Dave Shula Returns as President of Shula's Restaurant Group

A Familiar Face Back in Charge

Dave Shula is back in the president's chair at Shula's Restaurant Group, a post he held for nearly two decades before stepping away. The reappointment isn't a fresh hire so much as a resumption, the eldest son of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Don Shula returning to a company built on his father's name at what the group is calling a new phase of growth across its six-concept, 30-plus-location portfolio.

"My family name is on this organization and each of our franchised locations, so it's important to me as an owner that the company reflects the goals my dad laid out for me when I first joined in 1997," Shula said. The statement reads as much like a personal accounting as a corporate one, and given the brand's history, that's probably the point.

Football Standards Built the Brand

Shula's Steak House opened in 1989 with a specific mission: carry Don Shula's football standards into a restaurant. Over the following 37 years, that single steak house grew into six concepts. The elder Shula's coaching record still gives that ambition unusual weight. He led the Miami Dolphins to a 17-0 finish in 1972, the only perfect season in NFL history, a mark that remains unmatched across the league's 105 years.

Dave Shula has carried one instruction from his father since joining the business in 1997: "I didn't get into the restaurant business to do anything but enhance the reputation I built as a football coach." He calls it a bar that "continues to guide how we operate today," and it functions less like a slogan than a founding charter the company still measures itself against.

A Career Built on Preparation and Discipline

His credentials for the job predate the restaurants by more than a decade. Shula played for the Baltimore Colts in 1981, began coaching under his father with the Miami Dolphins in 1982, served as Offensive Coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys, and then ran the Cincinnati Bengals as Head Coach from 1992 to 1996. He joined the family business in 1997 and spent more than twenty years as President and National Ambassador.

In 2018 he stepped away again, this time back to football, coaching Wide Receivers at his alma mater, Dartmouth College, through 2023 before rejoining the restaurant group's leadership. That pattern, sidelines to boardroom and back, shapes how the company frames his current mandate: team building, organizational development, and reinforcing what it calls the Shula culture, which Dave Shula describes as drawing on preparation, discipline, accountability, teamwork, and integrity. The job, as the company presents it, isn't strictly operational. It's cultural stewardship, with growth expected to move in step with those founding values rather than at their expense.

Palm Beach Gardens and Thomasville Mark the Next Steps

That growth already has two fixed points on the calendar. Shula's American Kitchen is set to open at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel and Executive Meeting Center in Palm Beach Gardens this winter, pushing the brand into hotel-based dining. Further out, the company plans to enter Thomasville, Georgia in 2027, a new market for the brand.

The two projects represent different growth channels running in parallel: the hotel partnership embeds Shula's inside an established property, while Thomasville is a conventional franchise push into unfamiliar territory. Interested operators are being directed to shulas.com/franchise, and the company says additional opportunities are under exploration nationwide, though it hasn't attached those to specific cities, timelines, or unit counts. No investment figures, franchise fees, or revenue targets have been disclosed either. What's confirmed is the winter opening, the 2027 Thomasville entry, and an active franchise recruitment effort; everything past those two anchor points remains unannounced.

A Schedule That Mirrors the Company Culture

Outside the org chart, Shula keeps a schedule that reads as an extension of the same discipline narrative the company attaches to his business role. He's served on the Orange Bowl Committee since 2016 and was named vice mayor of Jupiter Inlet Colony earlier this year. He's completed four full Ironman events and several half Ironmans across 25 years of triathlon racing.

He's been married to his wife, Leslie, for 44 years, the two having met as fellow student-athletes at Dartmouth, and they spend time with their three sons and six grandchildren. The company treats these details as consistent with the culture it's asking Shula to reinforce, not incidental to it.

A Return Timed to the Heaviest Demands

What makes the timing notable is how directly it lines up. Shula's return lands exactly as the company opens a new location, enters a new market, and recruits franchise partners, putting two decades of prior hospitality leadership and a football career built on discipline right where the operational demands are heaviest.

Updates on Palm Beach Gardens, Thomasville, and whatever markets come after them will run through shulas.com and the company's Instagram, @shulasrestaurantgroup, the two channels the group has designated for the next stage of a growth phase that, for now, has more confirmed direction than confirmed scale.

A Familiar Face Back in Charge