Chad Dillon, co-owner of Lil Baby’s seafood restaurant, killed
Chad Dillon, who co-owned The Seafood Menu Restaurant and Lounge in the south-west of Atlanta, was shot and killed in Atlanta on Tuesday.
Dillion, who resided in Atlanta, and whose parents are Jamaican, was planning on opening a Jamaican restaurant over the next few weeks, but those plans have now been thwarted.
Last year, along with American rapper Lil Baby, he opened their restaurant — a venture that was celebrated with a massive grand opening with several celebrities in attendance.
News of his death was confirmed by his attorney, Malcolm Conner, via Atlanta News First, on Wednesday, July 24.
It was reported that Dillon was driving in a vehicle in the Old Forth Wood area at the time of the fatal incident.
No motive for the shooting has been established and no suspects have been named.
Dillion was 33 years old.
Mix Master David, formerly of Hot 102 FM, and who is now one of the most in-demand DJs in the state of Georgia, remembered Dillon.
“I interacted with Chad on several occasions. He was a cool and humble youth. He was always in the clubs, and he showed me a lot of love,” Mix Master David told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.
DJ Young Pro, another Atlanta-based disc jock whose parents reside in Clarendon, said Dillion was ambitious with business.
“I didn’t have a close relationship with him, but whenever I played at his restaurant, The Broiler Seafood Menu Restaurant in Buckhead, he would always stop by to give me support. I knew him for about six years, since he came here from Brooklyn and he always did business the right way,” said DJ Young Pro.
Lil Baby acknowledged Dillon’s passing on social media, posting a photo of the two on his Instagram story with the caption, “Damn big buddy get ya rest,” along with a dove emoji.
Prior to partnering with Lil Baby, Dillon opened the wildly successful restaurant The Boiler Seafood Atlanta, which is said to have sold upwards of 180,000 pounds of seafood, grossing more than US$8 million in sales.
In 2022, Dillion spoke on his approach to merging passion and profit with TravelNoire.
“I am a thinker and innovator, so even without a culinary background, I enjoy finding voids in the business market and creating solutions; creating restaurant concepts from ideation to execution, coming up with new menu items, and creating amazing customer experiences,” Dillon told the outlet at the time.