based. So we could grow big as a brand.