Written by Jeremy Lahey (Atascosa Voices)

Atascosavoices@gmail.com

It was close to 2 p.m. on a hot Tuesday in September. I had just barely finished work for the day, so I hurried to Poteet and arrived at The Backyard Kitchen. The restaurant hadn’t opened yet, and the entrance gate was locked. I drove through the exit to their parking lot, texted Brad that I was there, and found a seat under the pavilion.

 “18 and Life” by Skid Row blasted from the pavilion's speakers, one of my favorite songs. I resisted the urge to headbang and focused on my notes.

I chose the pavilion because it was the building right in front of me. It had large ceiling fans, so I didn’t think the heat would be an issue. But it got toasty.

I sat at a wooden picnic table in front of a small stage with Brad’s face painted on a fence. He was giving a thumbs up, with the quote, “Peace, love, burgers.”

To my left was a children’s play area with a large slide and climbing space. Signs next to the railing warned parents that if they didn’t watch their kids, they would be sold to the circus.

Even empty, the place had a personality.

Brad walked out from the other side of the pavilion. He was wearing a red baseball cap and a white T-shirt.

“What’s up, bro?” he said, like he’d known me forever.

I had only just talked to Brad through text to set up this interview.

He shook my hand and sat down. I explained what this project was about, and then we started the interview.

I wanted to know where The Backyard Kitchen started.

The Poteet burger joint had humble beginnings in an ice cream truck, with Brad and his family selling across Atascosa County. Brad’s father and stepfather were both their own bosses, which kept the idea of owning his own business brewing in his mind. His culinary background ultimately led him toward owning a business in the food industry.

The Backyard Kitchen quickly became a community hub, especially after COVID and the winter storm of 2021. That’s when Brad realized he wasn’t just opening a restaurant. He was creating a community.

“I feel like they’re getting more than just a meal. They’re getting more than a burger. They’re a part of our family.”

To understand how The Backyard Kitchen grew into what it is, we first have to understand where it came from. Where Brad came from.

Brad became a parent at 16 and wanted his children to grow up in a smaller town. Brad found his family an owner-financed property in Poteet. At their young age, it was one of the few options available to them for ownership.

In 2010, Brad and his family were seeking a small town to establish roots and a foundation. Brad had previously worked at a hotel in downtown San Antonio, freshly out of culinary school. At the time, Brad said, the food-industry opportunities he was looking for weren’t available in Atascosa County.

He was, however, able to find a local fast-food joint to work at. Eventually, he became the supervisor of that restaurant. Brad and his family were determined to create a life here.

Fast forward to 2016, and Brad purchased an ice cream truck. He and his family sold from the truck for about four years. He loved every minute of earning money with his family. This was their first taste, and it only made them hungrier.

As Brad said, “That really ignited the rocket ship.”

“You just drive around and serve ice cream. It was a lot easier to maintain. You don’t have all the overhead that you do with a restaurant.”

The simplicity of the truck was something Brad loved, and it further sparked the restaurant dream. By 2020, Brad and his family had decided they wanted to buy a permanent location for a restaurant.

An empty lot filled with mesquite trees and cactus became the future location of The Backyard Kitchen. He sold the ice cream truck to fund the restaurant.

“We planted the seeds, man. We watered them, and we watched them grow.”

Spring 2020 changed everything. The Backyard Kitchen opened with two picnic tables while restaurants around the country were trying to figure out how to stay open.

“That was scary. That’s when I say I didn’t know it would become what it is today because everybody was shutting their doors down. Everybody was closing. Everybody was scared of the regulations being put on restaurants and the social distancing.”

They kept building outdoors.

Brad’s family works in the restaurant too, putting their hearts into the food and the business. But working with family comes with its own complications. The boundaries of work don’t always fit neatly over the boundaries of family.

I asked Brad what was something about owning a business that most people on the outside wouldn’t think was difficult.

“Everything that goes on behind the scenes. The blood, sweat, and tears. The arguments. The frustrations. The wanting to give up. But I would be lying to you if I told you that I didn’t think about quitting, or if I don’t ever think about stepping out of it, and the whole thing in general. It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, and it’s also one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do,” Brad said.

Those rewards sometimes come as a moment to serve the community.

It was 2021. The Backyard Kitchen had been open about a year when the winter storm hit Atascosa County hard, causing quite a stir in this small Texas town.

People lost power. Food went bad. They were in need of community more than ever.

Brad had a cooler full of product and no definite timeline for how long his power would remain on. The original property he bought when he moved here had a different electric company, one that was not yet affected. He transferred the cooler there, cooked the food, and brought it back.

