Country music, conversations and the smell of searing burgers filled the air on Wednesday as DJ’s Cast Iron Burgers served customers from its brick-and-mortar location for the first time.
For the restaurant’s co-owners, 34-year-old Miguel Cardona and 35-year-old Jose Nieves, opening a storefront location has always been the plan.
Growing up in Ocala, the two met on the first day of third grade, and they’ve been friends ever since. Both always wanted to start a business together.
In 2020, they made the jump to open a restaurant. The concept started as just a pop-up but eventually became a full-time food truck in 2022.
For the two friends, opening a restaurant came out of necessity when their previous business, Brio Cold Brew, began to struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic. DJ’s is now their main project.
Nieves came up with the concept for DJ’s during his time at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, which he attended from 2009 to 2013.
The pair’s brick-and-mortar, located at 5141 NW 43rd St., marks the next big shift for the project.
“We knew it was going to take some time and patience to get there,” Nieves said. “So we've been patient.”
After years of waiting for the right time, Cardona and Nieves began searching for a place to open their brick-and-mortar location two years ago.
They had originally looked at the space they opened back in spring 2025, but they ended up walking away from the deal. The landlord reached back out in the fall, and they finally made a deal that worked for everyone.
“Within the month, we had the lease signed,” Nieves said.
Since moving into the building in May, there have been some big changes. The walls were painted to match the restaurant’s western aesthetic, plastered with drawings of cactuses, cow skulls and DJ’s burger-astronaut mascot.
The pair decided to take an unconventional approach to opening the restaurant’s new location, opting for a “soft open” rather than a full grand opening.
After experiencing equipment issues at the food truck’s grand opening, the pair felt easing into the new space was a better option with the brick-and-mortar location.
“That'll give us some time to keep tweaking things,” Cardona said.
The soft opening was much anticipated by both new and returning customers, and on Wednesday, a crowd gathered at DJ’s to get lunch with friends and family.
Jessica Barnett, a 35-year-old sales associate, works at Chevron across the street from the new location and said she and her coworkers are excited to eat there more easily.
“They have a lot of care,” Barnett said. “If you've met any of the people that work here, they are very much family-oriented. They put a lot of love into what they do and take their time with it.”
This care toward their work is just as important to Cardona and Nieves as it is to their customers. It was one of the deciding factors behind opening a brick-and-mortar instead of sticking to food trucks.
The pair said there’s more opportunity for connection with their customers when they’re able to sit down and eat in the restaurant.
“It feels more like we're hosting guests, versus them coming to us to grab some food,” Cardona said.
Over the next month, the duo plans to finish up the necessary changes to the restaurant and prepare to have a full grand opening.
The DJ’s food truck will remain open in addition to the brick-and-mortar location. Both restaurants will be open Monday through Saturday.
Contact Brandy Sumner at bsumner@alligator.org.
Brandy Sumner is an anthropology and English junior and this summer's music and performance reporter. This is their first semester working at the Alligator. In their free time they enjoy playing guitar, reading and writing.
