San Antonio bar owner Ohio Crawford puts people first

Those mottos have shaped Ohio Crawford’s path. He caught the kitchen bug at 12, helping prepare hundreds of meals a day at Boy Scouts of America summer camps. He sharpened his discipline as an Air Force explosive ordnance disposal technician.

These days, Crawford has different targets in his sights, but the mottos hold fast. As co-owner and the driving force behind the sprawling restaurant and bar Backyard on Broadway, he has emerged as a champion for progress in San Antonio’s hospitality industry.

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He helped reverse Backyard’s foundering fortunes during a critical period early in the pandemic. He has since developed Overtime, a second bar in a neighboring space. When he isn’t wrangling staff meetings, menu changes, liquor distributors and the countless other details of running a business, he serves as community outreach director for the nonprofit Alamo Area Hospitality Association and sits on Visit San Antonio’s marketing and culinary committees.

And for fun? In his spare time, Crawford runs Dibs Mixers, which produces high-end cocktail mixers sold in bars across Texas and distributed nationwide.

In an industry known for larger-than-life characters oozing charm and charisma, Crawford stands out — not for excess, but for restraint.

Crawford comes across as a man with a mission statement. In fact, he has published one on his personal website, ohiocrawford.com, and can repeat it verbatim in conversation.

“My mission isn’t just to run successful businesses. It’s to leave the hospitality industry stronger and better than I found it,” Crawford said. “Every system I build, every leader I train, every restaurant I help … it’s all part of making this industry what it should be: a place where people want to work, businesses thrive and excellence is the standard, not the exception.”

For Crawford, that begins with people. He offers competitive pay and free medical coverage through a telehealth program. But he considers those benefits no more important than creating a sane, stable workplace where employees stay and have opportunities to grow.

The process begins before they walk through the door.

“I’m part of an entrepreneur dinner club, and we had a conversation. The question that was posed was, ‘In your line of business, what puts out fires, or what prevents fires from happening, literally or metaphorically?’ Mine was, I said, ‘My hiring process,’ ” Crawford said. “We have multiple stages of applications. Interviews are done in a very strategic way and we get to learn about people. If I get to know a person and I know how they work, what makes them tick, what motivates them, I’m able to put them in a position where they can thrive.”

Crawford is a numbers guy — the kind of person whose internal calculator or stopwatch seems to track potential product loss or the time it takes to seat a customer. That fastidiousness helped lay the foundation for pulling Backyard back into the black. When hiring, however, he looks beyond the spreadsheet.

That approach has produced an annual employee retention rate of 52% at Backyard, compared with an industry average of about 25%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Reducing the hospitality industry’s typically high turnover can save employers thousands of dollars in hiring and training costs.

“I look at the effort people put in their responses. I look at the thoughtfulness and their tactfulness, and how they speak about the previous employers. I have quite a few employees look at the resume. They’ve been three months here, six months here, four months there. You wouldn’t hire them,” Crawford said.

“But after talking to them for 45 minutes, I get to learn they were never in the right environment. You can’t put a goldfish in salt water and expect them to thrive. You’ve got to put a goldfish in fresh water, specific pH. People need to be in the right environment to thrive. So, giving those people who have not been given the right opportunity or given a chance, I want this person to be the best person they can be, and if that’s here, that’s here.”

For a man who has become the public face of multiple businesses, Crawford guards his privacy. He grew up in Columbus, Ohio. He swears Ohio is his given name and will flash an ID to prove it. He refuses to reveal his exact age (“That’s a trade secret,” he says) but acknowledges he is a Millennial.

He doesn’t go into great detail about his childhood, though he says it was far from idyllic.

“Essentially, from the age of 12, I was trying to figure things out on my own. I have a really strange perspective. I had to grow up super fast as a kid, and that definitely shaped a lot. But through that, all I learned in my childhood was adapting,” Crawford said. “When I was a kid, it was like, where am I sleeping? Where am I eating? This, that, the other. And so, being an operator, it’s very much like, ‘OK, Instead of where am I going to sleep tonight,’ it’s like, ‘How are we going to make sure that this business is going to sustain itself without sacrificing quality?’ ”

Crawford’s interest in culinary life began at those summer camps. He said he learned to research and appreciate regional flavors while working alongside a diverse range of people at camps throughout Appalachia. Before entering the Air Force, he sharpened his kitchen skills in jobs ranging from busboy to manager in Darden restaurants.

