My name is Ohio Crawford. I own and operate Backyard on Broadway and Overtime Bar, founded DIBS Mixers, and spend most of my time trying to make this industry harder to leave and easier to love.

I grew up watching people in this industry get chewed up and spit out. Good people. Hardworking people. People who loved hospitality but couldn't survive it.

I became one of them for a while.

Then I took over a struggling restaurant in the middle of a pandemic. Not because it was smart, but because I couldn't stop believing it could be something. I didn't write a check. I showed up every day and built equity the only way I knew how: through the work. Five years later, Backyard on Broadway is thriving. So is most of the team that built it with me.

That's not a flex. That's a clue.

Something happens when you stop treating your staff like a variable cost and start treating them like the actual product. When you build systems that respect people instead of systems that replace them. When you decide that integrity and profitability aren't opposing forces but the same value expressed differently.

I opened Overtime Bar because I wanted to prove that point in a completely different room. Same city, same standards, no pretension. A neighborhood bar that takes hospitality seriously without taking itself seriously.

I founded DIBS Mixers because quality ingredients were being gatekept behind price tags that had nothing to do with what things actually cost to make. That bothered me enough to do something about it.

I serve on the board of the Alamo Area Hospitality Association and on committees for Visit San Antonio because this industry is worth showing up for at every level, not just inside your own four walls.

I'm an Air Force veteran, an Executive Bourbon Steward, and a single malt whisky diploma holder who has visited over 75 distilleries across the United States and Mexico. I share everything I learn because knowledge hoarded is knowledge wasted.

I'm not here to tell you I figured it all out. I'm here because I'm still figuring it out, out loud, in public, in a city I love, in an industry worth saving.