We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jarrad Silver. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jarrad below.
Jarrad, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
My parents never pushed for me to follow a specific career path. To them it was less important what the actual job or salary was going to be, and more important that I worked hard and with integrity. If I was going to do something I had to really do it.
It was the right amount of push. I was always supported to try new things, and never forced to continue something I did no longer wanted to do after I gave it a proper shot. It would have been easier to stop doing something mid-season, but looking back on it now I truly appreciate to push to at least see the season through. You will not be good at everything. It would be much easier to quit something you are not a natural at then get better, but doing things that are hard seem to always have the most rewarding outcomes.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
· I’ve been cooking my entire life — baking challah with my grandmother and grilling with me dad. I started in restaurants as a dishwasher and prep cook when I was 15. Shortly after I learned to make pizza in a wood-fired brick oven where I learned a lot about fire management. Before founding Silver & Sons, I spent years in large full-service restaurants, including as the executive chef at Birch & Barley and other well-known spots around the city. I always knew that I wanted to build something that was my own, not only a menu that represented the story I wanted to tell, but as a chef/owner. I was never in a rush to get to that point. To me it made more sense to continue to develop my skills working with chefs who specialized in cuisines ranging from Latin America to the Mediterranean into west and east Asian cuisines.
· At Silver & Sons, we craft barbecue that combines Southern techniques with Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Jewish flavors. We smoke lamb shoulder and beef ribs pastrami-style, bake our challah rolls in-house, and serve it all with bold vegetable sides that balance the richness of smoked meat like harissa smoked carrots, lemon schmaltz potatoes, or our smoked beet salad with lemon, pomegranate and dill. I’m proud that it’s original — something familiar but unexpected. Our menu will happily feed a family of six with varying preferences and palates.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I’ve been cooking my entire life — baking challah with my grandmother and learning flavors from my dad’s family. Before founding Silver & Sons, I spent years in large full-service restaurants, including as the executive chef at Birch & Barley and other well-known spots around D.C.
During the pandemic I found myself in a similar situation as a lot of my chef friends. My wife at the time worked in emergency medicine, and our oldest son Charles was about 6 months old when I was furloughed. At the time it made more sense for me to stay home, making sure everything was taken care, and giving a as much piece of mind as possible to my wife during what was the most stressful and uncertain time in her career.
I started cooking for family, friends, and neighbors on the weekend. Smoking meats in a big barrel smoker. I would get started around 10pm Friday night, and keep cooking until noon on Saturday. People would come by around 4-6pm to pick up some barbecue.
Shortly after I started I would get emails asking for larger quantities of smoked meats and sides to bring to their friends and neighbors. It felt normal to be able to prepare meals for people to enjoy with their family and friends, even if it was not in a dining room that I could walk through and check on their meal. I also received calls from other neighborhoods asking me to bring my smoked to a central point of their community as well.
What started as a way to feed my family and friends was turning into an opportunity to fine tune a barbecue menu that incorporated Jewish and Mediterranean cuisines with American Barbecue. About 9 months after starting once a week in my driveway I had ordered our first food truck which would debut in March of 2022
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
We do everything ourselves, start to finish. I’ve always wanted full control over the process — we bake our own challah rolls, grind our spice blends, smoke meats in-house, and prepare all our sides and sauces from scratch. Initially, this meant working out of a shared kitchen and doing a lot of work by hand. Now we’ve a dedicated commissary kitchen in Rockville that allows us to maintain consistency across all fronts — the food trucks, trailers, and the new restaurant.
Setting up that commissary was a game-changer. It lets us centralize prep while keeping the quality exactly where I want it. I had to learn how to scale thoughtfully, making sure our lamb shoulder or pastrami short ribs taste just as good at a food truck, brewery, or winery pop-up as they do at the restaurant. It took time, but I’ve learned that good systems don’t replace care — they help you deliver it consistently.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://silverandsonsbbq.com
- Instagram: silverandsonsbbq
- Facebook: silverandsonsbbq
- Yelp: Silver and Sons BBQ
Image Credits
Head Shot — Deb Lindsay