He fed the people who had come hungry.

“I didn’t do it for anything else besides, ‘We’ve got all this product. We need to do something. Everybody has no power. They need a meal to eat. Let’s provide a meal.’”

At the time, Brad didn’t realize what kind of impact he was making.

“I think that’s when I realized that Backyard Kitchen was more than just a restaurant.”

The giving continued. Brad later helped give away backpacks and, through a family partnership, provided food at a local high school, where the line stretched out the door.

Time moved on. The Backyard Kitchen became a local staple, and then Brad’s life changed again.

Brad was diagnosed with cancer a few years back.

“I say opening a business is tough. Going through cancer, putting that weight on your family’s shoulders, watching my wife in tears, seeing days where she feels like she’s pulling a lot of weight, and she was. That brought me down the hardest as a man.”

“Even after you’re done with the treatment, you hit this mental stage of survivor’s remorse. You hit mental fatigue. You hit depression. That’s a lot that people never talk about. The depression side of things.”

He is still recovering physically, while his faith has become a central part of how he moves forward.

“I thank God that I found God more than ever and leaned on Him harder than I ever could. He got me out of that hole, man. He got me out of that mental struggle. He got me out of that physical struggle.”

I asked Brad if living through that changed his perspective on life at all.

He was taking chances, not waiting around to live the life he wanted. He bought a race car, is getting his CDL, and has many new ideas for The Backyard Kitchen, a food trailer being one of them.

I was curious about all of those things, most specifically, the race car. I knew there was a race track on the other side of Interstate 37, aptly named I-37 Speedway.

Racing was part of Brad’s family history. His late father raced at the San Antonio Speedway, putting a steering wheel in Brad’s hands when he was as young as 4.

If he wasn’t driving cars, he was crushing cars on the property. His uncle owned a towing business and let the kids tear them up there.

When Brad was five, he ran one of those cars head-on into a tree. Driving from such an early age taught him skills that were later put to the track when he started racing go-karts.

Present-day Brad is now honoring that part of himself with this new adventure. He even has a crew chief and is already preparing for the season. His father passed away in 2017, but Brad knows that when he barrels around the track, his dad will be there riding shotgun and keeping him safe.

The track is where Brad gets to go fast and make passes, and the CDL is where he gets to practice precision driving.

Brad’s plans for reinvesting in The Backyard Kitchen extend into the evening. He wants to add a bar, allowing the restaurant to keep serving people after dinner and creating a place where live music can play while people dance on the wooden planks. He can picture it becoming a weekend destination, the kind of place people might drive to for the evening and stay awhile.

The food trailer will give him another way to keep the kitchen’s name moving during the week, with pop-up events a few days at a time. And Brad is looking beyond the restaurant itself, too.

He doesn’t believe a restaurant is necessarily a path to millions, and franchising brings its own demands. For him, the answer is creating multiple streams of income, with CDL driving being one of those paths and other investments potentially following.

That doesn’t mean walking away from The Backyard Kitchen. Brad sees those other ventures as an investment in it. During his cancer journey, his wife had already shown that the restaurant could continue operating without him being there every minute. Now, creating more financial breathing room for the family can give Brad the ability to put more back into the place he’s building.

“We can put our energy toward that instead of being worn out throughout the week. Focus on what’s really going to be an asset and provide something to our community and our people.”

Brad also sees an opportunity in the way San Antonio continues to expand south.

“When it’s a trickle-down effect, people commute to Backyard Kitchen, and they’re going to want to do other stuff.”

For Brad, that means The Backyard Kitchen could become one stop in a larger Atascosa County experience. Someone might come for dinner, then stick around to see what else is here: a farmers market, a local shop, the skate park, a splash pad on a hot afternoon, or one of the county’s wineries.

The idea is bigger than bringing people to The Backyard Kitchen. Brad sees the restaurant as part of a community that gives people a reason to stay.

Brad’s life is entering a new chapter. His daughter recently graduated and is heading off to college to study in the medical field, while his son is preparing to graduate soon. As his children grow into lives of their own, Brad is already thinking about the moments that will bring everyone back together.

Christmases. Easters. Family gathered in the same place.

“I feel like I need to get a compound or something, a place where we can actually still enjoy Easters and Christmases instead of just being right here.”

For Brad, the next chapter isn’t only about growing a restaurant or finding new ways to make a living. It’s about building enough of a life that the people he loves have somewhere to come back to.

And at The Backyard Kitchen, that’s the feeling he hopes people find, too.

“I hope they feel like family.”

Because to Brad, they’re getting more than a meal.

“They’re getting more than a burger. They’re a part of our family.”