Crawford went through Air Force basic training in San Antonio. After completing his military service, he returned in 2017. Within a month, he joined the opening team at Range, Jason Dady’s chophouse in the Embassy Suites on the River Walk.

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“We identified Ohio right out of the gate of somebody that was intuitive, that was passionate about hospitality,” Dady said. “This is a loose memory here, but he might have started as a food runner and then immediately went into server role. He really fast-tracked up the ladder and moved to a supervisor role and then a management role.”

Crawford’s emphasis on employee retention echoes Dady’s own philosophy.

“The reality is, employee retention is the fastest and the strongest way to build your culture, and any successful business has to have a successful culture,” Dady said. “What I tell everybody that works for us is, I want you to work for me as long as possible. I want you to work for us forever. But that’s not the reality of this industry. I want to be a springboard for you. If we can help spring you a level up or two levels up, then that’s something we’re proud of. And it’s really cool for me to hear Ohio taking that nuanced step. I think that probably was instilled with him when he worked for us.”

Crawford found a path into ownership through sweat equity. In November 2020, he struck a deal with local attorney Andrew Toscano, Backyard’s current co-owner: If Crawford could turn the struggling business around, he could earn a stake in it.

“I looked at the books, and they were losing 70 grand a month, and that wasn’t COVID-related. That was just the business. Everybody was just drunk, eating whatever they wanted, taking whatever they needed. It was not a cool place,” Crawford recalled. “Then I came on board and I made a gamble. I’m like, ‘Hey, give me a year. I’ll make some money.’ My arrangement was, if we can turn this business around and make it a respectable and good business, then I have a path into equity. If I don’t make money, we part ways.”

The overhaul was gradual. Crawford helped transform a rowdy, beer-stained venue serving frozen bar grub into a family-friendly operation known for quality cocktails and chef-driven bar food at an approachable price. It was no small undertaking for an establishment that can seat 600 and has drawn standing-room-only crowds of 2,500 or more on busy weekends.

Along with overhauling Backyard’s workplace culture, Crawford used food to reshape what began primarily as a watering hole. Today, Backyard earns 60% of its revenue from food sales, putting it more in line with a traditional full-service restaurant than a typical bar.

The menu remained bar-centric but received a major glow-up under Crawford.

“Everybody likes pizza, everybody likes burgers, everybody likes wings,” he said. “If you’re out at a bar with your friends enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon, that’s the food you want.”

Pizzas are now made with dough prepared from scratch rather than frozen dough. The bestseller is the PB&J — pepperoni, bacon-jalapeño jam and hot honey. Wings might be flavored with Crawford’s Dibs-labeled Red Fassionola syrup, infused with a tropical blend of strawberry, hibiscus, passion fruit, grapefruit and pomegranate. You can order a hot dog, but it’ll be a proper Vienna Beef frank dressed Chicago-style with sport peppers and a poppy-seed bun.

Even with so many pots simmering, Crawford continued looking for ways to expand his skills and deepen his ties to San Antonio’s bar community. He picked up a bartending gig at the since-shuttered Hello Paradise on Grayson Street, where he often spent his days off working alongside local bar figures including Rob Gourlay and Jorel Peña of Boulevardier Group. The experience gave Crawford more time behind the bar and in front of guests.

“Prior to this, I was just full-time restaurant consulting. I was writing a lot of training manuals, business plans, things like that. Then I was able to help out Jorel and Rob. They they were all working seven days a week, and I was like, well, I’ll be at the bar anyway on a Monday night, so why don’t I just work behind the bar so you can have a day off,” Crawford said. “And then from there, being in front of people, talking to people, I was much more guest-facing than I was behind the scenes.”

Gourlay wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Crawford couldn’t sit still.

