A tree in my dad’s backyard.
A room built around it.
There was a tree in the backyard of my father’s house in Fayetteville, Georgia. My dad raised me as a single father, and that tree — and the man who tended it — is where everything I know about hospitality began. I used to climb it as a kid, sit in its branches for hours and dream. Dream about the places I’d go, the people I’d meet, the room I’d one day fill.
That tree taught me that roots and reach aren’t opposites. You can hold your ground and still stretch toward something bigger. Before hospitality, I served honorably in the U.S. Air Force — that’s where the discipline came from. Then Atlanta, then New York, and now Las Vegas — every chapter adding a layer, every kitchen and dining room sharpening the craft. The branches keep opening up to the light.
When I began designing Urban Flats, I knew the room needed a heartbeat. Something that reminded me — and everyone who walks in — where this actually started, and who it’s for.
“The dream that began under my father’s tree in Georgia is becoming real inside this restaurant.”
— Aaron Lewis, Founder · For Dad
