Today we’d like to introduce you to Julian Rodarte.
Julian, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My father was a chef so I was born into the restaurant industry. I grew up glued to his hip in the kitchens of different restaurants because I loved to eat. When I turned 14 I told my dad I want to be a chef in your restaurant. He laughed and said, “I work hard in the restaurant industry so that you will never have to. Study to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer.” But I insisted that I wanted to be a chef. So he handed me an apron and told me the dish pit is that way, that’s where every chef starts.
So I started washing dishes and he did everything he could to make it hard for me but I loved every minute of it. I caught the restaurant bug in that dish pit and I knew restaurants is what I wanted to do. He asked me at the end of the night what I thought and I immediately asked if I could come back the next day to wash dishes. Since then I went to the Culinary Institute of America. I have worked for the Ritz-Carlton in Dallas as well as Dean Fearing. I was a corporate chef for Denny’s working on the United States menu.
I also was a Culinologist (a fancy way to say a Chef who is also a food scientist) for CTI Foods. I developed and presented soups, sauces, dressings and proteins for big chain brands all over the United States. I created a dressing for Pei Wei, a soup for Bravo Brio, and Bacon Jam for Chili’s. Then I opened Beto & Son at Trinity Groves with my father and Phil Romano. The last thing Dallas needed was another Mexican restaurant so our goal was to create the Next Gen version of Mexican Cuisine. We freeze margaritas, Pina Coladas, and rose’s tableside with liquid nitrogen, we have ceviche tower similar to the tuna towers of the Japanese sushi world.
Our goal was to create “instaworthy” and “facebook famous” food people could get excited about. Instead of just serving salsa we also make a Mexican black bean hummus that we serve with our chips. We make our own tortillas and everything is from scratch and if we don’t personally make it we source it locally like our polio bread from a panaderia right down the street. The restaurant was awarded 15 hottest new concepts in 15 American cities by Zagat, the travel channel put us on the best bars of America series and USA Today named us number 3 on the top 10 Mexican restaurants in DFW in our first year of being open.
I was also awarded 30 under 30 on Zagat’s first-ever national list. Recently I have started working with Tastemade as one of their tastemakers filming recipe videos as well as winning on food networks first season of chopped on snap chat. Last year I also represented the United States in Spains first ever International Tapas Competition in Valladolid Spain.
Has it been a smooth road?
It’s definitely been a beautiful struggle. When I was 16 my dad was bought out by his partners at one of his restaurants left without a job. I quit sports in high school to work more as a bartender to help with any of the families expenses I could.
This was my first restaurant I had ever opened. I had never written a bar menu, run front of the house operation or marketed a restaurant and it was all trial and error but we have been blessed with a lot of success and accolades. I went to school to learn how to be a chef but this has been a crash course in running a successful profitable business. I have had to take of the chef hat and put the marketing hat on the event coordinator hat on the manager hat and the beverage director hat.
These are all things I had zero experience in but I am fearless with new experience. The only fear I have is not attempting something that could be monumental in my life.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Beto & Son at Trinity Groves – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We are a Mexican Restaurant pioneering the first ever NextGen Mexican Cuisine. We specialize in experiences that you have never had at another Mexican restaurant. Our Liquid Nitrogen Margarita has gone viral nationally on youtube facebook and on the travel channel. We wanted to use everyone’s favorite dishes and cocktails and elevate them to a level never been seen before at a casual dining Mexican restaurant. Our Salsa night is one of the biggest in Dallas attracting hundreds of people every Wednesday night.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love the excitement in the Dallas food scene. We are blowing up. Dallas has something to prove to the other more well-known food cities and that being said we are pushing the boundaries to be noticed and I don’t think another city has the innovation boom that we have. I don’t really have anything to complain about. Dallas has been so good to us that I have no negativity to spread at all. Its all about positivity.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3011 Gulden Ln. Dallas Texas 75212 Suite 108
- Website: www.betoandson.com
- Email: events@betoandson.com
- Instagram: @betoandson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betoandson/
- Twitter: @betoandson1
Image Credit:
@Joe_Johnson, Kyle Ewald – Zion Media
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