“Ohio’s got this weird thing about him where he does not like to slack off,” Gourlay said. “If he has free time at all, then he’s going to find something to occupy the time.”

As Crawford found his groove as a more public figure — even as the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc — Gourlay watched the seasoned behind-the-scenes operator emerge as a community organizer.

“Since COVID, when everything kind of shut down and everyone kind of went their separate ways, he’s one of the very few in the industry that tries to get people together,” Gourlay said. “People from every walk of life, bars, restaurants and all that. He gets a lot of people involved just to give back to community.”

He has recruited area bar owners to participate in the annual Campari Day of Service, assembling a small army of volunteers to improve the Animal Defense League’s facility. Through the Alamo Area Hospitality Association, he has organized food drives and fundraisers that have helped finance wheelchair-accessible ramps and support a care facility for military veterans.

Desirée Lancharic, vice president of the Alamo Area Hospitality Association and sales and events director for Go Rio San Antonio Cruises, said Crawford brings a unique perspective to the organization as a restaurant and bar owner. Most AAHA board members come from sales, marketing or event-planning backgrounds.

“We don’t see many bar owners within these organizations,” Lancharic said. “He is that nightlife person. He is a true 365, hands-in-the-operation person creating experiences with the nightlife.”

She said Crawford’s presence on the board has extended the association’s reach, leading to new collaborations. Lancharic and Crawford created floating, picnic-style tours along the Museum Reach section of the River Walk. They have organized mystery dinners. Through his relationship with Ronald McDonald House, Crawford connected the charity with the AAHA. When a federal government shutdown in November 2025 interrupted food stamps and other benefits, Crawford and company mobilized to help keep families fed.

“What distinguishes Ohio is the sincerity of his commitment to the people our industry serves … He personally mobilized food donations to ensure families in our community had access to meals,” Lancharic said. “This was not part of a formal program. It was a genuine response to an immediate need, reflecting his empathy, initiative and unwavering dedication to community well-being.”

Crawford said giving back is his way of supporting the community that has sustained him and his businesses. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a community supporting me, supporting my businesses. So I love to show my appreciation by giving back to those that support.”

This year, Crawford was the lone San Antonian selected for the prestigious Cocktail Apprentice Program. The industry program trains bartenders in high-volume cocktail execution while providing continuing education and extensive career networking opportunities. As both a bartender and a bar owner, Crawford was uniquely positioned to pull double duty.

“I was the only business owner in their first year being a part of the program. A huge component of it is the mentorship and learning how to do these things, how to use centrifuge, how to use rotovaps, how to use all this crazy gastronomic equipment for cocktails,” Crawford said. “I was coming into a place where I know how to use all of those, and I know how to teach how to use them. So I got to be a student as well as a leader, which is a very unique and great position to be in.”

When he’s not immersed in the day-to-day of operating multiple businesses, he can probably be spotted at a far-flung distillery. He has visited at least 75 of them around the world and has no plans to stop.

“I love to learn about alcohol, and it’s in the same way some people are super into wine. I am super into spirits. I have a diploma in single malt and certifications in gin, Irish whiskey, bourbon, tequila, Canadian whiskey and I’m studying for more right now. Without sounding like an alcoholic, I’m very passionate about booze,” Crawford said.

“When I was growing up, alcohol was very taboo. I was also in a very religious part of Ohio. So it was a very bad and sinful thing. And then being an adult and realizing that a healthy relationship with alcohol is possible, now I look at it as a library that I can read and taste from. The same way you taste terroir in wine, you taste terroir in booze.”

Right now, Crawford is focused on the launch of Overtime. He has taken over a former CrossFit gym that shares a parking lot with Backyard on Broadway. Some of the gym’s murals remain, updated with personal touches. The bathrooms have gotten a makeover. Plumbing has been relocated, and walls have been removed and rebuilt with safety improvements.

Crawford is a long way from defining his legacy. But his ambitious start has demonstrated that compassionate ownership can be good business.

“I think what I try to leave is the inspiration for people to do better,” he said. “I want to see San Antonio grow. We’re the culinary capital of Texas, and I want to see us continue to fill those shoes and continue to grow.”